One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“So what’s up?” asked Bowden. “I’ve seen more dynamic performances in Mystery on the Island.”

I shrugged. “Things aren’t going that well for me at the moment.”

“Man trouble?”

“Of a sort.”

“Do you want some advice?”

“Thank you, Bowden, I would.”

“Get your ass into gear and act like a mature character. You’re making us the laughingstock of Speculative Fantasy. Our readership is in free fall. Want to go the way of Raphael’s Walrus?”

It wasn’t the sort of advice I was expecting.

“So you’d prefer the old Thursday, would you?” I replied indignantly. “The gratuitous sex and violence?”

“At least it got us read.”

“Yes,” I replied, “but by whom? We want the quality readers, not the prurient ones who—”

“You’re a terrible snob, you know that?”

“I am not.”

“You should value all readers. If you want to mix in the rarefied heights of ‘quality readership,’ then why don’t you sod off to HumDram and do a Plot 9?”

“Because,” I said, “I’m trying to do what the real Thursday wants.”

“And where is she?” he asked with a sneer. “Not been down this way for ages. You keep on banging on about the greater glory of your illustrious namesake, but if she really cared for us, she’d drop in from time to time.”

I fell silent. There was some truth in this. It had been six months since she’d visited, and then only because she wanted to borrow Mrs. Malaprop to put up some shelves.

“Listen,” said Bowden, “you’re nice enough in a scatty kind of way, but if you try to add any new scenarios, you’ll just make trouble for us. If you’re going to change anything, revert to the previous Thursday. It’s within the purview of ‘character interpretation.’ And since she was once that way, there’s a precedent. More readers and no risk. Who the hell is the Toast Marketing Board anyway?”

“It’s a secret plan,” I remarked defensively, “to improve readership. You’re going to have to trust me. And while I’m in charge, we’ll do it my way, thank you very much. I may even decide,” I added daringly, “to add some more about the BookWorld in the stories. It would make it more realistic, and readers might find it amusing.”

It was a bold statement. The CofG went to great expense to ensure that readers didn’t find out about the inner workings of the BookWorld. I left Bowden looking shocked and opened a door in the Yorkshire Dales setting, then took a shortcut through the SpecOps Building to find myself back home. Carmine and Sprockett were waiting in the kitchen and sensed that something was wrong.

“I met Mr. and Mrs. Goblin,” said Carmine, “and they seem very—”

“I’m really not that bothered, Carmine. You’re taking over. I’ve added something about the Toast Marketing Board. It’ll require line changes on these pages here and an extra scene.”

I handed her the additional pages, and she looked at me with a quizzical expression. Making up scenes was utterly forbidden, and we both knew it.

“I’ll take responsibility. Now, get on with it or I’ll have Mrs. Malaprop stand in for me—she’d kill for some first-person time in her logbook.”

Carmine said no more and hurried from the kitchen.

“I’m hungry,” said Pickwick, waddling in from the living room.

“You know where the cupboard is.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you know where the cupboard is.”

Pickwick opened her eyes wide in shock. She wasn’t used to being talked to that way. “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, Miss Next!”