The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

'And you could learn to curl,' I added to Slow-and-Solid.

'Curl?' replied the tortoise indignantly. 'I don't think so, thank you very much.'

'Give it a go,' I persisted. 'Unlace your backplates a little and try and touch your toes.'

There was a pause. The hedgehog and tortoise looked at one another and giggled.

'Won't Painted Jaguar be surprised!' they chortled, thanked me, and left.

I closed the door, sat down and looked in the fridge, shrugged and ate a large portion of apples Benedict before having a long and very relaxing shower.

The corridors of the Well were as busy as the day before. Traders bustled with buyers, deals were done, orders taken, bargains struck. Every now and then I saw characters fading in and out as their trade took them from book to book. I looked at the shopfronts as I walked past, trying to guess how they did what they did. There were holesmiths, grammatacists, pace-setters, moodmongers, paginators – you name it.10

It was the junkfootnoterphone starting up again. I tried to shut it out but only succeeded in lowering the volume. As I walked along I noticed a familiar figure among the traders and plot speculators. He was dressed in his usual hunter/explorer garb, safari jacket and pith helmet with a revolver in a leather holster. It was Commander Bradshaw, star of thirty-four thrilling adventure stories for boys available in hardback at 7/6 each. Out of print since the thirties, Bradshaw entertained himself in his retirement by being something of an éminence grise at Jurisfiction. He had seen and done it all – or claimed he had.

'A hundred!' he exclaimed bitterly as I drew closer. 'Is that the best you can offer?'

The Action Sequence trader he was talking to shrugged.

'We don't get much call for lion attacks these days.'

'But it's terrifying, man, terrifying!' exclaimed Bradshaw. 'Real hot breath down the back of your neck stuff. Brighten up a chicklit no end, I should wager – make a change from parties and frocks, what?'

'A hundred and twenty, then. Take it or leave it.'

'Blood-sucker!' mumbled Bradshaw, taking the money and handing over a small glass globe with the lion attack, I presumed, safely freeze-dried within. He turned away from the trader and caught me looking at him. He quickly hid the cash and raised his pith helmet politely.

'Good morning!'

'Good morning,' I replied.

He waved a finger at me.

'It's Havisham's apprentice, isn't it? What was your name again?'

'Thursday Next.'

'Is it, by gum?' he exclaimed. 'Well I never.'

He was, I noticed, a good foot taller than the last time we had met. He now almost came up to my shoulder.

'You're much—' I began, then checked myself.

'—taller?' he guessed. 'Quite correct, girlie. Appreciate a woman who isn't trammelled by the conventions of good manners. Melanie – that's the wife, you know – she's pretty rude, too. "Trafford," she says – that's my name, Trafford – "Trafford," she says, "you are a worthless heap of elephant dung." Well, this was out of the blue – I had just returned home after a harrowing adventure in Central Africa where I was captured and nearly roasted on a spit. The sacred emerald of the Umpopo had been stolen by two Swedish prospectors and—'

'Commander Bradshaw,' I interrupted, desperate to stop him recounting one of his highly unlikely adventures, 'have you seen Miss Havisham this morning?'

'Quite right to interrupt me,' he said cheerfully. 'Appreciate a woman who knows when to subtly tell a boring old fart to button his lip. You and Mrs Bradshaw have a lot in common. You must meet up some day.'

We walked down the busy corridor.11

I tapped my ears.

'Problems?' enquired Bradshaw.

'Yes,' I replied, 'I've got two gossiping Russians inside my head again.'

'Crossed line? Infernal contraptions. Have a word with Plum at JurisTech if it persists. I say,' he went on, lowering his voice and looking round furtively, 'you won't tell anyone about that lion attack sale, will you? If the story gets around that old Bradshaw is cashing in his Action Sequences, I'll never hear the last of it.'