The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

He was looking around the shabby flying boat as he spoke.

'Well!' he said at last. 'You do make some odd decisions. I've heard the latest Daphne Farquitt novel is being built just down the shelf – it's set in the eighteenth century and would be a lot more comfortable than this. Did you see the review of my latest book?'

He meant the book he was featured in, of course – Snell was fictional from the soles of his brogues to the crown of his fedora and, like most fictioneers, a little sensitive about it. I had read the review of Wax Lyrical for Death and it was pretty scathing; tact was of the essence in situations like these.

'No, I think I must have missed it.'

'Oh!' he replied. 'Well, it was really … really quite good, actually. I was glowingly praised as: "Snell is … very good … well rounded is … the phrase I would use" and the book itself was described as: "Surely the biggest piece of … 1986." There's talk of a boxed set, too. Listen, I wanted to tell you that your fiction infraction trial will probably be next week. I tried to get another postponement but Hopkins is nothing if not tenacious; place and time to be decided upon.'

'Should I be worried?' I asked, thinking about the last time I had faced a court here in the BookWorld. It had been in Kafka's The Trial and had turned out predictably unpredictable.

'Not really,' admitted Snell. 'Our "strong readership approval" defence should count for something – after all, you did actually do it, so just plain lying might not help so much after all. Listen,' he went on without stopping for breath, 'Miss Havisham asked me to introduce you to the wonders of the Well – she would have been here this morni

ng but she's on a grammasite extermination course.'

'We saw a grammasite in Great Expectations,' I told him.

'So I heard. You can never be too careful as far as grammasites are concerned.' He looked at ibb and obb, who were just finishing off my bacon and eggs. 'Is this breakfast?'

I nodded.

'Fascinating! I've always wondered what a breakfast looked like. In our books we have twenty-three dinners, twelve lunches and eighteen afternoon teas – but no breakfasts.' He paused for a moment. 'And why is orange jam called marmalade, do you suppose?'

I told him I didn't know and passed him a mug of coffee.

'Do you have any Generics living in your books?' I asked.

'A half-dozen or so at any one time,' he replied, spooning in some sugar and staring at ibb and obb, who, true to form, stared back. 'Boring bunch until they develop a personality, then they can be quite fun. Trouble is, they have an annoying habit of assimilating themselves into a strong leading character, and it can spread among them like a rash. They used to be billeted en masse but that all changed after we lodged six thousand Generics inside Rebecca. In under a month all but eight had become Mrs Danvers. Listen, I don't suppose I could interest you in a couple of housekeepers, could I?'

'I don't think so,' I replied, recalling Mrs Danvers' slightly abrasive personality.

'Don't blame you,' replied Snell with a laugh.

'So now it's only limited numbers per novel?'

'You learn fast. We had a similar problem with Merlins. We've had aged-male-bearded-wizard-mentor types coming out of our ears for years.'

He leaned closer.

'Do you know how many Merlins the Well of Lost Plots has placed over the past fifty years?'

'Tell me.'

'Nine thousand!' he breathed. 'We even altered plot lines to include older male mentor figures! Do you think that was wrong?'

'I'm not sure,' I said, slightly confused.

'At least the Merlin type is a popular character,' added Snell. 'Stick a new hat on him and he can appear pretty much anywhere. Try getting rid of thousands of Mrs Danvers. There isn't a huge demand for creepy fifty-something housekeepers; even buy-two-get-one-free deals didn't help – we use them on anti-mispeling duty, you know. A sort of army.'

'What's it like?' I asked.

'How do you mean?'

'Being fictional.'

'Ah!' replied Snell slowly. 'Yes – fictional.'

I realised too late that I had gone too far – it was how I imagined a dog would feel if you brought up the question of distemper in polite conversation.