Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

You never argue with Granny Next, nor seek to know how she knows such things.

'July. But Gran, I don't know if it's Landen's, or Miles Hawke's, or whose!'

'You should call this Hawke fellow and ask him.'

'I can't do that!'

'Worry yourself woolly, then,' she retorted. 'Mind you, my money is on Landen as the father – as you say, the memories avoided the sideslip, so why not the baby? Believe me, everything will turn out fine. Perhaps not in the way that you imagine, but fine nonetheless.'

I wished I could share her optimism. She took her hand off my stomach and lay back on the bed, the energy expended during the Ping-Pong having taken its toll.

'I need to find a way to get back into books without the Prose Portal, Gran.'

She opened her eyes and looked at me with a keenness that belied her old age.

'Humph!' she said, then added: 'I was SpecOps for seventy-seven years in eighteen different departments. I jumped backwards and forwards and even sideways on occasion. I've chased bad guys who make Hades look like St Zvlkx and saved the world from annihilation eight times. I've seen such weird shit you can't even begin to comprehend, but for all of that I have absolutely no idea how Mycroft managed to jump you into Jane Eyre.'

'Ah.'

'Sorry, Thursday – but that's the way it is. If I were you I'd work the problem out backwards. Who was the last person you met who could book-jump?'

'Mrs Nakajima.'

'And how did she manage it?'

'She just read herself in, I suppose.'

'Have you tried it?'

I shook my head.

'Perhaps you should,' she replied with deathly seriousness. 'The first time you went into Jane Eyre – wasn't that a book jump?'

'I guess.'

'Perhaps,' she said, as she picked a book at random off the shelf above her bed and tossed it across to me, 'perhaps you had better try.'

I picked the book up.

'The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies?'

'Well, you've got to start somewhere, haven't you?' replied Gran with a chuckle. I helped her take off her blue gingham shoes and made her more comfortable.

'One hundred and eight!' she muttered 'I feel like the bunny in that Fusioncell ad – you know, the one that has to run on "Brand X"?'

'You're Fusioncell all the way to me, Gran.'

She gave a faint smile and leaned back on the pillows.

'Read the book to me, my dear.'

I sat down and opened the small Beatrix Potter volume. I glanced up at Gran, who had closed her eyes.

'Read!'

So I did, right from the front to the back.