Bookweirdest (15 page)

Norman and Malcolm had emerged in the balcony box of an ornate theatre. The screaming was coming from the stage below, and everyone else in the theatre seemed to be okay with it.

“Alarm!” Malcolm cried, bursting free of the knapsack. “What foul screeching! Is it swans attacking us?”

At the sight of the stoat in his forest gear, reaching for his sword, the woman shook her ringleted head and blinked, as if she
wasn’t sure she could believe what she was seeing. “Norman?” she cried out in shock.

While Norman stood stunned and wondered how it could be that she looked so familiar, Malcolm was all action. He leapt to one of the cushioned chairs and from there to the balcony railing, his sword already drawn.

“Lower your hand cannon!” he demanded.

The man in the military tunic and the twisted moustache whirled round in surprise, pointing his revolver at the strange woodland creature that had accosted him.

Malcolm didn’t waste a second. With two deft swooshes of the blade, he marked an
X
across the gunman’s wrist, and the revolver fell from his hand with a clatter.

The woman in ringlets sprang forward and deftly kicked the gun away. Under her ornate opera dress, she was wearing the same neon orange runners that his mother wore.

“You must be Malcolm,” she said. “I can see you’re handy in a fight.” Under that makeup and behind those ringlets, it was his mother’s voice.

Down below, the screaming had stopped. A swell of violins replaced the screeching and a man began to sing, and finally Norman came to his senses. Nobody pointed a gun at his mother. He braced himself and charged at the gunman’s knees. The moustachioed officer grunted and lurched as he absorbed the blow, but Malcolm gave him another sharp poke with the sword.

Their attacker recoiled from the shock but still kept his balance. It was the slap his mother gave him that did him in. She didn’t even wind up, just smacked him across the cheek with her open hand. Her assailant’s head spun away from this last blow, throwing him completely off balance. He made one last grab for the railing but went flailing over it, toppling into the rows of seats some twelve or fifteen feet below.

“Lecteur!” the man howled as he plummeted. He landed among the audience, sending hats and programs flying. On the stage, the singer stopped to gauge the source of the interruption
and the orchestra screeched to a halt. Norman, Malcolm and Meg Jespers-Vilnius peered over the edge and watched their assailant rise slowly to his feet. He shook his head and dusted his tunic as if to pretend he’d just stumbled and it was nothing much, but he limped as he escaped down the aisle. When he reached a side door, he turned to shake a fist dramatically.

“You have made a powerful enemy, Madame Lecteur!” he bellowed. “Tell Dupin he hasn’t seen the last of me.”

With that, he charged out of the theatre. The room buzzed with questions as every head in the audience and on the stage turned to stare up at the fashionably attired lady, the shabby little boy and what appeared to be some sort of forest animal standing at the edge of the box.

In the neighbouring boxes, women in even more elaborate dresses and hairdos waved their fans and gasped. Men in top hats and tails peered over to see if anyone needed rescuing or to be challenged to a duel. Too late, Norman thought.

His mother was still for a moment, then with a dramatic flourish, she blew the audience a kiss and waved. It was as if she were just another actor in the play. When she had finished waving, she pulled calmly on a silk cord, cloaking the flickering gas lamps and gilt-decorated balconies of the theatre behind a thick red curtain.

The murmur of the crowd continued for a few more moments, then the singer resumed his song. He sang alone for a moment, until finally the orchestra pulled itself together and accompanied him.

Meg Jespers-Vilnius turned to her rescuers. “You two arrived just in time. Well done.”

Norman stared at her red lips as they moved, fascinated. Even on days when his mother had a speaking engagement, he’d never seen her dressed so elaborately.

“Are you going to introduce me to Prince Malcolm?” She nodded towards the stoat, who was watching the scene below through a crack in the curtain.

Malcolm turned and executed his most princely bow. “At your service, Madame Lecteur.”

Norman’s mother returned his greeting with a curtsy. “You may call me Meg.”

Norman thought she was taking this rather well. “Malcolm, this is my mother.”

Malcolm bowed again. “It is a pleasure.” Then he voiced the question that needed to be asked: “Where are we?”

“The opera,” his mother said. Norman had heard of the opera. It sounded even worse than he’d imagined. “The Paris opera house.”

“Dora said that you’d gone to Paris.” Norman was relieved to see his mother, no matter where.

“Did Dora tell you that we’d gone to Paris of the 1800s?”

Norman shook his head. “Is Dad here too?”

“He’s here, but he doesn’t know where ‘here’ is. He and Dupin are backstage searching the dressing rooms.” Then, as if remembering what had just happened, she urged them to the door. “We’d better be going. I expect the gendarmes will be on their way.”

Norman opened the knapsack to let Malcolm jump in.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Meg told them. “We can freak out a few Parisians. It’s not like it’s a real book.”

Malcolm crinkled his forehead as if struggling to decipher what she said, but he decided to let it go. “At your service, madame.” He jumped to Norman’s shoulder, flourishing his cape. “Let us freak out the Parisians, as you say!”

They marched through the lobby, past gawking spectators and staff. Norman winked at them and gave them the thumbs-up sign. Meg took a handful of coins from her purse and handed them to the doorman. He glanced at the scruffy boy and his stoat and struggled to maintain a professional smile.

“Tell Monsieurs Dupin and Lecteur not to return to Rue Dunot tonight, but to meet me at the Gare D’Orsay tomorrow,” she told him.

The doorman nodded dutifully, as if this was the sort of request he always got.

At the curb, they entered a carriage that seemed to be waiting for them.

“We’re going to Dupin’s house? Dupin the detective? We’re
in a Poe story? Does Dad know?” Norman peppered his mother with questions. If his father realized he was in a book, he probably thought he was losing his mind.

“The answers to your questions are yes, yes, sort of and no.”

Both Norman and Malcolm squinted at her.

“Yes, it’s Dupin the detective, but no, this is not a Poe story, or not really. It seemed so at first, but it’s dragging on far too long, and all the villains have the same bad moustache as that guy back there at the opera. There just seems to be conspiracy after conspiracy and no solution. Poe wouldn’t have written this. Dad thinks we’re on some sort of mystery dinner party vacation. He can’t ever find out what’s really happening. That’s why I left that message with the doorman. He can’t see you here.”

“Can’t you just bookweird yourself out?”

She shook her head regretfully. “I’m not so nimble with the bookweird as you are, young man. I didn’t bring myself here. I can’t get myself out.”

As the carriage rattled along the cobbled streets, Malcolm pressed his nose against the window. “Norman, you should see this. The city is enormous and completely lit up. Some of these buildings are like mountains.”

Norman ignored the stoat’s interruption and tried to understand what his mother was telling him. “But if this isn’t a real book and Poe didn’t write it, then who …?”

“I think I’ve figured out that mystery. This has Kit written all over it. It’s the sort of thing he would try—copying Poe.”

Norman thought of the file he’d seen on Kit’s computer: “The Case of Madame Lecteur.”

“So Uncle Kit really is a writer?”

“He wishes.” Meg exhaled and shook her head. “Kit tries—he really tries—but all he can do is copy. He never finishes anything either. He doesn’t have the attention span. He starts with these grandiose plans and then just gives up.”

Norman could sympathize. He’d tried to write a book once, just as he’d tried to invent a board game and build an Elf Lord
diorama. He almost felt sorry for Kit. His uncle wasn’t much of a writer, and he wasn’t much of a villain either.

Norman peered out the window. They were crossing a stone bridge, following a line of carriages over the Seine. It was strange being in the same book as his mother. She’d warned him about the bookweird, and he’d tried hard to keep what he was doing a secret. But it was all out now, and he was relieved she wasn’t angry. Nineteenth-century Paris seemed about the best time and place to ask her the question he’d been wanting to ask since they came to England.

“Why are you so mad at Kit? What did you fight about?”

Meg sighed and rolled her eyes. “We fought about everything. We fought about who could name the most capital cities, who could cross the wooden footbridge in the fewest steps. We argued about who was going to be the most famous writer. We argued about which books belonged to who. In the end, we mostly argued about the bookweird. I knew we had to stop. I had realized that it was dangerous. Your uncle didn’t think any of it was
real
, but I knew that the lives of people in books were just as real as ours, and that we were wrong to meddle in them.”

Norman couldn’t lift his head to speak. His mother was right. She’d warned him, but he hadn’t listened. He’d wanted to help. He’d wanted to dive right into a book and save the day. He’d wanted to be the hero, not just the reader, but it had never worked out that way.

His meddling had put a lot of people in danger. He thought of George Kelmsworth, fighting off a desperate criminal from hard-boiled New York with not much more than a cricket bat and his own ridiculous self-belief. He thought about Amelie, trembling as she faced the wolf assassins that Norman had unwittingly unleashed from Undergrowth. Norman had scraped by so far. George and Amelie were okay, but not everyone was. He and Malcolm were supposed to be rescuing Jerome right now.

“Mom,” he began, “there’s something I need to tell you.” It was so hard to say. It was almost as if he needed to drag the words out of his throat with a rope.

Hearing the hesitation in her son’s voice, his mother narrowed her eyes.

“It’s about
The Secret in the Library
,” he said reluctantly.

“Oh, Norman,” she said. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

He shook his head. “I had to go. I had to get Malcolm’s map. If he doesn’t get it back soon, he’ll lose his kingdom for good.”

At the mention of his name, Malcolm pulled his nose away from the carriage window. “Norman’s no meddler. He saved my life.”

Meg Jespers-Vilnius pursed her lips, began to say something and stopped.

Norman figured he’d better get it all out now that he’d started. “They captured me.”

“Who?” Meg snapped like a mother bear. “Who captured you?”

“Black John of Nantes. He thought I was Jerome.”

She gasped. “Oh, Norman! Have you any idea how dangerous that was? This is what I was talking about. You could have been killed!” She grabbed him with two hands and began to rub his arms as if to confirm that he was still in one piece. “Thank God you got out of there.” She stroked his hair and looked him in the eyes. “Do you understand what I mean now?”

Norman nodded. It would be so easy to stop there, but he had to tell her everything. “There’s something else. They attacked San Savino. I guess they were waiting until they had Jerome. Mom, it was terrible. They were smashing the walls in with catapults. They were shooting fire-arrows at it. They were burning down the library!”

Meg’s eyes widened in shock. She brought her hand to her mouth as she gasped. “Was Jerome …?”

“Last I saw him, he was still in there,” Norman said.

His mother put her head in her hands. “This is my fault. I never should have hidden the map there. I should have told you …” Her eyes were moist with tears.

Norman could barely look at her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother cry.

“You see why I have to go back?”

She nodded, silently. He hadn’t expected her to agree, but there she was, nodding. Tears still ran down her face, streaking her thick costume makeup.

Norman’s stomach felt like it was ripping itself apart. She really must have cared for Jerome. All he could think about was losing Malcolm and how that would make him feel.

“Come with us,” Malcolm interrupted. It was obvious to him that she should come along. “Come and save Jerome with us.”

“Oh, I wish I could. You can’t know how much I wish that!” She was trying to blink the tears out of her eyes. “But I can’t just flit from book to book like Norman. I need a book, a real, complete book. I need to find a passage and memorize it. There are no books here in Kit’s fake Poe story. This awful unfinished story of your uncle’s is a dead end, and I can’t get anywhere from here.”

Norman looked out and saw they were crossing the same stone bridge again, following the same black carriage. It was like the roads around the Shrubberies, taking them in circles.

“It’s the same back at the Shrubberies. It’s not the real Shrubberies,” Norman told her. “It’s full of unicorns and magic wishing stones, and he’s emptied the library. I got out only because Kit didn’t know about the rabbits. We borrowed paper from them and wrote our way out.”

“You can write your own ingress?” she asked, incredulous. “That’s … well, it’s amazing. I wish I could. I’m stuck here until we convince your crazy uncle to let us out.”

“I’ve tried,” Norman told her. “But he’s crazier than ever. He wants me and Dora to live with him in his fantasy world.”

Meg bit her lip and seemed to think about this for a while. “Kit’s not actually a bad kid. He just gets carried away. We’ll need to trick him somehow, make him want to let us out.”

The carriage lurched to a stop in front of an apartment building that Norman recognized from his visit to a real Poe story.

“We’re here,” his mother announced. “Let me think about this one for a while.”

In Dupin’s apartment, Meg removed her makeup and put her
hair up in a ponytail, looking more like his mother again. Only the elaborate evening gown looked out of place as she brought them mugs of hot cocoa.