The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [376]
They all looked at one another. I was right. The fix they were getting by killing and burying me would last them until teatime if they were lucky.
“You have a better idea?”
“I can give you more emotion than you know how to handle, feelings so strong you won’t know what to do with yourselves.”
“She’s lying!” cried Mrs. Passerby dispassionately. “Kill her now—I can’t wait any longer! I need the sadness! Give it to me!”
“I’m Jurisfiction. I can bring more jeopardy and strife into this book than a thousand Blytons could give you in a lifetime!”
“You could?” echoed the townspeople excitedly, lapping up the expectation I was generating.
“Yes—and here’s how I can prove it. Mrs. Passerby?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Townsperson told me earlier he thought you had a fat arse.”
“He said what?” she replied angrily, her face suffused with joy as she fed off the hurt feelings I had generated.
“I most certainly said no such thing!” blustered Mr. Townsperson, obviously getting a big hit himself from the indignation.
“Us, too!” yelled the townsfolk excitedly, eager to see what else I had in my bag of goodies.
“Nothing before you untie me!”
They did so with great haste; sorrow and happiness had kept them going for a long time, but they had grown bored—I was here like a dealer, offering new and different experiences.
I asked for my gun and was handed it, the townspeople watching me expectantly like a dodo waiting for marshmallows.
“For a start,” I said, rubbing my wrists and throwing the wedding ring aside, “I can’t remember who got me pregnant!”
There was a sudden silence.
“Shocking!” said the vicar. “Outrageous, morally repugnant—mmmm!”
“But better than that,” I added, “if you had killed me, you would also have killed my unborn son—guilt like that could have lasted for months!”
“Yes!” yelled Mr. Rustic. “Kill her now!”
I pointed the gun at them and they stopped in their tracks.
“You’ll always regret not having killed me,” I murmured.
The townsfolk went quiet and mused upon this, the feeling of loss coursing through their veins.
“It feels wonderful!” said one of the farmworkers, taking a seat on the grass to focus his mind more carefully on the strange emotional potpourri of a missed opportunity of double murder.
But I wasn’t done yet. “I’m going to report you to the Council of Genres and tell them how you tried to kill me—you could be shut down and reduced to text!”
I had them now. They all had their eyes closed and were rocking backwards and forwards, moaning quietly.
“Or perhaps,” I added, beginning to back away, “I won’t.”
I pulled off the wedding dress at the lych-gate and looked back. The townspeople were laid out on the ground, eyes closed, surfing their inner feelings on a cocktail of mixed emotions. They wouldn’t be down for days.
I picked up my jacket and TravelBook on the way to the vet’s, where the blind Shadow was waiting for me. I had completed the mission, even if I had come a hairsbreadth from a sticky end. I could do better, and would, given time. I heard a low, growly voice close at hand.
“What happens to me? Am I reduced to text?”
It was Shadow.
“Officially, yes.”
“I see. And unofficially?”
I thought for a moment.
“Do you like rabbits?”
“Rather.”
I pulled out my TravelBook.
“Good. Give me your paw. We’re off to Rabbit Grand Central.”
20.
Ibb and Obb Named and Heights Again
BookStackers: To rid a book of the mispeling vyrus, many thousands of dictionaries are moved into the offending novel and stacked either side of the outbreak as a mispeling barrage. The wall of dictionaries is then moved in, paragraph by paragraph, until the vyrus is forced into a single sentence, then a word, then smothered completely. The job is done by BookStackers, usually D-grade Generics, although for many years the Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group (AFRG) has been manned by over five thousand WOLP-surplus Mrs. Danvers. (See Danvers, Mrs., Over-production of.)
CAT FORMERLY KNOWN AS CHESHIRE,
Guide to the Great Library
IT WAS