Ian Sansom - The Delegates' Choice aka The Book Stops Here

'What?'

'A wee short un under the ribcage and then a left round the butt of the ear!'

'I'm not punching anybody,' said Israel.

'Well, let them punch you then. See how you like that,' said Israel's mother.

They stepped quickly from the cover of the trees, and Ted began shambling up alongside the hedge, Israel's mother following, up the hill, towards the van.

'Ted!' gasped Israel, behind him. 'Wait!'

'Come on, Fatboy Slim,' said Ted. 'Let's go.'

Somehow, stumbling, hugging the hedge, they made it to the van without being seen by the travellers, who remained absorbed in worship.

Ted had the keys. They clambered inside.

'Home!' said Ted.

'Hello, van,' said Israel.

'So this is the van?' said Israel's mother. 'It's quite cosy, isn't it?'

'Ah!' said Ted, opening up the glove compartment. 'Me Sudoku. Good.'

'Now what?' said Israel.

At that moment the sun rose decisively above the treetops, yellow light flooding the scene before them-the travellers circling and chanting-and the sound of the chanting was joined by the sound of distant drumming.

'What's that?' said Israel.

'I don't know.'

Israel ran to the back of the van and peered out.

It was the police, advancing in a line, banging their riot shields.

'Shit! Ted! I don't like the look of this, Ted.'

'What?'

'It's the police! I think the police are on to us, Ted.'

'They're not on to us. They're after these crazies. Just stay calm, we'll be fine.'

As Ted spoke, the police began beating on the sides of the vans with their truncheons.

'Ted!' said Israel's mother, who seemed frightened for the first time. 'This isn't good, Ted.'

'Sshh! Just stay down. We need to pick our moment.'

'For what?' said Israel. 'Ted? Pick our moment for what?'

The police had reached the mobile library and began banging on its sides-the sound like earth being piled upon a coffin-and then they passed on by, and then, when he could safely see the backs of the police officers moving down the hill towards the travellers, Ted turned on the ignition, slammed the van into reverse, and in one movement managed to pull the van out of its tight spot and started gunning up across the field.

'Oh shit!' said Israel. 'Ted! What are you doing?'

'We're going home!' said Ted.

'Yee-ha!' said Israel's mother.

'Ted! Stop!'

'I'm not stopping!'

'This is fun!' cried Israel's mother.

'Look! Stop! I'm serious! Stop! Up ahead there. There's a ditch! The police have dug a ditch! That's why they had all the-'

'We'll be fine,' said Ted.

'Ted, we're not going to be fine. We're going to die!'

'Shut up!' yelled Ted. 'And put your bloody seatbelt on. We need to take this at speed!'

'Oh God!'

Israel fumbled with his seatbelt as Ted steered the van as close to the hedge as possible, so that at least two wheels were still-just-on solid ground when they hit the ditch.

'Brace yerselves!'

The van went down-and down-on Israel's side, knocking Israel, mid-seatbelt-fastening, forwards against the windscreen and sideways against the door.

'Aaaghhh!'

But somehow it came up again-'All right?' said Ted. 'Fine,' moaned Israel. 'Never better!' said Israel's mother-and now they were heading for the gate. Two policemen started dragging it closed.

'Oh my God! Ted, no! No! Ted, we're never going to make it through that. We're going to die!'

'We're not going to die. They drove it through, we must be able to drive it out.'

'Yeah, but, Ted, they weren't…'

Israel's mother was staring, transfixed, in the wing mirror. 'There are people chasing us,' she said.

'Who?'

'Half-naked men and women!'

'The travellers, Ted!'

'Good.'

'And the police!'

'Even better.'

They were hurtling towards the gate.

'Ted! They're going to shut the gate on us.'

'Hippies!' yelled Ted.

'They're not hippies!' shouted Israel. 'They're the police!'

'They're all the same!' yelled Ted as they reached the gate, the police still struggling to drag it closed.

They just made it through and onto the road. Ted wrenched the van left.

'Oh God, that was close,' said Israel.

'Aye,' said Ted. 'We're all right now.'

'That was great!' said Israel's mother. 'It's like Thelma and Louise!'

There was the sound of a police siren behind them.

'Oh shit!' said Israel. 'Ted!'

'You take the wheel,' said Ted.

'What?' screamed Israel.

'You take the wheel.'

'Why?'

'I'm going to sort the peelers out.'

'What are you going to do? Don't shoot at them!'

'Of course I'm not going to shoot at them! I've not got a gun!'

'Good!'

Ted got up out of the driver's seat, and Israel slid across, while Ted went to the back of the van with Israel's mother and began opening the disabled access door.

'Ted!' yelled Israel. 'What the hell are you doing?'

'We're going to give the hippies their furniture back!'

'What?'

The door came open, and Ted and Israel's mother began throwing stuff out of the back: rugs, appliquéd cushions, scented candles and, with a final heave, the frayed sofa, which fell-thunk!-and effectively blocked the road.

They drove on, as inconspicuously as they could, out of Amesbury, away from Stonehenge, sticking to B roads.

'Now where?' said Israel.

'I don't know,' said Ted.

'Well, you've come this far. How far to your Mobile Meet?' said Israel's mother.

Britain's premier-and only-convention of mobile librarians, organised by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, was taking place in a disused airfield. The event was the opposite of the gathering at Stonehenge, just a few hours' drive away. Here, there was no worshipping of the Earth Mother by people with strange names wearing eccentric clothes. Instead, here were men and women called Ken and Barbara, in sensible shoes and cardigans, standing around drinking tea and coffee from flasks, and admiring each other's vehicles, which had been polished and preened and primped in preparation. There were about fifty mobile library vans in attendance, parked in neat rows.

And in the last row, at the end of the row, newly arrived, with a small and attentive crowd gathered round it, was the mobile library from Tumdrum.

'Coming through!' Israel was saying. 'Mind your backs please!'

The Mobile Meet attracted mobile libraries from all over the country, big ones and small ones, new ones and old ones, and with every type and shape and size of mobile librarian to match, but it would be safe to say the Mobile Meet had never seen anything quite like the newly decorated mobile library and its muddy and bedraggled librarians from Tumdrum.

The crowd parted as Israel made his way through.

Mobile librarians are of course some of the finest, most open-, broad- and community-minded individuals in the world-they're basically social workers on wheels, with a penchant for Penguin Classics-but even they found it hard to comprehend exactly what Ted and Israel's mobile library was all about.

'What is this all about?' murmured the on-looking crowd.

'I don't know.'

'It's some sort of hippy van, isn't it?'

'I think they must have taken a wrong turn on the way to Stonehenge.'

The crowd had formed around the van almost as soon as Ted and Israel and Israel's mother had arrived and parked, with people pressing in close to get a look at the extraordinary paintwork, and to sneak a look inside.

Ted and Israel's mother were sitting like sentinels, or like Odysseus and Penelope, on the steps of the van waiting for Israel, who had been deputed-unwillingly, and unfairly and as usual-to go and find coffee and tea and to fill in the necessary registration forms.