One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“I’m going to head for that cluster of book traffic,” announced Sprockett, opening the throttle and accelerating towards a loose gaggle of several hundred books that all appeared to be heading in the same direction. As we drew closer, I could see that they were mostly nonfiction and of considerable size. It was the renegade Oversize Books section, on their way to their new home.

They grew dramatically in size as we approached, and as we passed between John Deere Tractors and Clarice Cliff Tableware, they towered over us like skyscrapers.

“Hold tight,” said Sprockett, and he pulled the cab hard over and darted behind Lighthouses of Maine.

“They’re still behind us!” I barked, peering out the rear windshield as the Monhegan Island Light Station flashed past on our left-hand side, foghorn blaring. “Or at least one is.”

“They only attack one at a time,” replied Sprockett, his eyebrow flicking past “Indignant” to “Peeved,” “and in that respect they’re very like baddies in seventies martial-arts movies. Hold tight.”

Sprockett skimmed past Best of National Geographic so close I could taste the hot dust of the Serengeti, then pulled up sharply in front of Chronicle of Britain. I felt myself pressed hard into my seat. My vision grew gray, then faded out entirely. My arms and head felt intolerably heavy, and a second later I was unconscious as Sprockett—his body designed to tolerate up to 17.6 Gs—pulled the cab into an almost vertical climb. I came around again as soon as he reached the top of the book, and he immediately plunged the cab into a near-vertical dive.

“Still behind us?”

They were. I could see the emotionless features of the Plaids as they edged closer. Sprockett corkscrewed around Knitting Toy Animals for Pleasure and Profit as the passenger in the Roadmaster leaned out the window and fired a shot, which flew wide to blow a ragged hole in Knitting Toy Animals as we sped on, and a blue knitted giraffe named Natalie began a long, slow fall to the Text Sea, sixteen miles below.

“These Men in Plaid are made of stern stuff,” said Sprockett, his eyebrow pointer clicking from “Pe

eved” to “Puzzled” to “Indignant,” then almost to “Severely Peeved” before settling on “Peeved” again. “Hold tight.”

The Oversized Books were now moving in a more random fashion as they tried to avoid us, and Sprockett dived to get more speed, then pulled up and headed towards where What Do People Do All Day? and ABC with Dewin the Dog were about to collide, cover to cover. There was barely a ten-foot gap on either side as we flew between them, and the gap narrowed as we moved on. I barely had a chance to wave a cheery hello to a worried-looking Lowly Worm as the covers closed together a split second before we shot out the other side. The Roadmaster was less fortunate, and there was a tremendous detonation as the car was crushed between the two books, the worried shouts of Scarry’s folk mixing with Dewin the Dog’s furious barking.

. . . the passenger in the Roadmaster fired a shot, which flew wide to blow a ragged hole in Knitting Toy Animals, and a blue knitted giraffe named Natalie began a long, slow fall to the Text Sea, sixteen miles below.

“Do you see the others, ma’am?” asked Sprockett as he swerved hard to miss the Greatest Oversize Book of All Time but the abrupt sideways movement caused a ventral compressor stall on the Technobabble™ drive, and we went spiraling downwards out of control until Sprockett achieved an emergency relight.

“On the left!” I yelled as the second Roadmaster swept past, a shot from an eraserhead removing half the rear bumper and a fender. Sprockett jinked hard, spiraled up for a second, then shot past Cooking for Fusspots and Helmut Newton Nudes.

“Rewind me again, ma’am, if you please,” said Sprockett, hauling sideways on the wheel to avoid the Times Atlas. The exertions on his frame had depleted his spring at a furious rate—I’d have to remain conscious, if only to rewind him.

“Watch out!”

It was too late. We had taken a hard left at The Titanic Revisited and were met by a group of Oversize Books that had bunched together tightly for self-protection. There was no time to avoid them and all we could see was a saber jet fragmenting in front of us as we loomed ever closer to Lichtenstein Prints. But just when I thought we were dead for sure, Sprocket pulled the wheel hard over and we entered The Works of Thomas Gainsborough through a small thermal-exhaust port near the preface.

I stared wide-eyed as Sprockett drove the cab through the paintings of Gainsborough at over a hundred miles per hour. We shot through early landscapes, dodged past Cornard Wood and then burst into portraiture at John Plampin, then twisted and turned past a dozen or so well-dressed dignitaries, who for their part looked as startled and horrified as we did. We went between the knees of Mr. Byam and at one point nearly knocked the hat off Mrs. Siddons. But still the Roadmaster stuck to us like glue, not able to fire at us with the constant movement but awaiting the opportunity with a certain calm detachment. We doubled back around The Blue Boy as Sprockett searched for the exit.

“Can you see a way out, ma’am?”

“There!” I said, having heard a lowing in the distance, “behind the third cow from the left in The Watering Place.”

We passed The Harvest Wagon for a second time as Sprockett lowered the nose and accelerated across the painted landscape, the Roadmaster still close behind. We turned sharp left as the Duchess of Devonshire loomed up in front of us, and there was a thump as we collided with something. The Roadmaster behind us had misjudged the turn and struck the duchess on the shins, the resulting explosion scattering metal fragments that hit the back of the cab with a metallic rattle.

In another second we were clear, none the worse for our rapid traverse aside from a brace of partridge that had jammed in the wipers and cracked the screen.

“What did they hit?” asked Sprockett.

“The Duchess of Devonshire—took off both legs.”

“She’ll be a half portrait from now on. Whoops.”

The third Roadmaster had appeared in front of us, and another eraserhead had taken the “taxi” light off the roof and blasted a hole into Classic Bedford Single-Deckers, releasing several Plaxton-bodied coaches to tumble out into the void.

“We’re causing too much damage,” I said, catching sight of the now-chaotic movement of the Oversize Books, some of them on fire, others locked in collision and one, Detroit’s Muscle Cars, falling to earth in a slow death spiral, the huge forces breaking apart the book and spilling 1972 Dodge Chargers across the BookWorld. “We need to leave the Oversize Books section.”

“Logically, it places us in grave danger, ma’am.”

“But we are endangering others, Sprockett.”

“I place our chances of survival in open orbit at less than 1.7 percent, ma’am.”