‘And then I was born and then she died.’
‘Yes.’
‘But when we talk about her, she comes to life.’
‘Never forget that, Esme. Words are our tools of resurrection.’
A new word. I looked up.
‘It’s when you bring something back,’ Ditte said.
‘But Lily will never really come back.’
‘No. She won’t.’
I paused, trying to remember the rest of the story. ‘And so, you told Da you will be my favourite aunt.’
‘I did.’
‘And that you will always take my side, even when I’m troublesome.’
‘Did I say that?’ I turned to look at her face. She smiled. ‘It’s exactly what Lily would have wanted me to say, and I meant every word.’
‘The end,’ I said.
At breakfast one morning, Da said, ‘The C words would certainly cause consternation considering countless certifiable cases kept coming.’ It took me less than a minute to work it out.
‘Kept,’ I said. ‘Kept starts with a K not a C.’
His mouth was still full of porridge; I was that quick.
‘I thought throwing in certifiable might have tricked you,’ he said.
‘But that must start with a C; it’s from the word certain.’
‘It certainly is. Now, tell me which quotation you like best.’ Da pushed a page of dictionary proofs across the breakfast table.
It had been three years since the picnic to celebrate A and B, but they were still working on the proofs for C. The page had been typeset but some of the lines had been ruled out, and the margins were messy with Da’s corrections. Where he’d run out of room, he’d pinned a scrap of paper to the edge and written on that.
‘I like the new one,’ I said, pointing to the scrap of paper.
‘What does it say?’
‘To certefye this thinge, sende for the damoysell; and then shal ye know, by her owne mouthe.’
‘Why do you like it?’
‘It sounds funny, like the man who wrote it couldn’t spell and was making up some of the words.’
‘It’s just old,’ Da said, taking back the proof and reading what he’d written. ‘Words change over time, you see. The way they look, the way they sound; sometimes even their meaning changes. They have their own history.’ Da ran his finger under the sentence. ‘If you took away some of the Es, this would almost look modern.’
‘What’s a damoysell?’
‘It’s a young woman.’
‘Am I a damoysell?’
He looked at me, and the tiniest frown twitched his eyebrows.
‘I’ll be ten next birthday,’ I said, hopeful.
‘Ten, you say? Well, that settles it. You will be a damoysell in no time.’
‘And will the words keep changing?’
The spoon stopped midway to his mouth. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, that once the meaning is written down it will become fixed.’
‘So you and Dr Murray could make the words mean whatever you want them to mean, and we’ll all have to use them that way forever?’
‘Of course not. Our job is to find consensus. We search through books to see how a word is used, then we come up with meanings that make sense of them all. It’s quite scientific, actually.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Consensus? Well, it means everyone agrees.’
‘Do you ask everyone?’
‘No, clever-boots. But I doubt a book’s been written that we haven’t consulted.’
‘And who writes the books?’ I asked.
‘All sorts of people. Now stop asking questions and eat your breakfast; you’re going to be late for school.’
The bell rang for lunch, and I saw Lizzie in her usual place outside the school gates, looking awkward. I wanted to run to her, but I didn’t.
‘You mustn’t let them see you cry,’ she said as she took my hand.
‘I haven’t been crying.’
‘You have, and I know why. I saw them teasing you.’
I shrugged and felt more tears spring to my eyes. I looked down at my feet stepping one in front of the other.
‘What’s it about?’ she asked.
I held up my funny fingers. She grabbed them, kissed them and blew a raspberry in my palm. I couldn’t help laughing.
‘Half their fathers have funny fingers, you know.’
I looked up at her.
‘True. Them that work in the type foundry wear their burns like a badge telling the whole of Jericho their trade. Their littluns are scamps for teasing you.’
‘But I’m different.’
‘We’s all different,’ she said. But she didn’t understand.
‘I’m like the word alphabetary,’ I said.
‘Never heard of it.’
‘It’s one of my birthday words, but Da says it’s obsolete. No use to anyone.’
Lizzie laughed. ‘Do you talk like that in class?’
I shrugged again.
‘They have different kinds of families, Essymay. They’s not used to talking about words and books and history the way you and your da do. Some people feel better about themselves if they can pull others down a bit. When you’re older things will change, I promise.’
We walked on in silence. The closer we got to the Scriptorium, the better I felt.
After eating sandwiches in the kitchen with Lizzie and Mrs Ballard, I crossed the garden to the Scriptorium. One by one, the assistants looked up from their lunch or their words to see who had come in. I went quietly and sat beside Da. He cleared some space, and I took an exercise book from my satchel to practise the longhand I’d been learning in school. When I was done, I slid off my chair and under the sorting table.
There were no slips, so I did a survey of the assistants’ shoes. Each pair suited its owner perfectly, and each had its habits. Mr Worrall’s were finely tanned and sat very still and pigeon-toed, while Mr Mitchell’s were the opposite: his shoes were comfortably worn with the toes turned out and heals bouncing up and down without pause. He had a different-coloured sock peeping out of each shoe. Mr Maling’s shoes were adventurous and never where I expected them to be, Mr Balk’s were pulled back under his chair, and Mr Sweatman’s were always tapping out a pattern that
