'That didn't work?'
'No. The chief kept on forgiving him. We tried everything. Insulting the chief, tweaking his nose – after the forty-third attempt we were getting desperate; Bradshaw was almost pulling his hair out.'
'So what did you do?'
'We retrospectively had the chief's son die in the massacre. It did the trick. The chief had no trouble shooting Jim after that.'
I mused about this for a moment.
'How did Jim take it?' I asked. 'The decision for him to die, I mean?'
'He was the one who asked for the plot adjustment in the first place,' murmured Havisham. 'He thought it was the only honourable thing to do – mind you, the chief's son wasn't exactly over the moon about it.'
'Ah,' I said, pondering that here in the BookWorld the pencil of life occasionally did have a rubber on the other end.
'So you'll send a cheque for a hundred pounds to the farmer, and buy his pigs for double the market rate – that way, he won't need the cash and won't want to resell Shadow to the film producer. Get it? Good afternoon, Mr Wemmick.'
We had arrived at the stores. Wemmick himself was a short man, a native of Great Expectations, aged about forty with a pockmarked face. He greeted us enthusiastically.
'Good afternoon, Miss Havisham, Miss Next – I trust all is well?'
'Quite well, Mr Wemmick. I understand you have a few canines for us?'
'Indeed,' replied the storekeeper, pointing to where two dogs were attached to a hook in the wall by their leads.
'Pug, Lady Bertram's, to be replaced, one. Shadow, sheepdog, sighted, to swap with existing dog, blind, one. Cheque for the farmer, value: one hundred pounds sterling, one. Cash to buy pigs, forty-two pounds, ten shillings and fourpence. Sign here.'
The two dogs panted and wagged their tails. The collie had his eyes bound with a bandage.
'Any questions?'
'Do we have a cover story for this cheque?' I asked.
'Use your imagination. I'm sure you'll think of something.'
'Wait a moment,' I said, alarm bells suddenly ringing, 'aren't you coming with me to supervise?'
'Not at all!' Havisham grinned with a strange look in her eye. 'Assessed work has to be done solo; I'll mark you on your report and the successful – or not – realigned story within the book. This is so simple even you can't mess it up.'
'Couldn't I do Lady Bertram's pug?' I asked, trying to make it sound like something hard and of great consequence.
'Out of the question! Besides, I don't do children's books any more – not after the incident with Larry the Lamb. But since Shadow is out of print no one will notice if you make a pig's ear of it. Remember that Jurisfiction is an honourable establishment and you should reflect that in your bearing and countenance. Be resolute in your work and fair and just. Destroy grammasites with extreme prejudice – and shun any men with amorous intentions.'
She thought for a moment.
'Or any intentions, come to that. Have you got your TravelBook to enable you to jump back?'
I patted my breast pocket where the slim volume was kept and she was gone, only to return a few moments later to swap dogs and vanish again. I was just about to jump to the second floor when a voice made me turn.
'Hello!' he said. 'All well?'
It was the Cheshire Cat. He was sitting on top of the Boojumorial, grinning fit to burst.
'I'm just about to do my practical.'
'Excellent!' said the Cat. 'Whereabouts?'
'Shadow the Sheepdog.'
'Enid Blyton, 1950, Collins, two fifty-six pages, illustrated,' muttered the Cat, to whom every book in the Library was a revered friend. 'Apart from the D-words in it, for Blyton it's not too bad at all – a product of its time, one might argue. What are you going to do with it?'
'Happier ending,' I explained. 'I have to swap dogs.'
'Ah!' said the Cat, wrinkling his whiskers and grinning some more. 'Just like the job we did on Gipson's Old Yeller last year.'
'Old Yeller?' I repeated incredulously. 'The new ending is the happy one?!'
'You should have read it before we changed it. Sad wasn't the word. Children were going into traumatic shock it was so depressing.'
And he blew his nose so violently he vanished with a faint pop.
I waited for a moment in case he reappeared and, when he didn't, read my way diligently to the second floor of the Library and picked Shadow the Sheepdog off the shelf. I paused. I was nervous and my palms had started to sweat. I scolded myself. How hard could a plot readjustment in an Enid Blyton be? I took a deep breath and, notwithstanding the simplistic nature of the novel, opened the slim volume with an air of serious trepidation – as though it were War and Peace.
19
Shadow the Sheepdog
* * *
'Shadow the Sheepdog, the story of a supremely loyal and intelligent sheepdog in a rural pre-war countryside, was published by Collins in 1950. A compulsive scribbler from her early teens, Enid Blyton found escape from her own unhappy childhood in the simple tales she wove for children. She has been republished in revised forms to suit modern tastes and has consistently remained popular over five decades. The independently minded children of her stones live in an idealised world of eternal summer holidays, adventure, high tea, ginger beer, cake and grown-ups with so little intelligence that they need everything explained to them – something that is not so very far from the truth.'
MILLON DE FLOSS – Enid Blyton
I read myself into the book, halfway down page 231. Johnny, the farmer's boy who was Shadow's owner and co-protagonist, would be having Shadow's eyes checked in a few days, so a brief reconnaissance of the area seemed like a good idea. If I could persuade rather than order the vet to swap the dogs, then so much the better. I alighted in a town which looked like some sort of forties rural idyll – a mix of Warwickshire and the Dales. All green grass, show-quality cattle, yellow-lichened stone walls, sunshine and healthy-looking, smiling people. Horses pulled carts laden high with hay down the main street and the odd shiny motor-car puttered past. Pies cooled on window sills and children played with hoops and tinplate steam engines. The smell in the breeze was of freshly mown grass, clean linen and cooking. Here was a world of high tea, tasty trifles, zero crime, eternal summers and boundless good health. I suspected living here might be quite enjoyable – for about a week.
I was nodded at by a passer-by.
'Beautiful day!' she said politely.
'Yes,' I replied. 'My—'
'Rain later?' she enquired.
I looked up at the small puffy clouds that stretched away to the horizon.
'I shouldn't have thought so,' I began, 'but can you—'
'Well, be seeing you!' said the woman politely, and was gone.
I found an alleyway and tied the sheepdog to a downpipe; it was neither useful nor necessary to lead a dog around town for the next few hours. I walked carefully down the road, past a family butcher's, a tea room and a sweet shop selling nothing but gobstoppers, bull's-eyes, ginger beer, lemonade and liquorice. A few doors farther on I found a newsagent and post office combined. The outside of the small shop was liberally covered with enamel signs advertising Fry's chocolates, Colman's starch, Wyncarnis tonic, Ovaltine and Lyons cakes. A small sign told me I could use the telephone, and a rack of postcards shared the pavement with boxes of fresh veg. There was also a display of newspapers, the headlines reflecting the inter-war politics of the book.
Britain voted favourite empire tenth year running, said one. Foreigners untrustworthy, study shows, said another. A third led with: 'Spiffing' – new buzzword sweeps nation.
I posted the cheque to Johnny's father with a covering letter explaining that it was an old loan repaid. Almost immediately a postman appeared on a bicycle and removed the letter – the only one in the postbox, I noted – with the utmost reverence, taking it into the post office where I could hear cries of wonderment. There weren't many letters in Shadow, I assumed. I stood outside the shop fo
r a moment, watching the townsfolk going about their business. Without warning one of the carthorses decided to drop a huge pile of dung in the middle of the road. In a trice a villager had run across with a bucket and shovel and removed the offending article almost as soon as it had happened. I watched for a while and then set off to find the local auctioneers.
'So let me get this straight,' said the auctioneer, a heavy-set and humourless man with a monocle screwed into his eye, 'you want to buy pigs at treble the going rate? Why?'
'Not anyone's pigs,' I replied wearily, having spent the last half-hour trying to explain what I wanted, 'Johnny's father's pigs.'
'Quite out of the question,' muttered the auctioneer, getting to his feet and walking to the window. He did it a lot, I could tell – there was a worn patch right through the carpet to the floorboards beneath, but only from his chair to the window. There was another worn patch from the door to a side table – the use of which I was yet to understand. Considering his limitations I guessed the auctioneer was no more than a C-9 Generic – it explained the difficulty in persuading him to change anything.
'We do things to a set formula here,' added the auctioneer, 'and we don't very much like change.'
He walked back to his desk, turned to face me and wagged a reproachful finger.
'And believe me, if you try anything a bit rum at the auction I can discount your bid.'
We stared at each other. This wasn't working.
'Tea and cake?' asked the auctioneer, walking to the window again.
'Thank you,' I replied.
'Splendid!' he enthused, rubbing his hands together and returning to his desk. 'They tell me there is nothing quite so refreshing as a cup of tea!'
He flipped the switch on the intercom.
'Miss Pittman, would you bring in some tea, please?'
The door opened instantaneously to reveal his secretary holding a tray of tea things. She was in her late twenties, and pretty in an English rose sort of way; she wore a floral summer dress under a fawn cardigan.
Miss Pittman followed the smoothly worn floorboards and carpet from the door to the side table. She curtsied and laid the tea things next to an identical tray left from an earlier occasion. She threw the old tea tray out of the window and I heard the soft tinkle of broken crockery; I had seen a large pile of broken tea things outside the window when I arrived. The secretary paused, hands pressed tightly together.
'Shall … shall I pour you a cup?' she asked, a flush rising to her cheeks.
'Thank you!' exclaimed Mr Phillips, walking excitedly to the window and back again. 'Milk and—'
'—one sugar.' His secretary smiled shyly. 'Yes, yes … I know.'
'But of course you do!' He smiled back.
Then the next stage of this odd charade took place. The auctioneer and secretary moved to the place where their two worn paths were closest, the very outer limits that their existence allowed them. Miss Pittman held the cup by its rim, placed her toes right on the edge where carpet began and shiny floorboard ended, stretching out as far as she could. Mr Phillips did the same on his side of the divide. The tips of his fingers could just touch the rim of the cup but try as he might he could not reach far enough to grasp it.
'Allow me,' I said, unable to watch the cruel spectacle any longer. I passed the cup from one to the other.
How many cups of tea had gone cold in the past thirty-five years? I wondered. How uncrossable the six foot of carpet that divided them! Whoever Event Managed this book down in the Well was possessed of a cruel sense of humour.
Miss Pittman curtsied politely and departed while the auctioneer watched her go. He sat down at his desk, eyeing the teacup thirstily. He licked his lips and rubbed his fingertips in expectation, then took a sip and savoured the moment lovingly.
'Oh my goodness!' he said deliriously. 'Even better than I thought it would be!'
He took another sip and closed his eyes with the sheer delight of it.
'Where were we?' he asked.
I took a deep breath.
'I want you to buy Johnny's father's pigs with an offer that purports to come from an unknown buyer – and as close to the top of page two hundred and thirty-two as you can.'
'Utterly impossible!' said the auctioneer. 'You are asking me to change the narrative! I will have to see higher authority.'
I passed him my Jurisfiction ID card. It wasn't like me to pull rank, but I was getting desperate.
'I'm on official business sanctioned by the Council of Genres itself through Text Grand Central.' It was how I thought Miss Havisham might do it.
'You forget that we are out of print pending modernisation,' he replied shortly, tossing my ID back across the table. 'You have no mandatory powers here, Apprentice Next. I think Jurisfiction will look very carefully before attempting a change on a book without internal approval. You can tell the Bellman that, from me.'
We stared at each other, a diplomatic impasse having arrived. I had an idea and asked him:
'How long have you been an auctioneer in this book?'
'Thirty-six years.'
'And how many cups of tea have you had in that time?' I asked him.
'Including this one?'
I nodded.
'One.'
I leaned forward.
'I can fix it for you to have as many cups of tea as you want, Mr Phillips.'
He narrowed his eyes.
'Oh yes?' he replied. 'And how would you manage that? As soon as you've got what you want you'll be off and I'll never be able to reach Miss Pittman's proffered cup again!'
I stood up and went to the table on which the tea tray was sitting. It was a small table made of oak and lightly decorated. It had a vase of flowers on it, but nothing else. As Mr Phillips watched I picked up the table and placed it next to the window. The auctioneer looked at me dumbfounded, got up, walked to the window and delicately touched the table and the tea things.
'An audacious move,' he said, waving the sugar tongs at me, 'but it won't work. She's a D-7 – she won't be able to change what she does.'
'D-7s never have names, Mr Phillips.'
'I gave her that name,' he said quietly. 'You're wasting your time.'
'Let's see, shall we?' I replied, speaking into the intercom to ask Miss Pittman to bring in more tea.
The door opened as before and a look of shock and surprise crossed the girl's face.
'The table!' she gasped. 'It's—!'
'You can do it, Miss Pittman,' I told her. 'Just place the tea where you always do.'
She moved forward, following the well-worn path, arrived at where the table used to be and then looked at its new position, two strides away. The smooth and unworn carpet was alien and frightening to her; it might as well have been a bottomless chasm. She stopped dead.
'I don't understand—!' she began, her face bewildered as her hands began to shake.
'Tell her to put the tea things down,' I told the auctioneer, who was becoming as distressed as Miss Pittman – perhaps more so. 'TELL HER!'
'Thank you, Miss Pittman,' murmured Mr Phillips, his voice croaking with emotion, 'put the tea things down over here, would you?'
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, raised her foot and held it, quivering, above the edge of the shiny floorboards. Then she moved it forward and rested it on the soft carpet. She opened her eyes, looked down and beamed at us both.
'Well done!' I said. 'Just two more.'
Brimming with confidence, she negotiated the two remaining steps with ease and placed the tray on the table. She and Mr Phillips were closer now than they had ever been before. She put out a hand to touch his lapel, but checked herself quickly.
'Shall … shall I pour you a cup?' she asked.
'Thank you!' exclaimed Mr Phillips. 'Milk and—'
'—one sugar.' She smiled shyly. 'Yes, yes, I know.'
She poured the tea and handed the cup and saucer to him. He took it gratefully.
'Mr Phillips?'
'Yes?'
'Do I have a first name?'
'Of course,' he replied quietly and with great emotion. 'I have had over thirty years to think about it. Your name is Aurora, as befits somebody as beautiful as the dawn.'
She covered her nose and mouth to hide her smile and blushed deeply. Mr Phillips raised a shaking hand to touch her cheek but stopped as he remembered that I was still present. He nodded imperceptibly in my direction and said:
'Thank you, Miss Pittman – perhaps later you might come in for some … dictation.'
'I look forward to it, Mr Phillips!'
And she turned, trod softly on the carpet to the door, looked round once more and went out. When I looked back at Mr Phillips he had sat down, drained by the emotionally charged encounter.
'Do we have a deal?' I asked him. 'Or do I put the table back where it was?'
He looked shocked.
'You wouldn't?'
'I would.'
He considered his position for a moment and then offered me his hand.
'Pigs at treble the going rate?'
'Top of page two thirty-two.'
'Deal.'
Pleased with my actions so far, I collected the dog and jumped forward to the middle of page 232. By now the sale of Johnny's father's pigs was the talk of the town, and had even made it into the headlines of the local papers: Unprecedented pig price shocks town. There was only one thing left to do – replace the blind collie with the sighted one.
'I'm looking for the vet,' I said to a passer-by.
'Are you?' replied the woman amiably. 'Good for you!' and she hurried on.
'Could you tell me the way to the vet?' I asked the next person, a sallow man in a tweed suit. He was no less literal.
'Yes I could,' he replied, attempting to walk on. I tried to grasp him by the sleeve but missed and momentarily clasped his hand. He gasped out loud. This was echoed by two women who had witnessed the incident. They started to gossip volubly. I pulled out my ID.
'Jurisfiction,' I told him, adding: 'On official business,' just to make sure he got the picture.
But something had happened. The inhabitants of the village, who up until that moment had seemed to wander the streets like automatons, were all of a sudden animated individuals, talking, whispering and pointing. I was a stranger in a strange land, and while the inhabitants didn't seem hostile, I was clearly an object of considerable interest.
The Well of Lost Plots Page 19
