Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

'We'll need my boat, Mr Wemmick,' she said, lowering her voice.

'I'll Footnoterphone ahead, Miss H,' said Wemmick, winking broadly. 'You'll find it on the jetty.'

'For a man you are not bad at all, Mr Wemmick!' said Miss Havisham. 'Thursday, gather up the equipment!'

'What now?' I asked, weighed down by the large canvas bag.

'Dickens is within walking distance,' explained Havisham, 'but it's better practice for you if you jump us straight there – there are over fifty thousand miles of shelf space.'

'Ah – okay, I know how to do that,' I muttered, putting down the bag, taking out my travel book and flicking to the passage about the library.

'Hold on to me as you jump and think Dickens as you read.'

So I did, and within a trice we were at the right place in the library.

'How was that?' I asked quite proudly.

'Not bad,' said Havisham. 'But you forgot the bag.'

'Sorry.'

'I'll wait while you get it.'

So I read myself back to the lobby, retrieved the bag to a few friendly jibes from Deane, and returned – but by accident to a series of adventuresome books for plucky girls by someone named Charles Pickens, so I read the library passage again and was soon with Miss Havisham.

'This is the outings book,' she said without looking up. 'Name, destination, date, time – I've filled it in already. Are you armed?'

'Always – do you expect any trouble?'

Miss Havisham drew out her small pistol, released the twin barrels, pivoted it upward and gave me one of her more serious stares.

'I always expect trouble, Thursday. I was on HPD – Heathcliff Protection Duty – in Wuthering Heights for two years and, believe me, the ProCaths tried everything – I personally saved him from assassination eight times.'

She extracted a spent cartridge, replaced it with a live one and locked the barrels back into place.

'But Great Expectations? Where's the danger there?'

She rolled up her sleeve and showed me a livid scar on her forearm.

'Things can turn pretty ugly even in Toytown,' she explained. 'Believe me, Larry is no lamb – I was lucky to escape with my life.'

I must have been looking slightly nervous because she went on:

'Everything okay? You can bale out whenever you want, you know. Say the word and you'll be back in Swindon before you can say "Mrs Hubbard".'

She looked at me intensely and I thought of the baby. I'd survived the sales with no ill effects – how hard could 'footling' with the back-story of a Dickens novel be? Besides, I needed all the practice I could get.

'Ready when you are, Miss Havisham.'

She nodded, rolled down her sleeve again, pulled Great Expectations from the bookshelf and opened it on one of the reading desks.

'We need to go in before the story really begins so this is not a standard book jump. Are you paying attention?'

'Yes, Miss Havisham.'

'Good. I've no desire to go through this more than once. First, read us into the book.'

I did as she bade – making quite sure I had hold of the bag this time – and there we were, in among the gravestones on the opening page of Great Expectations, the chill and dampness in the air, the fog drifting in from the sea. On the far side of the graveyard a small boy was crouching among the weathered stones, talking to himself as he stared at two gravestones set to one side. But there was someone else there. In fact, there was a group of people, digging away at an area just outside the churchyard walls on the opposite side to the boy, illuminated in the fading light by two powerful electric lights fed by a small generator that hummed to itself some distance away.