Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘When do we start?’ asked Schitt, who seemed to be growing stronger by the second.

‘It depends,’ said Schitt-Hawse, looking at me, ‘on Miss Next.’

‘I would sooner die than be a party to your foul plans,’ I said angrily.

‘Oh!’ said Schitt-Hawse. ‘Hadn’t you heard? As far as the outside world is concerned you’re dead already! Did you think you could see all that was going on here and live to tell the tale?’

I tried to think of some way to escape but there was nothing to hand—no weapon, no book, nothing.

‘I really haven’t decided,’ continued Schitt-Hawse in a patronising tone, ‘whether you fell down a lift shaft or blundered into some machinery. Do you have any preferences?’

And he laughed a short and very cruel laugh. I said nothing. There didn’t seem to be anything I could say.

‘I’m afraid, my girl,’ said Schitt-Hawse as they started to file out through the vault door, taking my travel book with them, ‘that you are a guest of the Corporation for the rest of your natural life. But it won’t all be bad. We will be willing to reactualise your husband. You won’t actually meet him again, of course, but he will be alive—so long as you co-operate, and you will, you know.’

I glared at the two Schitts.

‘I will never help you, as long as I have breath in my lungs.’

Schitt-Hawse’s eyelid twitched.

‘Oh, you’ll help us, Next—if not for Landen then for your child. Yes, we know about that. We’ll leave you for now. And you needn’t bother looking for any books in here to pull your vanishing trick—we made quite sure there were none!’

He smiled again and stepped out of the vault. The door slammed shut with a reverberating boom that shook me to the core. I sat down on one of the chairs, put my head in my hands and cried tears of frustration, anger and loss.

The first thing I noticed about being locked in a vault twelve floors below ground at the Goliath R&D lab was not the isolation, but the silence . There was no hum of air-conditioning, no odd snatch of conversation heard through the door, nothing. I thought about Landen, about Miss Havisham, Joffy, Miles and then the baby. What, I wondered, did Schitt-Hawse have in store for him? I sighed, got up and walked around the vault. It was lit by harsh striplights and had a large mirror on the wall which I had to assume was some kind of watching gallery. There was a toilet and shower in a room behind, and a bedroll and a few toiletries that someone had left out for me. I spent twenty minutes searching in all the nooks and crannies of the room, hoping to find a discarded trashy novel or something that might effect me an escape. There was nothing. Not so much as a pencil shaving, let alone a pencil. I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to visualise the library, to remember the description in my travel book, and even recited aloud the opening passage of A Tale of Two Cities , something I had learned at school many years ago. I then tried every quote I could think of, every passage, every poem I had ever committed to memory from Ovid to De La Mare. When I ran out of those I switched to limericks—and ended up telling Bowden’s jokes out loud. Nothing.

Not so much as a flicker.

I unravelled the bedroll, lay on the floor and closed my eyes, hoping to remember Landen again and discuss the problem with him. It wasn’t to be. At that moment the ring that Miss Havisham had given me grew almost unbearably hot, there was a sort of fworpish noise and a figure was standing next to me. It was Miss Havisham, and she didn’t look terribly pleased.

‘You, young lady, are in a lot of trouble!’

‘Tell me about it.’

This wasn’t the sort of careless remark she liked to hear from me, and she certainly expected me to jump to my feet when she arrived, so she rapped me painfully on the knee with her stick.

‘Ow!’ I said, getting the message and rising. ‘Where did you spring from?’

‘Havishams come and go as they please,’ she replied imperiously. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t think you’d approve of me leaping into a book on my own—especially not Poe.’

‘I couldn’t care less about that ,’ remarked Miss Havisham haughtily. ‘What you do in your own time to cheap reprints is no concern of mine!’

‘Oh,’ I said, contemplating her stern features and trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

‘You should have said something. ’ she said, taking another pace towards me.

‘About the baby?’ I stammered.

‘No, idiot—about Cardenio !’

‘ Cardenio ?’

‘Yes, yes, Cardenio . Just how likely was it for a pristine copy of a missing play to just pop up out of the blue like that?’

‘You mean,’ I said, the penny finally dropping, ‘it’s a Great Library copy?’

‘Of course it’s a library copy—that fog-headed pantaloon Snell only just reported it. What’s that noise?’

There was a faint clank from the door as someone fiddled with the lock. Havisham’s arrival, it seemed, had been observed.

‘It’ll be Chalk and Cheese,’ I told her. ‘You’d better jump out of here.’

‘Absolutely not!’ replied Havisham. ‘We go together. You might be a complete and utter imbecile but you are my responsibility. Trouble is, fourteen feet of concrete is slightly daunting—I’m going to have to read us out. Quick, pass me your travel book!’

‘They took it from me.’

‘Never mind. Any book will do.’

‘They’ve removed everything from in here, Miss Havisham.’

She looked around.

‘How about a pamphlet?’

‘No.’

‘ Anything with text printed on it? Paper and pen?’

‘No.’

‘Then we might,’ exclaimed Havisham, ‘have a problem.’

The door opened and Schitt-Hawse entered; he was grinning fit to burst.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Lock up a book-jumper and another soon joins her!’

He took one look at Havisham’s old wedding dress and put two and two together.

‘Goodness! Is that… Miss Havisham?’

As if in answer, Havisham whipped out her small pistol and fired it in his direction. Schitt-Hawse gave a yelp and leaped back out through the door, which clanged shut.

‘Are you sure there is nothing to read in here?’ asked Havisham in a more urgent manner. ‘There must be something !’

‘I’ve told you—they’ve removed everything!’

Miss Havisham raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down.

‘Take off your trousers, girl—and don’t say “what?” in that impudent manner. Do as you’re told.’

So I did, and Havisham turned the garment over in her fingers as she searched for something.

‘There!’ she cried triumphantly as the door opened and a hissing gas canister was lobbed in. I followed her gaze but she had found only— the washing label . I must have looked incredulous for she said in an offended manner: ‘It’s enough for me!’ and then repeated out loud: ‘Wash inside out, wash and dry separately, wash inside out, wash and dry separately…’