The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

I took a deep breath.

'I want you to buy Johnny's father's pigs with an offer that purports to come from an unknown buyer – and as close to the top of page two hundred and thirty-two as you can.'

'Utterly impossible!' said the auctioneer. 'You are asking me to change the narrative! I will have to see higher authority.'

I passed him my Jurisfiction ID card. It wasn't like me to pull rank, but I was getting desperate.

'I'm on official business sanctioned by the Council of Genres itself through Text Grand Central.' It was how I thought Miss Havisham might do it.

'You forget that we are out of print pending modernisation,' he replied shortly, tossing my ID back across the table. 'You have no mandatory powers here, Apprentice Next. I think Jurisfiction will look very carefully before attempting a change on a book without internal approval. You can tell the Bellman that, from me.'

We stared at each other, a diplomatic impasse having arrived. I had an idea and asked him:

'How long have you been an auctioneer in this book?'

'Thirty-six years.'

'And how many cups of tea have you had in that time?' I asked him.

'Including this one?'

I nodded.

'One.'

I leaned forward.

'I can fix it for you to have as many cups of tea as you want, Mr Phillips.'

He narrowed his eyes.

'Oh yes?' he replied. 'And how would you manage that? As soon as you've got what you want you'll be off and I'll never be able to reach Miss Pittman's proffered cup again!'

I stood up and went to the table on which the tea tray was sitting. It was a small table made of oak and lightly decorated. It had a vase of flowers on it, but nothing else. As Mr Phillips watched I picked up the table and placed it next to the window. The auctioneer looked at me dumbfounded, got up, walked to the window and delicately touched the table and the tea things.

'An audacious move,' he said, waving the sugar tongs at me, 'but it won't work. She's a D-7 – she won't be able to change what she does.'

'D-7s never have names, Mr Phillips.'

'I gave her that name,' he said quietly. 'You're wasting your time.'

'Let's see, shall we?' I replied, speaking into the intercom to ask Miss Pittman to bring in more tea.

The door opened as before and a look of shock and surprise crossed the girl's face.

'The table!' she gasped. 'It's—!'

'You can do it, Miss Pittman,' I told her. 'Just place the tea where you always do.'

She moved forward, following the well-worn path, arrived at where the table used to be and then looked at its new position, two strides away. The smooth and unworn carpet was alien and frightening to her; it might as well have been a bottomless chasm. She stopped dead.

'I don't understand—!' she began, her face bewildered as her hands began to shake.

'Tell her to put the tea things down,' I told the auctioneer, who was becoming as distressed as Miss Pittman – perhaps more so. 'TELL HER!'

'Thank you, Miss Pittman,' murmured Mr Phillips, his voice croaking with emotion, 'put the tea things down over here, would you?'

She bit her lip and closed her eyes, raised her foot and held it, quivering, above the edge of the shiny floorboards. Then she moved it forward and rested it on the soft carpet. She opened her eyes, looked down and beamed at us both.