Bookweirder (6 page)

Norman read as far as the lawyer’s office.

The Intrepids emerged from the narrow streets of cloth caps and horse carts to the broad boulevards of omnibuses and bowler hats. The crowds were now dotted with the white wigs and black robes of the barristers shuffling between their offices and the courts. The three children climbed the steps of a white stone building. They paused for only a moment, exchanging silent, questioning glances to confirm that they were ready. George handed the cardboard box of mice to Gordon. The younger boy nodded gravely as he took it. Pippa bit her lip and scanned the street around them nervously.

George gave her a reassuring smile and pushed the huge brass door open. Alone he ducked into the marbled lobby beyond. The Cooks waited nervously outside. A moment later George’s head re-emerged.

“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s as we hoped. Todd’s in there alone.”

George held the giant brass door open for Pippa and Gordon to follow. Gordon held up the quivering box of mice, indicating that he was ready for his mission. George gave the younger boy a silent, friendly slap on the shoulder, put a finger to his lips and headed up the wide staircase to the second floor. Below, the Cooks waited for his signal.

The office at the top of the stairs was nearly empty. Wide and tall, with marble tile on the floor and stone columns supporting its decorated ceiling, the office spoke of wealth and power. A dozen imposing oak desks were spread evenly across the floor. Only one was occupied. Its occupant looked up as George entered.

“Ah, young Master Kelmsworth. What a surprise.”

The smug grin on Mr. Todd’s face made him look anything but surprised. His mutton-chop sideburns merely twitched in amusement.

“You ought to have rung. What brings you to the city?” The lawyer twisted a fountain pen gingerly at the end of his long fingers, as if afraid the ink might stain his pristine white cuffs. He was elegantly dressed in a dark grey suit and a high white collar that obscured his neck completely.

George was not intimidated. He stretched himself to his full height and pushed out his chest. “I’ve come about the gamekeeper,” he began haughtily, taking the tone he expected to take with employees who were not doing their job correctly. “The grounds at Kelmsworth are not being looked after properly. I came across a poacher myself the other day. We absolutely must have a proper gamekeeper back on the estate.”

Mr. Todd frowned and did his best to ignore the scuffling sounds of Pippa and Gordon Cook sneaking up the stairs. “Well, I’m afraid there’s not much we can do on that account at this point. While we put together the appeal, the grounds are under the jurisdiction of Administrator Hepplewaithe. We’ll sort it all out in the end, of course. You know that. But I’m afraid that in the meantime, it is out of our hands.”

The lawyer put down his pen and held out his hands. He suppressed a small smirk as, out of the corner of his eye, he spied Pippa and Gordon ducking beneath a nearby desk.

“But I nearly caught the poacher myself,” George protested. “He was on the lawn. He likely also broke into the kitchen several nights ago. Administrator Hepplewaithe is incompetent.”

Todd’s superior tone elevated once more. “That may well be, but you, my boy”—he pointed at George with the end of his
pen—“should not be stalking the woods looking for poachers.”

Pippa’s high-pitched scream interrupted them.

A dozen small white mice burst from beneath the desk where Gordon had set them free. They looked tiny and insignificant on the floor of the vast office. Their white coats blended with the marble tile, camouflaging them perfectly. They all darted immediately under the legs of desks or towards the walls, where they began disappearing into cracks in the wainscotting. There was a sort of stunned silence as Todd and the three children stared at the floor. The lawyer made a show of craning his neck about looking for stragglers.

Pippa screamed again, but it was an unconvincing scream that trailed off to a whispering sort of high note and left her blushing with embarrassment. This was not the chaos that they had intended to provoke.

Mr. Todd remained where he was at his desk, his expression one of quiet amusement. The slim smile on his face widened ever so slightly as a large ginger cat padded out from behind one of the stone columns. A stunned white mouse dangled from the cat’s satisfied maw. It dropped the poor creature on the floor and placed a massive ginger paw on its catch. The cat scanned the floor for more of the same, but the rest of the rodents had scattered and could not be seen.

“Oh, dear,” said Mr. Todd, sounding rather bored. “I do hope that wasn’t a special mouse. I doubt that Vilnius will be persuaded to give it up now.” As if to make his point, the orange cat began licking his wide chops.

George, Pippa and Gordon stood and looked on in stunned silence. This was not how this was supposed to work at all.

Norman put the book down carefully on his windowsill and closed his eyes. What was he supposed to make of this? Vilnius was not a common name. In fact, Norman had never seen or heard his father’s surname anywhere, and the last place he had ever expected to see it was as the name of a cat in a book called
Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies
.

W
hen the muted sunlight hit Norman’s face, it came from the wrong direction. It woke him up but made it difficult to open his eyes. The sounds were wrong, too. There were birds outside his window, chirping madly at each other in some nearby tree. In the distance he heard the faint echo of a train whistle. There were no train tracks near his house. There was no tree near his window.

He sat bolt upright. He must be there. He must be in the book! It was the only possible explanation. And then he recognized the room, the cluttered windowsill and the orange blanket.

It was
not
the only possible explanation. He had forgotten he was in England. He was still not used to waking up in this bedroom. He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt, grabbed
Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies
and headed downstairs.

His father was the only one in the kitchen. As Norman appeared at the door, Edward Vilnius was fiddling with the little stove-top coffee maker again. He slammed it down on the countertop in frustration, water and coffee grounds splashing over him. Norman tried not to stare while Edward drummed his fingers heavily on the counter and regained his composure.

Norman guessed this was the wrong time to be asking questions, but he was not very good at suppressing his curiosity. He put
his book down on the kitchen table, poured some cereal and watched as his father reassembled the coffee maker and lit the gas burner.

“Dad, Vilnius is a city in Russia, right?” He’d been told this before but hadn’t paid much attention.

“Lithuania,” Edward replied, not taking his eyes off the coffee maker.

“So our family must be from there, right?”

“My side, yes.” The coffee maker was bubbling away now, and Edward Vilnius turned to face his son, his expression unreadable. Norman could not bring himself to ask any other questions. He’d never met his father’s parents. They were never mentioned.

“There’s a cat in this book called Vilnius,” Norman continued. He held up the book.

“Is it an especially brilliant cat?” his father asked, a small smile breaking out, probably in anticipation of the coffee.

“Actually, it’s quite evil.”

“The two are often confused.” His father took the first sip of his coffee and nodded with satisfaction.

Norman slurped the last of his cereal and was about to bolt back upstairs with his book when his father coughed and pointed to the empty bowl. Norman returned and placed his bowl in the sink.

“You’re not staying in, are you?” his father asked. “How many sunny days do you get here?” The way he said it made it clear that Norman was supposed to stay out of the way while his father worked.

Norman glanced out the window. The pale sun that had been there only ten minutes ago was gone, and the sky was slate grey again, as usual.

“It’s raining,” he reported glumly.

His father turned to look. “What a country,” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

Norman tromped back upstairs to his room and flopped down on his bed. He eyed
Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies
suspiciously before picking it up again and thumbing through the pages.

It was so late last night when he’d finally put the book down that he wasn’t sure he’d understood everything that was going on in the story. There was something wrong about that part in the lawyer’s office. It didn’t fit somehow. He flipped back to the start of the chapter and began to reread from the part where the Intrepids arrived in London. He wanted to make sure he’d actually read what he’d read.

He tapped his fingers rhythmically against the window as he read. The argument of the sparrows in the tree outside had settled down to a quiet conversation of chirps and whistles. Norman pulled the orange blanket back over him. It was perfectly cozy. Thinking he’d probably stayed up too late again last night, he placed the book face down on his chest. He closed his eyes for just a moment. He was only resting them.

I
t was much colder when he woke up and much darker. Had he really slept all day? Surely somebody would have come and got him. He reached for the book on his chest, but it must have fallen off in his sleep. He groped around for it drowsily under the covers, but found there were no covers. This wasn’t even his bed. It was as if he’d fallen on the floor. His eyes opened slowly and he tried to put it all together. This wasn’t even his bedroom.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light he could see that he was lying on a rough plank floor inside a storeroom of sorts. It was dark and dusty, and he was surrounded by crates and boxes.

It was the monkey that sealed it—the wild, toothy grin of the monkey in the crate next to him. It had happened. It had finally happened again.
He was in the book!
He had fallen asleep in his room at the Shrubberies and he had woken up in the book. The book-weird was
real
.

The monkey was poking Norman through the bars of its crate with a long, crooked stick. It was starting to hurt. Norman shifted out of the way. The little white-faced monkey went berserk. The game was on, he guessed, but Norman had no time for it. He had to think, had to get his bearings. He had to figure out what was happening, why he was here. He felt dizzy, almost giddy. His heart
beat so hard inside his chest that he was sure it would give him away.

He had to figure out whether he had arrived before the Intrepids or after. He needed to decide how to introduce himself. Introducing yourself to characters in books was a tricky thing. Norman knew this from experience.

Norman did his best to ignore the shrieks and cackles of the grinning spider monkey. Another crate shielded him from the counter. He could not tell if Dodgeworth stood there or not, but if he moved just slightly to his left, he might be able to spy the counter through the bars of the spider monkey’s crate.

The tinkling of the bell turned Norman’s head. His heart leapt. That would be the Intrepids, he thought. They’d be coming in to buy those stupid mice. Heavy footsteps immediately told him he was wrong. It was not George, Gordon and Pippa. It was someone else. Norman ducked behind the crate and watched. Even the monkey went silent as the stranger entered. His loud, shuffling steps resounded on the wood floor. The stranger was big and scruffy. His hair was cropped so close that you could see his thick, tanned skull between the bristles. There was more hair on his chin than his head. He wore a long, green coat, dull with mud. Something about the dirty red kerchief tied around his neck was familiar. Where had Norman seen that before?

The voice of Dodgeworth was just as he’d imagined it. He’d heard this accent in the market stalls of London, but there was no friendly lilt to the storekeeper’s question. “What can I do for you, sir?” Dodgeworth clearly liked the look of the stranger about as much as Norman and the monkey did.

“You’re gonna wanna see this,” the stranger declared abruptly. The accent was completely different. That’s right, Dodgeworth had said that the stranger was an American, a Yank … the one trying to sell the talking stoat.