Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

The cat's eyes opened wide and the grin fell from his face. He looked up and down the corridor for a few moments and then enquired:

'Me?'

I stifled a laugh.

'I don't see any others.'

'Ah!' replied the cat, grinning more than ever. 'That's because you have a temporary form of cat blindness.'

'I'm not sure I've heard of that.'

'It's quite common,' he replied airily. 'I suppose you have heard of knight blindness, when you can't see any knights?'

'It's night, not knight,' I corrected him.

'It all sounds the same to me.'

'Suppose I do have cat blindness,' I ventured. 'Then how is it I can see you?'

'Suppose we change the subject?' retorted the cat. 'What do you think of the library?'

'It's pretty big,' I murmured, looking all around me.

'Two hundred miles in every direction,' said the cat offhandedly, beginning to purr, 'twenty-six floors above ground, twenty-six below.'

'You must have a copy of every book that's been written,' I observed.

'Every book that will ever be written,' corrected the cat, 'and a few others besides.'

'How many?'

'Well, I've never counted them myself but certainly more than twelve.'

'You're the Cheshire cat, aren't you?' I asked.

'I was the Cheshire cat,' he replied with a slightly aggrieved air. 'But they moved the county boundaries, so technically speaking I'm now the "Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat", but it doesn't have the same ring to it. Oh, and welcome to Jurisfiction. You'll like it here; everyone is quite mad.'

'But I don't want to go

among mad people,' I replied indignantly.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

I snapped my fingers.

'Wait a moment!' I exclaimed. 'This is the conversation you had in Alice in Wonderland, just after the baby turned into a pig!'

'Ah!' returned the cat with an annoyed flick of his tail. 'Fancy you can write your own dialogue, do you? I've seen people try; it's never a pretty sight. But have it your own way. And what's more, the baby turned into a fig, not a pig.'

'It was a pig, actually.'

'Fig,' said the cat stubbornly. 'Who was in the book, me or you?'

'It was a pig,' I insisted.

'Well!' exclaimed the cat. 'I'll go and check. Then you'll look pretty stupid, I can tell you!'

And so saying, he vanished.