Lost in a Good Book

an advert for the Gravitube that was pinned at eye level.

The objectionable lady and I stared at her, wondering who she was referring to. She looked at us both, flushed, and said:

‘No, no. Ten letters, three down Well decorated for prying. Meddlesome.’

‘Very good,’ muttered the lady with the crossword as she scribbled in the answer.

I glared at the well-heeled woman, who eyed me back malevolently.

‘Jab the Neanderthal again and I’ll arrest you for assault.’

‘I happen to know,’ announced the woman tartly, ‘that Neanderthals are legally classed as animals. You cannot assault a Neanderthal any more than you can a mouse!’

My temper began to rise—always a bad sign. I would probably end up doing something stupid.

‘Perhaps,’ I replied, ‘but I can arrest you for cruelty, bruising the peace and anything else I can think of.’

But the woman wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

‘My husband is a Justice of the Peace,’ she announced, as if it were a hidden trump. ‘I can make things very tricky for you. What is your name?’

‘Next,’ I told her unhesitantly. ‘Thursday Next. SO-27.’

Her eyelids flickered slightly and she stopped rummaging in her bag for a pencil and paper.

‘The Jane Eyre Thursday Next?’ she asked, her mood changing abruptly.

‘I saw you on the telly,’ said the woman with the crossword. ‘You seem a bit obsessed with your dodo, I must say. Why couldn’t you talk about Jane Eyre, Goliath or ending the Crimean War?’

‘Believe me, I tried.’

The Skyrail swept on past Broad Blunsdon station and the passengers all sighed, made tut-tut noises and shrugged at one another.

‘I am going to complain to the Skyrail management about this,’ said a heavy-set woman with make-up like woad who carried a disgruntled-looking Pekinese. ‘A good cure for insubordination is —’

Her speech came to an abrupt end as the Neanderthal suddenly increased the speed of the car. I knocked on the heavy acetate door and shouted:

‘What’s going on, pal?’

‘Open this door immediately!’ demanded the well-heeled woman, brandishing her umbrella. But the Neanderthal had taken about as much umbrella jabbing as he could that day.

‘We are going home now,’ he said simply, staring straight ahead.

‘We?’ echoed the woman. ‘No we’re not. I live at Crick—’

‘He means I,’ I told her. ‘Neanderthals don’t use the singular personal pronoun.’

‘Damn stupid!’ she replied, yelling a few more insults for good measure before she harrumphed back to her seat. I settled closer to the driver.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Kaylieu,’ he replied.

‘Good. Now, Kaylieu, I want you to tell me what the problem is.’

He paused for a moment as the Swindon airship stop came and went. I saw another shuttle that had been diverted to a siding and several Skyrail officials waving at us, so it was only a matter of time before the authorities knew what was going on.

‘We want to be real.’

‘Day’s hurt?’ murmured the squat woman at the back, still sucking the end of her pencil and staring at the crossword.

‘What did you say?’ I said.

‘Day’s hurt?’ she repeated. ‘Nine down; eight letters—I think it’s an anagram.’

‘I have no idea,’ I replied before turning my attention back to Kaylieu. ‘What do you mean, real?’

‘We are not animals,’ announced the small and once extinct strand of human. ‘We want to be a protected species—like dodo, mammoth—and you. We want to speak to head man at Goliath and someone from Toad News.’

‘I’Il see what I can do.’

I moved to the back of the shuttle and picked up the emergency phone.

‘Hello?’ I said to the operator. ‘This is Thursday Next, SO-27. We have a situation in shuttle number, ah, 6- 1-7-4.’

When I told the operator what was going on she breathed in sharply and asked how many people were with me and whether anyone was hurt.

‘Seven females, myself and the driver; we are all fine.’

‘Don’t forget Pixie Frou-Frou,’ said the large woman.

‘And one Pekinese.’

The operator told me they were clearing all the tracks ahead; we would have to keep calm and she would call back. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t a bad situation, but she had rung off.

I sat down next to the Neanderthal again. Jaw fixed, he was staring intently ahead, knuckles white on the throttle lever. We approached the Wanborough junction, crossed the M4 and were diverted west. One of the younger passengers caught my eye; she looked frightened.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked her.

‘Irma,’ she replied, ‘Irma Cohen.’

‘Poppycock!’ said the umbrella woman. ‘I’m Irma Cohen!’

‘So am I,’ said the woman with the Peke.

‘And me!’ exclaimed the thin woman at the back. It was clear after a short period of frenzied cries of ‘Ooh, fancy that!’ and ‘Well I never!’, that everyone in the Skyrail except me and Kaylieu and Pixie Frou-Frou were called Irma Cohen. Some of them were even vaguely related. It was quite a coincidence—for today, the best yet.

‘Thursday,’ said the squat woman.

‘Yes?’

But she wasn’t talking to me; she was writing in the answer: Day’s hurt— Thursday. It was an anagram.

The emergency phone rang.

‘This is Diana Thuntress, trained negotiator for SpecOps 9,’ said a businesslike voice. ‘Who is this?’

‘Di, it’s me, Thursday.’

There was a pause.

‘Hello, Thursday. Saw you on the telly last night. Trouble seems to follow you around, doesn’t it? What’s it like in there?’

I looked at the small and unconcerned crowd of commuters, who were showing each other pictures of their children. Pixie Frou-Frou had fallen asleep and the Irma Cohen with the crossword was puzzling on six across: The parting bargain.

‘They’re fine. A little bored, but not hurt.’

‘What does the perp want?’

‘He wants to talk to someone at Goliath about species self-ownership.’

‘Wait—he’s a Neanderthal?

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not possible’ A Neanderthal being violent?’

‘There’s no violence up here, Di—just desperation.’

‘Shit,’ muttered Thuntress. ‘What do I know about dealing with Thals? We’ll have to get one of the SpecOps Neanderthals in.’