One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“Nothing. I must have . . . dreamt it. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time, sir.”

He looked at me for a long while, trying to divine what, if anything, I knew. Finally he said, “You are keeping the Thursday Next series dignified, I trust?”

“Yes, sir—even at the expense of readability.”

“Being read isn’t everything. Some of the best people are hardly read at all. Listen,” he said thoughtfully, staring at me with his intelligent blue eyes, “would you do something for me?”

“Of course.”

Right then a man draped in the white linen robes of the most senior senatorial office walked briskly through the front doors of Norland Park and into the entrance hall in which we stood.

“Oh, crap,” said Bradshaw under his breath. “Just what we need: Jobsworth.”

If he was over here in person, it would be for a very good reason—probably about the Racy Novel peace talks.

I thought of dropping to one knee and averting my eyes as the frog-footman had done, but for some reason I didn’t. The Thursday part of me, I suppose. Jobsworth was not alone. As well as the usual phalanx of staff, hangers-on and deputies, there was Barnes, Jobsworth’s executive assistant; Colonel Barksdale, the head of the Avoiding War Department; and Commander Herring, who was busy reading a report and hadn’t yet seen me.

“Good morning, Bradshaw,” said Jobsworth. Bradshaw wished the senator good morning, then the same to Commander Herring and Colonel Barksdale. Barnes was too far down the pecking order to be greeted, as were all the other members of Jobsworth’s staff. The senator began to speak, then saw me. His eyes opened wide.

“Great Panjandrum!” he said. “Thursday?”

Bradshaw looked at me, then at the senator. I opened my mouth to reply, but Bradshaw held up a hand. In such company it was strictly speak-when-spoken-to. Protocol in the BookWorld was like grammatical rules—rigidly structured, arcane and fiercely defended by librarians wielding wooden rulers with painful accuracy.

“No, Senator, it’s the written version.”

“Truthfully?” asked Jobsworth. “She looks an awful lot like her.”

“If she were the real one, do you think she would be here accompanied by that . . . that—what’s your name?”

The frog-footman looked startled at being spoken to. “Wesley,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Right,” said Bradshaw, not really listening, “ being shown around by frog guy? If this were the one, she’d be in the office discussing the peace talks and the metaphor crisis.”

“I’ll vouch that she’s the written one,” said Herring, who had just looked up. “Are you here on JAID business, Next?”

“I am, sir.”

“Then you can take your findings direct to Lockheed.”

It seemed a good moment to leave, so I bobbed politely and began to withdraw.

“Wait,” said the senator. “Bradshaw, why were you speaking to her if she’s just the copy?”

For a fleeting moment, Bradshaw looked uncomfortable.

“I was asking her if . . . she could ask Lorina Peabody to head up the Talking Animal Division of Jurisfiction.”

“Who the hell’s Lorina Peabody?”

“She’s a dodo,” I said.

Jobsworth stared at Bradshaw suspiciously, then me. “Introduce us,” he said after a pause.

“Very well,” said Bradshaw with a sigh. “Senior Senator Giles Jobsworth, head of Fiction and emissary to the Great Panjandrum, the written Thursday Next.”

“Hello,” he said, shaking me by the hand and giving me the smile of somebody who was considering how best one could be exploited.

“Honored, Senator, sir,” I replied dutifully.