The well of lost plots (29 page)

“You’re quite important at Jurisfiction, aren’t you?”

“Not really,” I replied, trying to do up my trouser button and realizing that it was tighter than normal. “Blast!” I said.

“What?”

“My trousers are too small.”

“Shrunk?”

“No . . .” I stared into the mirror. There was no doubt about it. I was starting to put on a small amount of girth. I stared at it this way and that and Lola did the same, trying to figure out what I was looking at.

Catalog shopping from the inside was a lot more fun than I had thought. Lola squeaked with delight at all the clothes on offer and tried about thirty different types of perfume before deciding not to buy any at all — she, in common with nearly all bookpeople, had no sense of smell. Watching her was like letting a child loose in a toy store — and her energy to shop was almost unbelievable. It was while we were on the lingerie page that she asked me about Randolph.

“What do you think of him?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” I replied noncommittally, sitting on a chair and thinking of babies while Lola tried on one bra after another, each of which she seemed to love to bits until the next one. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I rather like him in a funny kind of way.”

“Does he like you?”

“I’m not sure. I think that’s why he ignores me and makes jokes about my weight. Men always do that when they’re interested. It’s called subtext, Thursday — I’ll tell you all about it someday.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, “so what’s the problem?”

“He doesn’t really have a lot of, well,
charisma
.”

“There are lots of men out there, Lola, don’t hurry. When I was seventeen, I had the hots for this complete and utter flake named Darren. My mother disapproved, which made him into something of a magnet.”

“Ah! What about this bra?”

“I thought the pink suited you better.”

“Which pink? There were twelve.”

“The sixth pink, just after the tenth black and nineteenth lacy.”

“Okay, let’s look at that one again.” She rummaged through the pile, found what she wanted. “Thursday?”

“Yes?”

“Randolph calls me a tart because I like boys. Do you think that’s fair?”

“It’s one of the great injustices of life. If he did the same, he’d be toasted as a ‘ladies’ man.’ But, Lola, have you met anyone who you
really
like, someone with whom you’d like to spend more
exclusive
time with?”

“You mean — a boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

She paused and looked at herself in the mirror. “I don’t think I’m written that way, Thurs. But you know, sometimes — just afterwards, you know — when there is that really nice moment and I’m in his big strong arms and feeling sleepy and warm and contented, I can feel there is something that I need just outside my grasp — something I want but can’t have.”

“You mean love?”

“No — a Mercedes.”

She wasn’t joking.
¹

It was my footnoterphone.

“Hang on, Lola — Thursday speaking.”
²

I looked at Lola, who was trying on a basque.

“Yes,” I replied, “why?”
³

“The safe side of what?”
⁴

“I see. What can I do for you apart from answering questions about pianos?”
⁵

I wasn’t busy. Apart from a Jurisfiction session tomorrow at midday, I was clear.

“Sure. Where and when?”
⁶

“Okay.”

Lola was looking at me mournfully. “Does this mean we’ll have to miss out on the gym? We have to go to the gym — if I don’t, I’ll feel guilty about eating all those cakes.”

“What cakes?”

“The ones I’m going to eat on the way to the gym.”

“I think you get enough exercise, Lola. But we’ve got half an hour yet — c’mon, I’ll buy you a coffee.”

My first adult foray into the BookWorld had not been without controversy. I had entered
Jane Eyre
and changed the ending. Originally, Jane goes off to India with the drippy St. John Rivers, but in the ending that I engineered, Jane and Rochester married. I made the decision from the heart, which I had not been trained to do but couldn’t help myself. Everyone liked the new ending but my actions weren’t without criticism. Technically I had committed a Fiction Infraction, and I would have to face the music. My first hearing in Kafka’s
The Trial
had been inconclusive. The trial before the King and Queen of Hearts in
Alice in Wonderland
would not be as strange — it would be stranger.

THURSDAY NEXT,
The Jurisfiction Chronicles

THE GRYPHON WAS a creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. In his youth he must have been a frightening creature to behold, but in his later years he wore spectacles and a scarf, which somewhat dented his otherwise fearsome appearance.

He was, I was told, one of the finest legal eagles around, and after Snell’s death he became head of the Jurisfiction legal team. It was the Gryphon who secured the record payout in the celebrated
Farmer’s Wife v. Three Blind Mice
case, and he was instrumental in reducing Nemo’s piracy charges to “accidental manslaughter.”

The Gryphon was reading my notes when I arrived and made small and incomprehensible noises as he flicked through the pages, grunting here and there and staring at me over his spectacles with large eyes.

“Well!” he said. “We should be in for some fun now!”

“Fun?” I repeated. “Defending a Class II Fiction Infraction?”

“I’m prosecuting a class action for blindness against the Triffids this afternoon,” said the Gryphon soberly, “and the Martians’ war crimes trial in
War of the Worlds
just drags on and on. Believe me, a Fiction Infraction is fun. Do you want to see my caseload?”

“No, thanks.”

“Okay. We’ll see what their witnesses have to say and how Hopkins presents his case. I may decide not to put you on the stand. Please don’t do anything stupid like grow — it nearly destroyed Alice’s case there and then. And if the Queen orders your head to be cut off, ignore her.”

“Okay,” I sighed, “let’s get on with it.”

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their thrones when we arrived, but they were the only people in the courtroom who were seemingly composed — Alice’s exit two pages earlier had caused a considerable amount of distress to the jury, who were back in their places but were bickering furiously with the foreman, a rabbit who stared back at them, nibbling a large carrot that he had somehow smuggled in.

The Knave of Hearts was being escorted back to the cells, and the tarts — exhibit A — were being taken away and replaced by the original manuscript of
Jane Eyre
. Seated before the King and Queen was prosecuting attorney Mathew Hopkins and a collection of severe-looking birds. He glared at me with barely concealed venom. He looked a lot less amused since we had last crossed swords in
The Trial
, and he hadn’t looked particularly amused then. The King was obviously the judge because he wore a large wig, but quite which part the Queen of Hearts was to play in the proceedings, I had no idea.

The twelve jurors calmed down and all started writing busily on their slates.

“What are they doing?” I whispered to the Gryphon. “The trial hasn’t even begun yet!”

“Silence in court!” yelled the White Rabbit in a shrill voice.

“Off with her head!” yelled the Queen.

The King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round to find out who had been talking. The Queen nudged him and nodded in my direction.

“You there!” he said. “You will have your say soon enough, Miss, Miss . . .”

“Next,” put in the White Rabbit after consulting his parchment.

“Really?” replied the King with some confusion. “Does that mean we’re done?”

“No, Your Majesty,” replied the White Rabbit patiently, “her name is Next.
Thursday
Next.”

“I suppose you think that’s funny?”

“No, indeed, Your Majesty,” I replied. “It was the name I was born with.”

The jurymen all frantically started to write “It was the name I was born with” on their slates.

“You’re an Outlander, aren’t you?” said the Queen, who had been staring at me for some time.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Then answer me this: When there are two people and one of them has left, who is left? The person who
is
left or the person who
has
left? I mean, they can’t both be left, can they?”

“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King.

On this, the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, then unrolled the parchment scroll and read as follows:

“Miss Thursday Next is hereby accused of a Fiction Infraction Class II against the Jurisfiction penal code FAL/0605937 and pursuant to the BookWorld general law regarding continuity of plotlines, as ratified to the Council of Genres, 1584.”

“Consider your verdict,” said the King to the jury.

“Objection!” cried the Gryphon. “There’s a great deal to come before that!”

“Overruled!” shouted the King, adding, “Or do I mean ‘sustained’? I always get the two mixed up — it’s a bit like is it ‘feed a cold and starve a fever’ or ‘starve a cold and feed a fever’? I never know. At any rate, you may call the first witness.”

The White Rabbit blew three more blasts on the trumpet and called out, “First witness!”

The first witness was Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall, Rochester’s home. She blinked and looked around the court slowly, smiling at Hopkins and glaring at me. She was assisted into the witness box by an usher who was actually a large guinea pig.

“Do you promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” asked the White Rabbit.

“I do.”

“Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly all wrote “write that down” on their slates.

“Mrs. Fairfax,” began Hopkins, rising to his feet, “I want you to tell me in your own words the events surrounding Miss Next’s intrusion into
Jane Eyre
, starting at the beginning and not stopping until you get to the end.”

“And then what?” asked the King.

“Then she may stop,” said Hopkins with a trace of annoyance.

“Ah,” said the King in the voice of someone who thinks he understands a great deal but is sadly mistaken, “proceed.”

For the next two hours we listened to not only Mrs. Fairfax but Grace Poole, Blanche Ingram and St. John Rivers all giving evidence to explain the old ending and how by calling “Jane Jane Jane!” at Jane’s bedroom I had changed the narrative completely. The jury tried to keep up with the proceedings, and they wrote as and when directed by the King until there was no more room on their slates and they tried to write on the benches in front of them, and failing that, on each other.

After every witness, the smallest dormouse in the jury was excused for a trip to the bathroom, which gave the Gryphon time to explain to the King — who probably wouldn’t have been able to touch his head with his eyes shut — the procedure of the law. When the dormouse returned, the witness was given to the Gryphon for cross-examination, and every time he called, “No further questions.” The afternoon wore on and it became hotter in the courtroom. The Queen grew more and more bored and seemed to demand the verdict on a more and more frequent basis, once even asking during a witness’s testimony.

And all during this tedious performance, as the characters from
Jane Eyre
came and repeated the truth in front of me, a seemingly endless parade of guinea pigs interrupted the proceedings. Each one was immediately set upon and placed headfirst into a large canvas bag, then ejected from the court. Each time this happened, there followed a quite inordinate amount of confusion, cries and noise. As the din grew to a fever pitch, the Queen would scream “Off with his head! Off with his head!” as though she were somehow in direct competition with the tumult. By the time another guinea pig had been thrown from the court, Grace Poole had vanished in a cloud of alcoholic vapors, and no one knew where she was.

“Never mind!” said the King with an air of great relief. “Call the next witness.” He added in an undertone to the Queen, “Really, my dear,
you
must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache!”

I watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list and read out at the top of his shrill little voice, “Thursday Next!”

“Excuse me,” said the Gryphon, stirring himself from the lethargy he had shown throughout the trial, “but Miss Next will not be giving evidence against herself in this court of law.”

“Is that allowed?” asked the King. The jury all looked at one another and shrugged.

“It proves she’s guilty!” screamed the Queen. “Off with her head! Off with—”

“It proves nothing of the sort,” interrupted the Gryphon. The Queen went scarlet and would probably have exploded had not the King laid his hand on her arm.

“Come come, my dear,” he said softly, “you must stay calm. All these orders of execution are probably not good for your hearts.”

He chuckled. “Hearts,” he said again. “I say, I’ve made a joke that’s rather good, don’t you think?”

The jury all laughed dutifully and the brighter ones explained to the more stupid ones what the joke was, and the stupid ones explained to the even stupider ones what a joke actually
is
.

“Excuse me,” said the dormouse again, “may I go to the bathroom?”

“Again?” bellowed the King. “You must have a bladder the size of a peanut.”

“A grain of rice, so please Your Majesty,” said the dormouse, knees knocking together.

“Very well,” said the King, “but make it quick. Now, can we reach a verdict?”

“
Now
who wants a verdict?” asked the Queen triumphantly.

“There’s more evidence to come yet, please Your Majesty,” said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry. “We have to hear from the defense yet.”

“The defense?” asked the King wearily. “Haven’t we just heard from them?”