The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [693]
“You see?” said Barksdale as the rest of the delegates muttered to themselves and shook their heads in a shocked manner. “And what about this one?”
He handed me another sheet of paper, this time from Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge.
“‘…the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of Farfrae’s erection.’”
“And,” he added decisively, “we’ve got a character named ‘Master Bates’ turning up all over Oliver Twist.”
“Master Bates has always been called that,” I pointed out. “We used to giggle over the name at school.”
“Despite that,” replied Colonel Barksdale with no loss of confidence, “the other two are quite enough to have this taken extremely seriously. The Danverclones are ready. I only need your approval—”
“It’s called ‘word drift.’”
It was Thursday5. The meeting had never seen such a flagrant lapse of protocol, and I would have thrown her out myself—but for the fact she had a point.
“I’m sorry,” said Senator Jobsworth in a sarcastic tone. “I must have missed the meeting where the other Thursday was elected to the Security Council. Jurisfiction Cadets must train, so I will overlook it this once. But one more word…!”
Unabashed, Thursday5 added, “Did Senator Muffler send those examples to you?”
Senator Jobsworth wasted no time and called over his shoulder to one of the many Danverclones standing close by. “Security? See that Thursday with the flower in her hair? She is to be returned to her—”
“She’s with me,” I said, staring at Jobsworth, who glared back dangerously, “and I vouch for her. She has opinions that I feel are worth listening to.”
Jobsworth and Barksdale went silent and looked at each other, wondering if there wasn’t some sort of rule they could invoke. There wasn’t. And it was for precisely these moments that the Great Panjandrum had given me the veto—to slow things down and make the Council of Genres think before it acted.
“Well?” I said. “Did Speedy Muffler send those examples to you?”
“Well, not perhaps…as such,” replied Colonel Barksdale with a shrug, “but the evidence is unequivocally compelling and totally, absolutely without doubt.”
“I contend,” added Thursday5, “that they are simply words whose meanings have meandered over the years, and those books were written with precisely the words you quoted us now. Word drift.”
“I hardly think that’s likely, my dear,” replied Jobsworth patronizingly.
“Oh, no?” I countered. “Do you mean to tell me that when Lydia from Pride and Prejudice thinks of Brighton and ‘…the glories of the camp—its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay,’ that she might possibly mean something else?”
“Well, no, of course not,” replied the senator, suddenly feeling uncomfortable under the combined baleful stares of Thursday5 and me.
There was a mumbling among the other delegates, and I said, “Words change. Whoever sent these examples to you has an agenda, which is more about confrontation than a peaceful outcome to the crisis. I’m going to exercise my veto again. I suggest that a diplomatic resolution be attempted until we have irrefutable evidence that Muffler really has the capabilities he claims.”
“This is bad judgment,” growled Jobsworth with barely controlled rage as he rose from his seat and gathered his papers together. “You’re on morally tricky ground if you side with Racy Novel.”
“I’m on morally trickier ground if I don’t,” I replied. “I will not sanction a war on misplaced words in a few of the classics. Show me a blatantly unsubtle and badly written sex scene in To the Lighthouse and I will personally lead the battle myself.”
Jobsworth stared at me, and I stared back angrily.
“By then the damage will have been done. We want to stop them before they even get started,” he insisted.
He paused and composed himself.
“Two vetoes in one day,” he added. “You must be particularly pleased with yourself. I hope you have as many smart answers when smutty innuendo is sprinkled