The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [621]
“Good morning, ma’am!” she said, appearing in front of me so abruptly I almost cried out. She spoke in the overeager manner of the terminally keen, a trait that began to annoy soon after I’d agreed to assess her suitability, twenty-four hours before.
“Do you have to jump in so abruptly?” I asked her. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Oh! I’m sorry. But I did bring you some breakfast.”
“Well, in that case…” I looked into the bag she handed me and frowned. “Wait a minute—that doesn’t look like a bacon sandwich.”
“It isn’t. It’s a crispy lentil cake made with soy milk and bean curd. It cleanses the bowels. Bacon definitely will give you a heart attack.”
“How thoughtful of you,” I remarked sarcastically. “The body is a temple, right?”
“Right. And I didn’t get you coffee because it raises blood pressure. I got you this beetroot-and-edelweiss energy drink.”
“What happened to the squid ink and hippopotamus milk?”
“They were out.”
“Look,” I said, handing back the lentil animal-feed thing and the drink, “tomorrow is the third and last day of your assessment, and I haven’t yet made up my mind. Do you want to be a Jurisfiction agent?”
“More than anything.”
“Right. So if you want me to sign you out for advanced training, you’re going to have to do as you’re told. If that means killing a grammasite, recapturing an irregular verb, dressing Quasimodo or even something as simple as getting me coffee and a bacon roll, then that’s what you’ll do. Understand?”
“Sorry,” she said, adding as an afterthought, “Then I suppose you don’t want this?” She showed me a small lump of quartz crystal.
“What do I do with it?”
“You wear it. It can help retune your vibrational energy system.”
“The only energy system I need right now is a bacon roll. You might be a veggie, but I’m not. I’m not you—you’re a version of me. You might be into tarot and yogurt and vitamins and standing naked in the middle of crop circles with your eyes closed and your palms facing skyward, but don’t think that I am as well, okay?”
She looked crestfallen, and I sighed. After all, I felt kind of responsible. Since I’d made it into print, I’d been naturally curious about meeting the fictional me, but I’d never entertained the possibility that she might want to join Jurisfiction. But here she was—the Thursday Next from The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco. It was mildly spooky at first, because she wasn’t similar just in the way that identical twins are similar, but physically indistinguishable from me. Stranger still, despite Pepys Fiasco’s being set six years before, she looked as old as my fifty-two years. Every crag and wrinkle, even the flecks of gray hair I pretended I didn’t care about. For all intents and purposes, she was me. But only, I was at pains to point out, in facial appearance. She didn’t act or dress like me; her clothes were more earthy and sustainable. Instead of my usual jeans, shirt and jacket, she wore a naturally dyed cotton skirt and a homespun crocheted pullover. She carried a shoulder bag of felt instead of my Billingham, and in place of the scarlet scrunchie holding my ponytail in place, hers was secured with a strip of hemp cloth tied in a neat bow. It wasn’t by accident. After I had endured the wholly unwarranted aggression of the first four Thursday books, I’d insisted that the fifth reflect my more sensitive nature. Unfortunately, they took me a little too seriously, and Thursday5 was the result. She was sensitive, caring, compassionate, kind, thoughtful—and unreadable. The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco sold so badly it was remaindered within six months and never made it to paperback, something I was secretly glad of. Thursday5 might have remained in unreadable retirement, too, but for her sudden wish to join Jurisfiction and “do her bit,” as she called it. She’d passed her written tests and basic training and was now with me for a three-day assessment. It hadn’t gone that well—she was going to have to do something pretty dramatic to redeem herself.