A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (82 page)

“I've read books like that,” I confessed.

He turned the page and I recognized the grammasites that had swarmed through the Well earlier.

“Verbisoid,” he said with a sigh, “to be destroyed without mercy. Once the Verbisoid extracts the verb from a sentence, it generally collapses; do that once too often and the whole narrative falls apart like a bread roll in a rainstorm.”

“Why do they wear waistcoats and stripy socks?”

“To keep warm, I should imagine.”

“Ah. What about the mispeling vyrus?”

“Speltificarious molesworthian,”
murmured Perkins, moving to where a pile of dictionaries were stacked up around a small glass jar. He picked out the container and showed it to me. A thin purple haze seemed to wisp around inside; it reminded me of one of Spike's SEBs.

“This is the larst of the vyrus,” explained Perkins. “We had to distroy the wrist. Wotch this.”

He picked up a letter opener and delicately brought it towards the vyrus. As I watched, the opener started to twist and change shape until it looked more like a miniature sheaf of papers—an operetta, complete with libretto and score. I think it was
The Pirates of Penzance
, but I couldn't be sure.

“The vyrus works on a subtextual level and disstorts the
meaning
of a wurd,” explained Perkins, removing the operetta, which morphed back to its previous state. “The mispeling arises as a consekwence of this.”

He replaced the jar back in the dictosafe.

“So the mispeling itself is really only a symptom of sense distortion?”

“Exactly so. The vyrus was rampant before Agent Johnson's
Dictionary
in 1744,” added Perkins. “
Lavinia-Webster
and the
Oxford English Dictionary
keep it all in check, but we have to be careful. We used to contain any outbreak and off-load it in the
Molesworth
series, where no one ever notices. These days we destroy any new vyrus with a battery of dictionaries we keep on the seventeenth floor of the Great Library. But we can't be too careful.
Every
mispeling you come across has to be reported to the Cat on a form S-12.”

There was the raucous blast of a car horn from outside.

“Time's up!” Perkins smiled. “That will be Miss Havisham.”

Miss Havisham was not on her own. She was sitting in a vast automobile, the bonnet of which stretched ten feet in front of her. The large-spoked and unguarded wheels carried tires that looked woefully skinny and inadequate; eight huge exhaust pipes sprouted from either side of the bonnet, joined into one and stretched the length of the body. The tail of the car was pointed, like a boat, and just forward of the rear wheels two huge drive sprockets carried the power to the rear axle on large chains. It was a fearsome beast. It was the twenty-seven-liter Higham Special.

The wealthy son of a Polish count and an American mother, Louis Zborowski lived at Higham Place near Canterbury, where he built three aero-engined cars, all called Chitty Bang Bang. But there was a fourth: the Higham Special, a car he and Clive Gallop had engineered by squeezing a twenty-seven-liter aero-engine into a Rubery Owen chassis and mating it with a Benz gearbox. At the time of Zborowski's death at Monza behind the wheel of a Mercedes, the Special had been lapping Brooklands at 116 mph—but her potential was as yet unproved. After a brief stint with a lady owner whose identity has not been revealed, the Special was sold to Parry Thomas, who with careful modifications of his own pushed the land speed record up to 170.624 mph at Pendine sands, south Wales, in 1926.

THE VERY REVEREND MR
.
TOREDLYNE
,

The Land Speed Record

H
AS SHE BEEN
boring you, Mr. Perkins?” called out Havisham.

“Not at all,” replied Perkins, giving me a wink, “she has been a most attentive student.”

“Humph,” muttered Havisham. “Hope springs eternal. Get in, girl, we're off!”

I paused. I had been driven by Miss Havisham once before, and that was in a car that I thought relatively safe. This beast of an automobile looked as though it could kill you twice before even reaching second gear.

“What are you waiting for, girl?” said Havisham impatiently.
“If I let the Special idle any longer, we'll coke up the plugs. Besides, I'll need all the fuel to do the run.”

“The run?”

“Don't worry!” shouted Miss Havisham as she revved the engine. The car lurched sideways with the torque, and a throaty growl filled the air. “You won't be aboard when I do—you're needed for other duties.”

I took a deep breath and climbed into the small two-seater body. It looked newly converted and was little more than a racing car with a few frills tacked on to make it roadworthy. Miss Havisham depressed the clutch and wrestled with the gearshift for a moment. The large sprockets took up the power with a slight tug; it felt like a Thoroughbred racehorse that had just got the scent of a steeplechase.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Home!” answered Miss Havisham as she moved the hand throttle. The car leaped forward across the grassy courtyard and gathered speed.

“To
Great Expectations
?” I asked as Miss Havisham steered in a broad circuit, fiddling with the levers in the center of the massive steering wheel.

“Not my home,” she retorted, “yours!”

With another deep growl and a lurch the car accelerated rapidly forward—but to where I was not sure. In front of us lay the broken drawbridge and stout stone walls of the castle.

“Fear not!” yelled Havisham above the roar of the engine. “I'll read us into the Outland as easy as blinking!”

We gathered speed. I expected us to jump straightaway, but we didn't. We carried on towards the heavy castle wall at a speed not wholly compatible with survival.

“Miss Havisham?” I asked, my voice tinged with fear.

“I'm just trying to think of the best words to get us there, girl!” she replied cheerfully.

“Stop!” I yelled as the point of no return came and went in a flash.

“Let me see . . . ,” muttered Havisham, thinking hard, the accelerator still wide open.

I covered my eyes. The car was running too fast to jump out and a collision seemed inevitable. I grasped the side of the car's body and tensed as Miss Havisham took herself, me and two tons of automobile through the barriers of fiction and into the real world.
My
world.

I opened my eyes again. Miss Havisham was studying a road map as the Higham Special swerved down the middle of the road. I grabbed the steering wheel as a milk-float swerved into the hedge.

“I won't use the M4 in case the C of G get wind of it,” she said, looking around. “We'll use the A419—are we anywhere close?”

I recognized where we were instantly. Just north of Swindon outside a small town called Highworth.

“Continue round the roundabout and up the hill into the town,” I told her, adding, “but it's
not
your right of way, remember.”

It was too late. To Miss Havisham, her way
was
the right way. The first car braked in time but the one behind it was not so lucky—it drove into the rear of the first with a crunch. I held on tightly as Miss Havisham accelerated rapidly away up the hill into Highworth. I was pressed into my seat, and for a single moment, perched above two tons of bellowing machinery, I suddenly realized why Havisham liked this sort of thing—it was, in a word,
exhilarating
.

“I've only borrowed the Special from the count,” she explained. “Parry Thomas will take delivery of it next week and aim to lift the speed record for himself. I've been working on a new mix of fuels; the A419 is straight and smooth—I should be able to do at least a ton-eighty on
that
.”

“Turn right onto the B4019 at the Jesmond,” I told her, “
after
the lights turn to greeeeeeen.”

The truck missed us by about six inches.

“What's that?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, Thursday, you should really loosen up and learn to enjoy life more—you can be such an old stick-in-the-mud.”

I lapsed into silence.

“And don't sulk,” added Miss Havisham. “If there's something I can't abide, it's a sulky apprentice.”

We bowled down the road, nearly losing it on an S-bend, until miraculously we reached the main Swindon-Cirencester road. It was a no right turn but we did anyway, to a chorus of screeching tires and angry car horns. Havisham accelerated off, and we had just approached the top of the hill when we came across a large
Diversion
sign blocking the road. Havisham thumped the steering wheel angrily.

“I don't believe it!” she bellowed.

“Road closed?” I queried, trying to hide my relief. “Good—I mean, good-
ness
gracious, what a shame—another time, eh?”

Havisham clunked the Special into first gear and we moved off round the sign and motored down the hill.

“It's
him,
I can sense it!” she growled. “Trying to steal the speed record from under my very nose!”

“Who?”

As if in answer, another racing car shot past us with a loud
poop poop!

“Him,”
muttered Havisham as we pulled off the road next to a speed camera. “A driver so bad he is a menace to himself and every sentient being on the highways.”

He must have been truly frightful for Havisham to notice. A few minutes later the other car returned and pulled up alongside.

“What ho, Havisham!” said the driver, taking the goggles from his bulging eyes and grinning broadly. “Still using Count ‘Snail' Zborowski's old slowpoke Special, eh?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Toad,” said Havisham. “Does the Bellman know you're in the Outland?”

“Of course not!” yelled Mr. Toad, laughing. “And you're not going to tell him, old girl, because you're not meant to be here either!”

Havisham was silent and looked ahead, trying to ignore him.

“Is that a Liberty aero-engine under there?” asked Mr. Toad, pointing at the Special's bonnet, which trembled and shook as the vast engine idled roughly to itself.

“Perhaps,” replied Havisham.

“Ha!” replied Toad with an infectious smile. “I had a Rolls-Royce Merlin shoehorned into this old banger!”

I watched Miss Havisham with interest. She stared ahead but her eye twitched slightly when Mr. Toad revved his car's engine. In the end, she could resist it no more and her curiosity got the better of her disdain.

“How does it go?” she asked, eyes gleaming.

“Like a rocket!” replied Mr. Toad, jumping up and down in his excitement. “Over a thousand horses to the back axle—makes your Higham Special look like a motor-mower!”

“We'll see about
that,
” replied Havisham, narrowing her eyes. “Usual place, usual time, usual bet?”

“You're on!” Mr. Toad revved his car, pulled down his goggles and vanished in a cloud of rubber smoke. The
poop poop
of his horn lingered on as an echo some seconds after he had gone.

“Slimy reptile,” muttered Havisham.

“Strictly speaking, he's neither,” I retorted. “More like a dry-skinned, land-based amphibian.”

It felt safe to be impertinent because I knew she wasn't listening.

“He's caused more accidents than you've had hot dinners.”

“And you're going to race him?” I asked slightly nervously.

“And beat him, too, what's more.” She handed me a pair of bolt cutters.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Open up the speed camera and get the film out once I've done my run.”

She donned a pair of goggles and was gone in a howl of engine noise and screeching of tires. I looked nervously around as she and the car hurtled off into the distance, the roar of the engine fading into a hum, occasionally punctuated by muffled cracks
from the exhaust. I looked around. The sun was out and I could see at least three airships droning across the sky; I wondered what was going on at SpecOps. I had written a note to Victor telling him I had to be away for a year or more and tendered my resignation. Suddenly I was shaken from my daydream by something else. Something dark and just out of sight. Something I should have done or something I'd forgotten. I shivered and then it clicked. Last night. Gran. Aornis's mindworm. What had she been unraveling in my mind? I sighed as the pieces slowly started to merge together in my head. Gran had told me to run the facts over and over to renew the familiar memories that Aornis was trying to delete. But how do you start trying to find out what it is you've forgotten? I concentrated. . . . Landen. I hadn't thought about him all day and that was unusual. I could remember where we met and what had happened to him—no problem there. Anything else? His full name. Damn and blast! Landen Parke-
something.
Did it begin with a
B
? I couldn't remember. I sighed and placed my hand on where I imagined our baby to be, now the size of a half crown. I remembered enough to know I loved him, and I missed him dreadfully—which was a good sign, I supposed. I thought of Lavoisier's perfidy and the Schitt brothers and started to feel rage building inside me. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. There was a phone box by the side of the road, and on impulse I called my mother.

“Hi, Mum, it's Thursday.”

“Thursday!” she screamed excitedly. “Hang on—the stove's on fire.”

“The stove?”

“Well, the kitchen really—wait a mo!”

There was a crashing noise and she came back on the line a few seconds later.

“Out now. Darling! Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, Mum.”

“And the baby?”

“Fine, too. How are things with you?”

“Frightful! Goliath and SpecOps have been camping outside
since the moment you left, and Emma Hamilton is living in the spare room and eats like a horse.”

There was an angry growl and a loud whooshing noise as Havisham swept past in little more than a blur. Two flashes from the speed camera went off in quick succession, and there were several more loud bangs as Havisham rolled off the throttle.

“What was that noise?” asked my mother.

“You'd never believe me if I told you. My, er,
husband
hasn't been round looking for me, has he?”

“I'm afraid not, sweetheart,” she said in her most understanding voice. She knew about Landen and understood better than most—her own husband, my father, had been eradicated himself seventeen years previously. “Why don't you come round and talk. The Eradications Anonymous meeting is at eight this evening; you'll be among friends there.”

“I don't think so, Mum.”

“Are you eating regularly?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“I managed to get DH-82 to do a few tricks.”

DH-82 was her rescue thylacine. Training a usually unbelievably torpid thylacine to do anything except eat or sleep on command was almost front-page news.

“That's good. Listen, I just called to say I missed you and not to worry about me—”

“I'm going to try another run!” shouted Miss Havisham, who had drawn up. I waved to her and she drove off.

“Are you keeping Pickwick's egg warm?”

I told Mum that this was Pickwick's job, that I would call again and hung up. I thought of ringing Bowden but decided on the face of it that this was probably not a good idea. Mum's phone was bound to have been tapped and I had given them enough already. I walked back to the road and watched as a small gray dot grew larger and larger until it swept past with a strident bellow. The speed camera flashed again and a belch of flame erupted from the exhaust pipe. It took Miss Havisham about a mile to slow down, so I sat on a wall and waited patiently for her to
return. A small four-seater airship had appeared no more than half a mile away. It appeared to be a SpecOps traffic patrol and I couldn't risk them finding out who I was. I looked urgently towards where Havisham was motoring slowly back to me.

“Come on,” I muttered under my breath, “put some speed on, for goodness' sake.”

Havisham pulled up and shook her head sadly. “Mixture's too rich. Take the film out of the speed camera, will you?”

I pointed out the airship heading our way. It was approaching quite fast—for an airship.

Miss Havisham looked over at it, grunted and jumped down to open the huge bonnet and peer inside. I cut off the padlock, pulled the speed camera down and rewound the film as quickly as I could.

“Halt!” barked the PA system on the airship when it was within a few hundred yards. “You are both under arrest. Wait by your vehicle.”

“We've got to go,” I said, this time more urgently.