One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“The less people who know, the better.”

“Fewer. The fewer people who know, the better.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“That’s what who meant?”

“Wait—who’s speaking now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must know.”

“Damn. It must be me—you wouldn’t say ‘damn,’ would you?”

“I might.”

We both paused for a moment, waiting for either a speech marker or a descriptive line. It was one of those things that happened every now and again in BookWorld—akin to an empty, pregnant silence in the middle of an Outland dinner party.

“So,” said Sprockett once we had sorted ourselves out, “what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know our next move,” I said, “but until I do, we do nothing—which is excellent cover for what we should be doing—nothing.”

“An inspired plan,” said Sprockett.

The taxi slowed down and stopped as the traffic ground to a halt. The cabbie made some inquiries and found that a truckload of “their” had collided with a trailer containing “there” going in the opposite direction and had spread there contents across the road.

“Their will be a few hiccups after that,” said the cabbie, and I agreed. Homophone mishaps often seeped out into the RealWorld and infected the Outlanders, causing theire to be all manner of confusion.

“I know a shortcut through Comedy,” said the cabbie, who was, purely as an irrelevant aside, an anteater named Ralph. “It shouldn’t be too onerous—the risibility is currently at thirty yards and the mirthrate down to 1.9.”

“What about puns?”

“Always about, but they’re not funny, so the chance of unbridled hysteria is low.”

Trips through Comedy were usually avoided, as the giggling could be painful and sometimes fatal, but the comedy in Comedy had been muted of late. I told him to go ahead, and we pulled out of the traffic and drove off in the opposite direction.

“What kind of man sets fire to a busload of nuns?” I asked, Whitby still annoyingly on my mind.

“I cannot answer that, ma’am, but I suspect one who is neither kind nor considerate.”

There was a pause.

“May I ask a question regarding the subject of empathy, something I am at a loss to understand?”

“Of course.”

“Since I have set neither a nun nor a puppy on fire nor gleefully pushed an old lady downstairs, does that make me kind and compassionate?”

“Not really,” I replied. “It makes you normal, and respectful of accepted social rules.”

“But not compassionate?”

“To be compassionate you have to demonstrate it in some sort of act that shows you care for someone.”

“Care for someone? Care as in how a butler cares for someone?”

“More than that.”