'Thursday Next' (№3) - The Well of Lost Plots

I closed my eyes for a moment and fell fast asleep without the nagging fear of Aornis, and it was nearly ten when I awoke. But I didn't wake naturally — Pickwick was tugging at the corner of my dress.

'Not now, Pickers,' I mumbled sleepily, trying to turn over and nearly impaling myself on a knitting needle. She carried on tugging until I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stretched noisily. She seemed insistent so I followed her upstairs to my bedroom. Sitting on the bed and surrounded by broken eggshell was something that I could only describe as a ball of a fluff with two eyes and a beak.

'Plock-plock,' said Pickwick.

'You're right,' I told her, 'she's very beautiful. Congratulations.'

The small dodo blinked at us both, opened its beak wide and said, in a shrill voice:

'Plunk!'

Pickwick started and looked at me anxiously.

'Well!' I told her. 'A rebellious teenager already?'

Pickwick nudged the chick with her beak and it plunked indignantly before settling down.

I thought for a moment and said: 'You aren't going to feed her doing that disgusting regurgitation seabird thing, are you?'

The door burst open downstairs.

'Thursday!' yelled Randolph anxiously. 'Are you in here?'

'I'm here,' I shouted, leaving Pickwick with her offspring and coming downstairs to find a highly agitated Randolph, pacing up and down the living room.

'What's up?'

'It's Lola.'

'Some unsuitable young man again? Really, Randolph, you've got to learn not to be so jealous—'

'No,' he said quickly, 'it's not that. Girls Make all the Moves didn't find a publisher and the author burnt the only manuscript in a drunken rage! That's why she wasn't at the awards last night!'

I started. If a book had been destroyed in the Outland then all the characters and situations would be up for salvage—

'Yes,' said Randolph, reading my thoughts, 'they're going to auction off Lola!'

I quickly changed out of my dress and we arrived as the sale was winding up. Most of the descriptive scenes had already gone, the one-liners packaged and sold as a single lot, and all the cars and most of the wardrobe and furniture disposed of. I pushed through to the front of the crowd and found Lola looking very dejected sitting on her suitcase.

'Lola!' said Randolph, as they hugged. 'I brought Thursday to help you!'

She jumped up and smiled but it was a despairing half-smile at best and it spoke volumes.

'Come on,' I said, grabbing her by the hand, 'we're out of here.'

'Not so fast!' said a tall man in an immaculate suit. 'No goods are to be removed until paid for!'

'She's with me,' I told him as several hulking great bouncers appeared from nowhere.

'No she's not. She's lot ninety-seven. You can bid if you want to.'

'I'm Thursday Next, the Bellman-elect,' I told him, 'and Lola is with me.'

'I know who you are and you did good, but I have a business to run. I haven't done anything wrong. You can take the Generic home with you in ten minutes — after you have won the bidding.'

I glared at him.

'I'm going to close down this foul trade,' I told him, 'and enjoy it every step of the way!'

'Really?' replied the man. 'I'm quaking in my boots. Now are you going to bid or do I withdraw the lot and put it up for private tender?'

'She's not an it,' snarled Randolph angrily, 'she's a Lola — and I love her!'

'You're breaking my heart. Bid or bugger off, the choice is yours.'

Randolph made to plant a punch on the dealer's chin but he was caught by one of the bouncers and held tightly.

'Control your Generic or I'll throw you both out! Get it?'

Randolph nodded and he was released. We stood together at the front watching Lola, who was weeping silently into her handkerchief.

'Gentlemen. Lot ninety-seven. Fine female B-4 Generic, ident: TSI-1404912-C. Attractive and personable. An opportunity to secure this sort of highly entertaining and pneumatic young lady does not come often. Her high appetite for sexual congress, slight dopiness and winsome innocence combined with indefatigable energy make her especially suitable for "racy" novels. What am I bid?'

It was bad. Very bad. I turned to Randolph.

'Do you have any money?'

'About a tenner.'

The bidding had already reached a thousand. I didn't have a tenth of that either here or back home — nor anything to sell to raise such a sum. The bidding rose higher, and Lola grew more depressed. For the amount that was being bid, she was probably in for a series of books — and the movie rights. I shuddered.

'With you, sir, at six thousand!' announced the auctioneer as the bidding bounced backwards and forwards between two well-known dealers. 'Any more bids?'

'Seven thousand!'

'Eight!'

'Nine!'

'I can't watch,' said Randolph, tears streaming down his face. He turned and left as Lola stared after him as he pushed his way to the back.

'Any more bids?' asked the auctioneer. 'With you, sir, at nine thousand … going once … going twice …'

'I BID ONE ORIGINAL IDEA!' I shouted, digging in my bag for the small nugget of originality Miss Havisham had given me and marching up to the auctioneer's table. There was a deathly hush as I held the glowing fragment aloft, and placed it on his desk with a flourish.

'A nugget of originality for a trollop like that?' hissed a man at the front. 'The Bellman-elect's got a screw loose.'

'Lola is that important to me,' I said sombrely. Miss Havisham had told me to use the nugget wisely — I think I did.

'Is it enough?'

'It's enough,' said the vendor, picking up the nugget and staring at it avariciously through an eyeglass. 'This lot is withdrawn from the sale. Miss Next, you are the proud owner of a Generic.'

Lola nearly wet herself, poor girl, and she hugged me tightly during the five minutes it took to complete the paperwork.

We found Randolph sitting on a mooring bollard down by the docks, staring off into the Text Sea with a sad and vacant look in his eyes. Lola leaned down and whispered in his ear.

Randolph jumped and turned round, flung his arms around her and cried for joy.

'Yes,' he said, 'yes, I did mean it! Every bit of it!'

'Come on, lovebirds,' I told them, 'I think it's time to leave this cattle market.'

We walked back to Caversham Heights, Randolph and Lola holding hands, making plans to start a home for Generics who had fallen on hard times, and trying to think up ways to raise funding. Neither of them had the resources to undertake such a project, but it got me thinking.

The following week, soon after I was inaugurated as the Bellman, I gave my proposal to the Council of Genres — Caversham Heights should be bought by the Council and used as a sanctuary for characters who needed a break from the sometimes arduous and repetitive course that fictional people are forced to tread. A sort of 'Textual Butlins' but without the redcoats. To my delight the Council approved the measure, as it had the added bonus of a solution to the nursery rhyme problem. Jack Spratt was overjoyed at the news and didn't seem in the least put out by the massive changes that would be necessary in order to embrace the visitors.

'The drug plot is out, I'm afraid,' I told him as we discussed it over lunch a few days later.

'What the hell,' he exclaimed. 'I was never in love with it anyway. Do we have a replacement boxer?'

'The boxing plot is out too.'

'Ah. How about the money-laundering sub-plot where I discover the mayor has been taking kickbacks? That's still in, yes?'

'Not … as such,' I said slowly.

'It's gone too?' he asked. 'Do we even have a murder?'

'That we have,' I replied, passing him over the new outline I had been thrashing out with a freelance imaginator the previous day.

'Ah!' he said, scanning the words eagerly. ' "It's Easter in Reading — a bad time for eggs — and Humpty Dumpty is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town …" '

He flicked a few more pages.

'What about Dr Singh, Madeleine, Unidentified Police Officers 1 and 2 and all the others?'

'All still there. We've had to reassign a few parts but it should hold together. The only person who wouldn't move was Agatha Diesel — I think she might give you a few problems.'

'I can handle her,' replied Jack, flicking to the back of the outline to see how it all turned out. 'Looks good to me. What do the nurseries say about it?'

'I'm talking to them next.'

I left Jack with the outline and jumped to Norland Park, where I took the news to Hurnpty Dumpty; he and his army of pickets were still camped outside the doors of the house — they had been joined by characters from nursery stories, too.

'Ah!' said Humpty as I approached. 'The Bellman. The three witches were right after all.'

'They generally are,' I replied. 'I have a proposal for you.'

Humpty's eyes nearly popped out of his head when I explained what I had in mind.

'Sanctuary?' he asked.

'Of sorts," I told him. 'I'll need you to coordinate all the nurseries, who will find narrative a little bit alien after doing couplets for so long, so you'll be dead when the story opens.'

'Not … the wall thing?'

'I'm afraid so. What do you think?'

'Well,' said Humpty, reading the outline carefully and smiling. 'I'll take it to the membership but I think I can safely say that there is nothing here that we can find any great issue with. Pending a ballot, I think you've got yourself a deal.'

It took the C of G almost a year to dismantle Text Grand Central's UltraWord engines, and many more arrests followed, although sadly none in the Outland. Vernham Deane was released, and he and Mimi were awarded the 'Gold Star for Reading' as well as the plot realignment they had wanted for so many years. They married and quite unprecedented for a Farquitt baddy — lived happily ever after, something that caused a severe drop in sales for The Squire of High Potternews. Harris Tweed, Xavier Libris and twenty-four others at Text Grand Central were tried and found guilty of crimes against the BookWorld'. Harris Tweed was expelled permanently from fiction and returned to Swindon. Heep, Orlick and Legree were all sent back to their books and the rest were reduced to text.

It was the first day of the influx of nursery rhyme refugees and Lola and I were sitting on a park bench in Caversham Heights soon to be renamed Nursery Crime. We were watching Humpty Dumpty welcome the long line of guests as Randolph allocated parts. Everyone was very happy with the arrangements but I wasn't overwhelmed with joy myself. I still missed Landen and I was reminded of this every time I tried — and failed — to get my old trousers to button up over my rapidly expanding waistline.

'What are you thinking about?'

'Landen.'

'Oh,' said Lola, staring at me with her big brown eyes, 'you will get him back, I am sure of it — please don't be downhearted!'

I patted her hand and thanked her for her kind words.

'I never did say thank you for what you did,' she said slowly. 'I missed Randolph more than anything. If only he'd told me what he felt I would have stayed in Heights or sought a dual placement — even as a C-grade.'

'Men are like that,' I told her. 'I'm just glad you're both happy.'

'I'll miss being the main protagonist,' she said wistfully. Girls Make all the Moves was a good role but in a crap book — do you think I'll ever be the heroine again?'

'Well, Lola,' I told her, 'some would say that the hero of any story is the one who changes the most. If we take the moment when we first met as the beginning of the story and right now as the end, I think that makes you and Randolph the heroes by a long chalk.'

'It does, doesn't it?'

She smiled and we sat in silence for a moment.

'Thursday?'

'Yes?'

'So who did kill Godot?'

Credits

Falstaff, the three witches, Banquo's ghost, Beatrice and Benedict all kindly supplied by Shakespeare (William) Inc.

Our thanks to Mr Heathcliff for graciously agreeing to appear in this novel.

Uriah Heep kindly loaned by Wickfield & Heep, attorneys-at-law.

My thanks to ScarletBea, Yan, Ben, Carla, Jon, Magda, AllAmericanCutie and Dave at the Fforde Fforum for their nominations in the 'Bookie' awards.

Hedge-pig research, Anna Karenina footnoterphone gossip and 'Dodo egg' sarcasm furnished by Mari Roberts.

Solomon's Judgements В© The Council of Genres, 1986.

'Chocolate orange' joke used with kind permission of John Birmingham.

UltraWord — the Ultimate Reading Experience™ remains a trademark of Text Grand Central.

'Best Dead Person in Fiction' Bookie category courtesy of C.J. Avery.

'Fictionaut' wordsmithed by Jon Brierley.

Evilness consultant: Ernst Blofeld.

Mrs Bradshaw's gowns by Coco Chanel.

Aornis little sister idea courtesy of Rosie Fforde.

Our grateful thanks to the Great Panjandrum for help and guidance in the making of this novel.

No unicorns were written expressly for this book and no animals or Yahoos (other than grammasites) were harmed in its construction.

This novel was written in BOOK V8.3 and was sequenced using a Mk XXIV ImaginoTransference device. Peggy Malone was the imagmator. Plot Devices and Inciting Incidents supplied by Billy Budd's Bargain Basement and the WOLP Plot Salvage and Recycling Corporation. Generics supplied and trained by St Tabularasa's.

Holes were filled by apprentices at the Holesmiths' Guild, and echolocation and grammatisation was undertaken by Outland contractors at Hodder and Penguin.

The 'Galactic Cleansing" policy undertaken by Emperor Zhark is a personal vision of the emperor's, and its inclusion in this work does not constitute tacit approval by the author or the publisher for any such projects, howsoever undertaken. Warning: The author may have eaten nuts while writing this book.

Made wholly on location within the Well of Lost Plots.

A Fforde/Hodder/Penguin production. All rights reserved.

notes

1

'… This is WOLP-12 on the Well of Lost Plots' own footnoterphone station, transmitting live on the hour every hour to keep you up to date with news in the Fiction Factory …'

2

'… After the headlines you can hear our weekly documentary show WellSpeak where today we will discuss hiding exposition; following that there will be a WellNews special on the launch of the new Book Operating system. Ultra Word™, featuring a live studio debate with WordMaster Xavier Libris of Text Grand Central …'

3

'… here are the main points of the news. Prices of semi-colons, plot devices, prologues and inciting incidents continued to fall yesterday, lopping twenty-eight points off the TomJones Index. The Council of Genres has announced the nominations for the 923rd annual BookWorld Awards; Heathcliff is once again to head the 'Most Troubled Romantic Lead' category for the seventy-seventh year running …'

4

'… A new epic poem is to be constructed for the first time in eighty-seven years. Title and subject to be announced, but pundits reckon that it's a pointless exercise: skills have all but died out. Next week will also see the launch of a new shopping chain offering off-the-peg narrative requisites. It will be called Prêt-à-Ecrire …'

5

"… Visit Aaron's Assorted Alliteration Annexe, the superior sellers of stressed syllable or similar-sounding speech sequences since the sixteenth century. Stop soon and see us situated on floor sixteen, shelf six seventy-six …'

6

'… Visit Bill's Dictionorium for every word you'll ever need! From Be to Antidisestablishmentarianism, we have words to suit all your plotting needs. Floor twelve, shelf seventy-eight …'

7

'… Soon to be launched: UltraWord™— The Ultimate Reading Experience. For FREE information on the very latest Book Operating System and how its new and improved features will enhance your new book, call Text Grand Central on:freefootnoterphone/ultraword …'

8

'… Honest John's Pre-featured Character salesroom for all your character needs! Honest John has Generics grade A-6 to D-Q. Top bargains this week: Mrs Danvers, choice of three, unused. +++Lady of Shallott cloned for unfinished remake; healthy A-6 in good condition. + + + Group of unruly C-5S suitable for any crowd scene — call for details. Listen to our full listings by polling on footnoterphone/honestjohn …'

9

'Vera Tushkevitch! Can you hear me?'

'Yes, I'm here. No need to shout. You will deafen me, I'm sure!'

'I don't trust these strange footnoterphone devices. I'm sure I'll catch some nasty proletarian disease. Where did we last meet? At that party with the Schuetzburgs? The one where they served apples Benedict?'

'No, Sofya, my husband and I were not invited. He voted against Count Schuetzburg at the last election.'

'Then it must have been at Bolshaia Marskaia with Princess Betsy. Whatever did happen to that Karenin girl, have you any idea?'

'Anna? Yes indeed — but you must not tell a soul! Alexei Vronsky was smitten by her from the moment he saw her at the station.'

'The station? Which station?'

'St Petersburg; you remember when a guard fell beneath the train and was crushed?'

'Anna and Vronsky met there? How terribly unsophisticated!'

'There is more, my dear Vera. Wait — the doorbell! I must leave you; not a word to anyone and I will call again soon!'

10

'… Special on at St Tabularasa's Generic College — superior-quality Blocking Characters available now for instant location to your novel. From forbidding fathers to "by the book" superior police officers, our high-quality Blockers will guarantee conflict from the simplest protagonist! Call freefootnoterphone/St Tabularasa's for more details …'

11

'Vera? Is that you? What a day! All noise and rain. Do please carry on about Anna!'

'Well. Anna danced with Vronsky — at the ball that night; he became her shadow and very much more!'

'No! — Alexei Vronsky and Anna — an affair! What about her husband? Surely he found out?'

'Eventually, yes. I think Anna told him, but not until she was with child, Vronsky's child. There was to be no hiding that.'

'What did he say?'

'Believe it or not, he forgave them both! Insisted that they remain married and attempted to continue as if nothing had happened.'

'I always did think that man was a fool. What happened next?'

'Vronsky shot himself, claiming he could not bear to be apart from her. Melodramatic is not the word for it!'

'It reads like a cheap novelette! Did he die?'

'No; merely wounded. It gets worse. Karenin realised that to save Anna he himself must take the disgrace and admit that he had been unfaithful so that Anna was not ruined and could marry Vronsky.'

'So Karenin let them go? He didn't ban her from ever seeing her lover again? Didn't horse-whip either of them or sell his story to The Mole? It strikes me Karenin himself may have had some totty on the side, too. Wait! My husband calls me — stay tuned. Fare-well for now, my dear Vera!'

12

'Miss Next, are you there?'

13

'Good. Meet me at the Junsfiction office as soon as possible. It's about Perkins — the minotaur has escaped.'

14

'Not really. You see, Perkins isn't responding to footnoterphone communications — we think something might have happened to him.'

15

'Sofya! Where were you? I have been calling for ever! Tell me, the Karenins — they divorced?'

'No! Maybe if they had been divorced, events would have been different. I remember her attending the theatre in Petersburg. What a disaster!'

'Why? Whatever happened? Did she make a fool of herself?'

'Yes, by appearing in the first place! How could she? Madame Kartasova, who was in the adjacent box with that fat bald husband of hers, made a scene: she said something aloud, something insulting, and left the theatre. We all saw it happen. Anna tried to ignore everything but she must have known …'

'Why didn't they push for a divorce, the foolish pair!'

'Vronsky wanted her to but she kept putting it off. They moved to Moscow, but she was never happy. Vronsky spent his time involved in politics and she was convinced that he was with other women. A jealous, fallen disgrace of a woman she was. Then, at Znamanka station she could take it no longer — she flung herself upon the rails and was crushed by the 20.02 to Obiralovka!'

'No!'

'Yes, but don't tell a soul — it is a secret between you and me! Come — for dinner on Tuesday — we are having turnip à l’orange. I have a simply adorable new cook. Adieu, my good friend, adieu!'

16

'Thursday, are you there?'

17

'It's the Cheshire Cat. Do you know how to play the piano?'

18

'Oh, no reason; I just thought I'd ask to be on the safe side.'

19

'Why, the piano, of course!'

20

'You've got a hearing for your trial — remember the fiction infraction? Well, there have been some delays with Max de Winter's appeal so they've applied for a continuancel — can you come this afternoon if you're not too busy, say three o'clock?'

21

'Alice in Wonderland, just after the "Alice's Evidence" chapter. The Gryphon will be representing you. Don't forgetl — three o'clock.'

22

'… Dear Friend, I am a fifty-year-old lady from the Republic of Gondal. I got your details from the Council of Genres and decided to contact you to see if you could help. My husband Reginald Jackson was the rebel leader in Gondal in Turmoil. (RRP: £4.99) and just before he was assassinated he gave me 12 million dollars and I departed the book to be a refugee in The Well of Lost Plots with my two children. On arrival, I decided to deposit this money in a security company for safekeeping. Right now, I am seeking assistance from you so that I can transfer the funds from the Well to your Outland account. If this offer meets your approval, you could reach me on my footnoterphone. Thank you, Mrs R. Jackson …'

23

The Jurisfiction office vanished and was replaced by a large and shiny underground tube. It was big enough to stand up in but even so I had to keep pressed against the wall as a constant stream of words flashed past in both directions. Above us another pipe was leading upwards, and every now and then a short stream of words was diverted into this small conduit.

'Where are we?' I asked, my voice echoing about the steel walls.

'Somewhere quite safe,' replied Deane. 'They'll be wondering where you went.'

'We're in the Outland — I mean, home?'

Deane laughed.

'No, silly — we're in the footnoterphone conduits.'

I looked at the stream of messages again.

'We are?'

'Sure.'

'Come on, let me show you something.'

We walked along the pipe until it opened out into a bigger room — a hub where messages went from one genre to the next. The exits closest to me were marked 'Crime', 'Romance', 'Thriller' and 'Comedy', but there were plenty more, all routeing the footnoterphone messages towards some sub-genre or other.

'It's incredible!' I breathed.

'Oh, this is just a small hub,' replied Deane, 'you should see the bigger ones. It all works on the ISBN number system, you know — and the best thing about it is that neither Text Grand Central nor the Council of Genres knows that you can get down here. It's sanctuary, Thursday. Sanctuary away from the prying eyes of Jurisfiction and the rigidity of the narrative.'

I caught his eye.

'Tweed thinks you killed Perkins, Snell and that serving girl.'

He stopped walking and sighed.

'Tweed is working with Text Grand Central to make sure Ultra Wordв„ў is launched without any trouble. He knew I didn't like it. He offered me a plot realignment in The Squire of High Potternews to "garner my support".'

'He tried to buy you?'

'When I refused he threatened to kill me — that's why we escaped.'

'We?'

'Of course. The maidservant that I ravage in chapter eight and then cruelly cast into the night. She dies of tuberculosis and I drink myself to death. Do you think we could allow that?'

'But isn't that what happens in most Farquitt novels?' I asked. 'Maidservant ravaged by cruel squire?'

'You don't understand, Thursday. Mimi and I are in love.'

'Ah!' I replied slowly, thinking of Landen. 'That can change things.'

'Come,' said Deane, beckoning me through the hub and dodging the footnoterphone messages, 'there is a settlement in a disused branch line. After Woolf wrote To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway the Council of Genres thought Stream of Consciousness would be the next Detective — they built a large hub to support the rack-loads of novels that never appeared.'

We turned into a large tunnel about the size of the underground back in Swindon, and the messages whizzed back and forth, almost filling the tube to capacity.

After a few hundred yards we came to another hub and took the least used — barely two or three messages a minute buzzed languidly past, and these seemed to be lost; they moved around vaguely for a moment and then evaporated. The sides of the tube were less shiny, rubbish had collected at the bottom and water leaked in from the roof. Every now and then we passed small unused offshoots, built to support books that were planned but never written.

'Why did you come for me, Vern?'

'Because I don't believe you would kill Miss Havisham, and, like it or not, despite my rejection of Farquitt, I love stories as much as anyone. UltraWordв„ў is flawed. Havisham, Perkins, Snell and I were all trying to figure out some sort of a proof when Perkins was eaten.'

The tunnel opened out into a large chamber where a settlement of sorts had been built from rubbish and scrap wood — items that could be removed from the BookWorld without anyone noticing. The buildings were little more than tents with the orange flicker of oil lamps from within.

'Vern!' came a voice, and a dark-haired young woman waved at him from the nearest tent. She was heavily pregnant and Deane rushed up to hug her affectionately. I watched them with a certain degree of jealousy. I noticed I had placed my hand on my own turn quite subconsciously. I sighed and pushed my thoughts to the back of my mind.

'Mimi, this is Thursday,' said Vern. I shook her hand and she led us into their tent, offering me a small wooden box to sit on that I noticed had once been used to held past tenses.

'We scrounge a lot from the Well,' explained Deane, making some coffee. 'It's pretty unregulated down there and we can pinch almost anything.'

'So what's wrong with UltraWordв„ў?' I asked him, my curiosity overcoming me.

'Flawed by the need for control,' he said slowly. 'Think the BookWorld is over-regulated? Believe me, it's an anarchist's dreamworld compared to the future seen by TGC!'

And so, over the next hour, he proceeded to tell me exactly what he had discovered. The problem was, it might very well be seen as hearsay. We needed something more than possibilities and allegations, we needed proof.

'Proof,' said Deane, 'yes, that was always the problem. I don't have any. Perkins died trying to protect the only proof he said we have. I'll go and fetch it.'

He returned with a birdcage containing a skylark and set it on the table.

I looked at the bird and the bird looked back.

'This is the proof?'

'So Perkins said.'

'Do you have any idea what he meant?'

'None at all.' He sighed. 'He was minotaur shit long before he tried to explain it to any of us.'

I leaned forward for a closer look and smelt — cantaloupes.

'It's UltraWordв„ў,' I breathed.

'It is?' echoed Deane in surprise. 'How can you tell?'

'It's an Outlander thing. Do you still have your UltraWordв„ў copy of The Little Prince?'

He handed me the slim volume.

'What's on your mind?'