The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [736]
“Anything?” asked the cabbie. There was a screech of metal from the roof as the Danverclone up there began to cut her way in. Sparks fell from the roof as the angle grinder bit into the metal.
“Anything!”
“Well, now,” said the cabbie, ignoring still another Danvers, who landed on the one crawling up the hood. There was the sort of sound a squeaky toy makes when you sit on it heavily, and then they both bounced off and were gone. “What I’d really like,” he continued, completely unfazed, “is an original Hoppity Hop.”
It seemed an unusual request until you realized just how valuable Outlander memorabilia was. I’d once seen two generics almost kill each other over a traffic cone.
“Orange and with a face on the front?”
“Is there any other? You’ll find a seat belt in the back.” he said. “I suggest you use it.”
I didn’t even have time to search for it before he suddenly pointed the cab straight up and went into a vertical climb toward the clouds. He turned to look at me, raised his eyebrows and smiled. He thought it was something of a lark. I was…well, concerned. I looked behind me as the Mrs. Danvers fell from the roof along with the gasoline-driven grinder and tumbled in a spiraling manner toward the sea, which was now far below. A few moments later, we were enveloped by the soft grayness of the clouds, and almost immediately, but without any sensation of having righted ourselves, we left the cloud on an even keel and were moving slowly between a squadron of French sailing ships and a lone British one. That might have been nothing to worry about, except that they were both armed naval vessels and were firing salvos at one another, and every now and again a hot ball of iron would sail spectacularly close to the cab with a whizzing noise.
“I had that Admiral Hornblower in the back of my cab once,” said the taxidriver, chatting amiably to me in that curious way cabbies do when they talk over their shoulder and look at the road at the same time. “What a gent. Tipped me a sovereign and then tried to press me into ser vice.”
“Where are we?” I asked.
“C. S. Forester’s Ship of the Line,” replied the cabbie. “We’ll hang a left after the HMS Sutherland and move through The African Queen to join the cross-Maritime thoroughfare at The Old Man and the Sea. Once there we’ll double back through The Sea Wolf and come out at Moby-Dick, which neatly sidesteps Trea sure Island, as it’s usually jammed at this hour.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to go via 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and hang a left at Robinson Crusoe?”
I could see him staring at me in the rearview mirror. “You want to try it that way?” he asked, annoyed that I might question his judgment.”
“No,” I replied hastily. “We’ll do what you think best.”
He seemed happier at this. “Okeydokey. Whereabouts in Longfellow were you wanting to go?”
“‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’”
He turned around to stare at me. “Hesperus? You’re one whole heap of trouble, lady. I’ll drop you off at ‘A Psalm of Life,’ and you can walk from there.”
I glared at him. “An original Hoppity Hop was it? Boxed?”
He sighed. It was a good deal, and he knew it.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Hesperus it is.”
We moved slowly past a small steam launch that was shooting some rapids on the Ulanga, and the cabbie spoke again. “So what’s your story?”
“I was replaced by my written other self, who is rubber-stamping the CofG’s most harebrained schemes with the woeful compliance of our prime minister back home. You’ve heard about Pride and Prejudice being serialized as a reality book show called The Bennets? That’s what I’m trying to stop. You got a name?”
“Colin.”
We fell silent for a moment as we followed the Ulanga down-river to where it joined the Bora and then into the lake, where the gunboat Königin Luise lay at anchor. I busied myself reloading my pistol and checking the last two eraserheads. I even took the pistol’s holster and clipped it