The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“How about the fact that my son would have been given the job of ChronoGuard director general due to his expert handling of Asteroid HR-6984 that hasn’t happened?”

Dr. Chumley looked up at me and smiled. “Listen,” he said, “if you give me any more of that ‘pretending to be mad’ act, I’ll disregard all that BookWorld stuff and you’ll be upgraded back to a NUT-2.”

Blast. Foiled.

“Okay then,” I said, and sat quietly while Dr. Chumley filled out the form. I was just wondering—in vain—what else I could to lessen the fact that I might not be mad enough to run SpecOps when I noticed that the previous certificate had Detective Smalls’s name on it, and by expertly reading upside down—a skill I’d advise to anyone working in a wheezing bureaucracy—I saw that she had indeed been listed as NUT-4. She must have thought up something really wacky. Smart, young, driven, insane— the SpecOps job was almost hers. I was just thinking about whether I could function under Smalls’s leadership when Dr. Chumley stopped and stared at me.

“Why do you have ‘Jenny is a mindworm’ written on the back of your hand?”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

I looked down, and he was right—there it was. I frowned for a moment as I tried to remember who had written it and when. I licked my fingers and rubbed pointlessly at the writing—it was a tattoo, but one I couldn’t remember getting. I felt confused, angry, and my eyes moistened as I realized what was going on. The daughter Jenny I remembered—the twelve-year-old with the infectious laugh and freckled nose who had taken twenty-two hours of labor to push out wasn’t real at all. She didn’t fall off a wall when she was eight years old and didn’t have nightmares about foxes in her bedroom. Never had. Never would. As the realization dawned, I felt a sudden and overwhelming stab of grief—loss and bereavement that gave way to anger, then a sense of sad awareness that I went through this many times a day and that Landen, the kids and I had agreed that the tattoo was for the best. I knew, too, with a falling heart that this moment of clarity would be fleeting, and my eyes filled with tears.

“Acheron Hades’ little sister,” I told him as reason momentarily filtered into my head. “She gave me a mindworm before going down for life. We’re making inquiries at TJ-Maxx as to what happened to her. We’re hoping the tattoo will remind me often enough to break it. As it stands at the moment, I can forget I have the mindworm almost midsentence.”

“Does it affect your work??

?

“Does what effect my work?”

“The mindworm.”

“What mindworm?” I asked, unsure of whom he was referring to. “Has Aornis been up to her tricks again?”

“You’re joking, right?” he asked.

“What would I joke about?” I asked, truthfully enough. “You’re here to rate me at Braxton’s request—hardly the time to piss about.”

Dr. Chumley took a deep breath, scrunched up the certificate for the third time and started to fill it in again. “NUT-4,” he said resignedly.

“I’m grateful,” I said, “but what made you change your mind?”

“Any more from you, my girl,” he said through gritted teeth, “and you’ll be a NUT-5 so fast it will make your head spin.”

***

“Remember to remember me to your son,” said Shazza as I walked back through Dr. Chumley’s waiting room.

“I haven’t forgotten I’m to remember,” I said with a smile, and departed, clutching my prized NUT-4 certificate. I was now officially “prone to strange and sustained delusional outbursts but otherwise normal in all respects,” and it felt good.

5.

Monday: Braxton Hicks

The Toast Marketing Board is a wholly owned subsidiary of Goliath Foodstuffs, Inc., and was an attempt by the corporation to raise sales in its jam, butter, toaster and bread divisions by promoting the consumption of toast. One of Goliath’s more resounding successes, the worldwide consumption has risen by almost 3,200 percent, partially in response to an aggressive advertising campaign and numerous celebrity endorsements.

Fiona Pipette, A Brief History of Toast

I returned my visitor’s pass, then walked the short distance to the Brunel Centre and the nearest Yo! Toast outlet. Braxton hadn’t yet arrived, so I took a seat at the counter and ordered a mocha and a marmalade on white from a very intense waitress who had clearly been thoroughly indoctrinated by the hyperefficient Yo! Toast training.

“Butter or margarine?” she demanded.

“Butter.”

“Thin or thick cut?”