Bookweirder Page 11

  All Norman could do was nod mutely.

  “I need to know …” She paused now, as if reconsidering her question. “Is that George Kelmsworth’s sweater?”

  Norman blinked, not sure that she had actually asked this.

  “Norman?” she pressed, her voice rising.

  He could not believe that she was even asking this. She had just guessed his deepest secret. How could she even imagine it to be possible? He hardly believed it himself. It took too much effort to get his head around it. He had no mental capacity left to concoct a plausible lie. He merely nodded and gulped.

  His mother winced, as if physically hurt by this answer.

  “Did George give you that sweater?” she pressed. Her blue-grey eyes bore into him like daggers.

  “Yes,” Norman croaked dryly.

  Meg stepped back, uncrossed her arms and covered her mouth with her hand as if suppressing a reaction. Norman was trying to make sense of it all. Why would she ask him about the sweater? Why would anyone even think that a character from a book had given him a sweater?

  His mother interrupted his thoughts abruptly. “Norman,” she said, a thought just occurring to her, “you had a map. Back home, in your room, I found a map on old parchment—a map of imaginary places.”

  Norman leapt up. “My map of Undergrowth!” he blurted out.

  “This came from the same place?” she asked, her voice a low murmur.

  Norman’s cautiousness was overcome by his eagerness to get the map. “Not the same place. From Undergrowth. King Duncan gave me that.”

  “It’s all the same place,” she assured him. Shaking her head a little sadly, she glanced at the paperback in her hand and sighed.

  Norman could hardly believe he was having this conversation. His mom was talking to him as if the bookweird was real, as if she knew that it was possible to slide into a book. And she knew about the map.

  “Mom, I need that map back,” Norman pleaded. “My friend Malcolm, he needs it back. Do you still have it? Did you keep it?”

  His mother didn’t answer the question. “Norman, what you are doing is very dangerous. You can’t know how dangerous it is.”

  “But, Mom, it’s not dangerous where I go. I have friends. It’s safe.” Norman was lying, but it didn’t feel like lying. Maybe it wasn’t completely safe, but if he stayed to the right books …

  That unusual steeliness returned to Meg’s voice. “Norman, I’m telling you,” she admonished him, “you don’t know how dangerous it is.”

  Her tone was ominous enough for Norman to wonder what she meant, but he didn’t let it stop him.

  “Do you have the map?” he entreated, desperate to know.

  She stared back at him, as if determined to say as little as possible. “It’s somewhere safe.”

  “Where?” he blurted. “Is it back home? Can we get someone to send it to us?”

  “Norman, you can’t have that map,” she declared very firmly.

  “But I need it,” Norman implored. “If I don’t take it back, people could die.”

  Meg Jespers-Vilnius was unmoved by his pleas. “People die in books all the time. It’s not real life. If something happens to you there, that’s different.”

  Norman didn’t have to be told. He could still imagine himself in the vice-like grip of the bald-headed poacher.

  “Mom,” he asked, “how do you know?”

  She looked away for a moment but didn’t answer his question. “I’m going to ask you to promise something. I don’t expect you to understand it yet, but it is for your own safety.” She paused to make sure she had his attention. “I want you to promise not to go back there.”

  “Mom, I have to.”

  Her eyes stayed fixed on him. She whispered through her gritted teeth, “I want you to promise, Norman.”

  Norman opened his mouth to argue again, but he knew there was no point. Whatever his mother thought she knew, she wasn’t going to change her mind about it.

  “Are you sure the map is safe?” he asked resignedly. “Just tell me where it is, please,” he begged. “I promise I won’t mess with the bookweird anymore. If I knew for sure you’d put it somewhere safe …”

  Meg’s eyes darkened and became more grey than blue. Norman was sure that she had started just a little bit when he’d said the word “bookweird.”

  “The map is safe,” she replied in a measured, deliberate tone. She wasn’t fooled at all.

  “How can I know, though?” Norman persisted.

  She smiled a little now, the thin, wily smile that curled her lip. Norman didn’t like the look of that smile. It was the smile she smiled when she had an especially terrible lesson to teach him, like the time he had made Dora cry on her eighth birthday and she had made him stick around through the birthday party, serving juice and entertaining Dora’s bratty friends.

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “But it’s not mine,” Norman protested. “I promised to look after it.”

  “Trust me, your purloined map is safely hidden away.” She smiled a thin, tired smile. “Now, do you promise, or do I have to take all your books away from you?”

  “Purloined?” Norman asked, not sure what the word meant.

  “Never mind,” she replied quickly. She seemed flustered for a moment. “Trust me, it’s safe.”

  Norman was utterly defeated. He didn’t even know what to ask or argue about anymore. “But, Mom, how do you know? Does everybody know about the bookweird?”

  Meg seemed to flinch again when he said the word. She stared at him suspiciously for just a second before shaking her head slightly from side to side. “Do you promise?” she pressed, her voice firm and incontrovertible.

  Norman’s shoulders slumped. He sighed and nodded.

  “You promise?” she repeated, tapping the book with her fingers for emphasis.

  “I promise,” he echoed weakly.

  His mother looked down at him for a long moment. She seemed to want to say something, but once more she was, unusually, lost for words.

  When Meg spoke again, the anger seemed truly gone from her voice. “It really is for the best, Norman. The game you’re playing is very dangerous,” she insisted. “Trust me, I know …” Her mouth opened, as if she was about to add something more but changed her mind. “We’ll leave it at that. Maybe sometime I can explain, but let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

  It wasn’t the sort of question that expected an answer. Norman curled his lower lip inwards and bit down on it hard.

  “Just to be on the safe side, I’ll take this,” Meg declared, waving the paperback as she stepped back through the doorway. “I’ll check in on you later.”

  It was something she never said.

  Lying on the bed, Norman felt his mind race. Somehow his mother knew he could get inside books. He’d always thought it was just him. He’d thought it was a secret, but his mother knew it was possible. She had guessed it. Was it really not that unusual? Maybe everyone could do it. Maybe it was one of those things that everyone knew but never mentioned, something you were supposed to know not to do. There were lots of things like that. Maybe the bookweird was just another bad habit, like putting your elbows on the table or chewing with your mouth open. Or maybe it was a danger all normal kids understood, like getting into a car with a stranger. But surely if this were the case, there would be public service announcements about it, warnings. They didn’t mention the bookweird in health class.

  It couldn’t be that normal. It had to be some weird disorder or mental problem. Maybe that was why no one mentioned it. It was something you were supposed to be embarrassed about, and that’s why his mother wanted him to stop. She had said it was dangerous. Maybe you went crazy if you did it too much. He would stop, he told himself. He had promised his mom he would stop. He would give up the bookweird. Just as soon as he had sorted out the mess back at Kelmsworth and in Undergrowth, he was going to give up the bookweird for good—but there was a reason why he was lying in his bed with
George’s sweater and his running shoes on.

  An hour ago, when he was sure that his mother had gone downstairs, Norman had slid the page that he had torn out of Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies from under neath his pillow. Methodically he’d folded and torn the page into six even vertical strips. There was now only one left. He brought it to his teeth and began to chew, drawing it in like a long string of licorice. He was actually starting to like the taste of paper pulp.

  Maybe that was the first sign that you were addicted to the bookweird and that it was a real problem—just one more thing to worry about. He would be finished with the page soon, but he knew it would be ages before he fell asleep. There were too many thoughts churning in his mind to give himself over to sleep. For starters, how could he explain all this to Malcolm?

  The New Master of Kelmsworth

  Norman awoke on the couch in George’s lodge. He was getting better at this, he thought. He had left from this same couch two nights ago and had been able to land right back here. The first rays of morning light were just seeping in through the wavy glass of the lodge windows. George would be up soon, frying eggs and boiling water for tea.

  He stretched and thought how good it was to be back, until he remembered his mother’s mysterious warnings. He felt guilty disobeying her, but he had to do this.

  George appeared on the stairs in his blue-and-white-striped pyjamas and plaid dressing gown.

  “You’re back!” he cried, surprised to see his guest lying on the couch.

  “I’m back,” Norman declared with a smile.

  The smile was not returned. “We thought the poacher had got you, or you’d run off.”

  The accusation stung. “I went back home,” Norman replied, “to fetch something for Malcolm.” He had no idea what Malcolm had told George about the bookweird and Undergrowth, but he needed George to know that he hadn’t just abandoned them.

  George’s appearance had changed. His hair was longer, more dishevelled. Norman had never seen George in his dressing gown, either. He usually appeared every morning with a freshly ironed shirt.

  “You left Malcolm here,” George admonished him. “He wants to know why you left him.” George’s old, easy confidence was gone. He was angry now, suspicious.

  “I tried to take him. It didn’t work.” Again Norman found it difficult to explain without giving away too much about the book-weird and his ingresso. “I came back as soon as I could.”

  “As soon as you could?” George scowled. “You’ve been gone a fortnight!”

  “Two weeks?” Norman translated for himself. He had been gone only two nights—but of course time passed differently in every book. “I’m sorry, George. I really did try to get back as soon as possible.”

  George raised a finger and opened his mouth as if to unleash a lecture he had been rehearsing, but a tap at the window interrupted him. Both boys’ heads snapped quickly to the kitchen window. Malcolm stood on the sill, leaning jauntily against the pane, as if he had been waiting for them to open it. The sight of the little warrior there made Norman smile. He was decked out in his green hunting gear, a cap pulled low on his head and a quiver bursting with arrows slung across his back.

  George glared at Norman for another second, then turned to unlatch the window. Malcolm bounded in and tossed his weapons and cloak aside.

  “ ‘Bout time you found your way back!” he grumbled.

  “Sorry I left so suddenly. I couldn’t take you with me.” He hoped Malcolm wouldn’t press for an explanation. “I came back as soon as I could.”

  “S’all right. It’s been an adventure here, hasn’t it, George?” He winked at the other boy. Norman felt a twinge of jealousy.

  George didn’t answer. His eyes flicked back and forth between Norman and the stoat, trying to guess the unspoken communication between them.

  “Our friend stayed away last night,” Malcolm reported, turning to George. “I tracked him out to one of the local farms, where he swiped some eggs and some clothes off a clothesline. Then he spent an hour at the pub in Kestleton.”

  “That’s the first time he’s done that,” George mused. “Could you tell what he was doing there?”

  “I dunno. Not getting drunk, at least. He nursed one small beer all night—small by your standards, at any rate. He met with some local types. Not farmers or townsfolk—ruffians like himself, if I’m any judge. I hid outside on the window ledge. I couldn’t hear a word they said, but our man gave them some money and they shook hands, so they did some sort of deal.”

  George rubbed his chin. “You were right. He is planning something. What could he have been buying at the Book and Badger? Nothing legitimate, I’ll say.” He was silent for a long time as he considered this. “You’ll be famished,” he concluded finally. “Will it be bread and jam again this morning?”

  Malcolm rubbed the white fur of his belly in anticipation. “And some of that tea,” he replied. “It’s colder than a Lochwarren winter out there at night.”

  While George boiled water and buttered toast, Norman beckoned his friend aside. The stoat bounded from windowsill to counter to Norman’s shoulder and let himself be carried into the living room.

  “Did you get the map?” Malcolm asked eagerly.

  “My mother has it,” Norman told him ruefully. “She’s hidden it.”

  “That’s great,” the stoat king declared. “Ask her for it back, then.”

  What could Norman say to that?

  Malcolm leapt from Norman’s shoulder to a side table so he could look his friend in the eye. “She’s your mother, isn’t she? Why would she keep it from you?”

  “It’s complicated. She knows about the bookweird. She thinks it’s dangerous and she doesn’t want me to use it.”

  Malcolm remembered his own protective mother. “When I was a kit, Mum banned me from the tall ships at Rivernest when she found I’d been climbing the masts,” he murmured.

  “So you understand.”

  “But if I came with you,” Malcolm insisted, tugging at Norman’s sleeve, “if I explained, wouldn’t that help?”

  Norman had a vision of his mother arguing with the King of the Stoats. Malcolm might be royalty, but Norman had never seen his mother lose an argument to anyone.

  “We need Fuchs’s help,” he said finally.

  Malcolm cocked his head to one side, puzzled.

  “Fuchs,” Norman repeated, wondering why this was so confusing. “That’s right … you know him as the Abbot of Tintern. I know him as Fuchs.”

  “But that would mean going back to Lochwarren,” replied Malcolm. “I’m not sure it’s safe for me to do that without the map Besides, the abbot comes and goes.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Norman interrupted. “He’s here. I met him here, in London. He’s George’s lawyer, Mr. Todd.”

  The stoat cocked his head to one side as if he hadn’t understood.

  George interrupted them before Norman could continue. “That scoundrel!” he declared vehemently. George stood at the doorway to the living room, a breakfast tray in his hands.

  Norman cast a quick, interrogative glance at his friend the stoat. “Who?” he asked quietly, unsure what George had heard and who he was accusing.

  “Mr. Todd.” Malcolm spat out the name like unpleasant food.

  “What do you mean?” Norman asked.

  “My trusted lawyer, the not very honourable Mr. Todd, has taken over administration of the estate,” George explained. “He now lives in my house, occupying my father’s rooms, using my father’s study and spending my inheritance.”

  “What?” Norman repeated, utterly confused.

  The knock at the lodge door interrupted his question. It was an elaborate musical knock that could only have been a secret Intrepids signal. George opened the door to let the Cooks in. They were dressed in their school blazers and ties, as if going out, and they looked especially glum about it.

  George smiled grimly at them as they entered and slowly took their seats around the kitchen ta
ble.

  “I am now officially a guest of the estate,” George continued telling Norman. “I’m permitted to stay at the lodge only as long as it is convenient for the estate. Todd has already mentioned boarding school in Canada for the fall.”

  Behind him at the kitchen table the Cooks sighed. “Us too, and not even the same schools,” Pippa added forlornly. “We’re off to Kestleton to buy our books for the term.”

  Gordon threw his cloth cap on the table to express how he felt about it.

  Norman tried to make sense of it all. “Does Todd know you’re here?” he asked Malcolm.

  The stoat shook his tiny head. “I’ve kept out of sight. I didn’t know that Todd was—”

  “I’ll go talk to him,” Norman interrupted.

  “What good will that do?” George demanded bitterly. “If he won’t listen to me, he’s not likely to listen to you.”

  He looked to Malcolm for confirmation that Norman’s idea was useless. George could not know that Norman and Mr. Todd had a history.

  Malcolm shrugged. “Maybe he will tell Norman more than he’ll tell you. Norman could trick him somehow.”

  George scoffed. “Or perhaps Norman will just disappear for a few more days.”

  Stung, more by Malcolm’s silence than by George’s rebuke, Norman protested. “I did what I could—” A boiling kettle began to whistle on the hob.

  George held his hand up, as if he couldn’t listen to this anymore. “Do what you like.” He turned his back on them and stomped up the stairs to get dressed.

  They watched him walk away, but no one protested. Pippa Cook rose and finally removed the kettle from the stove. They shared the tea in uncomfortable silence. Pippa and Gordon watched Norman reproachfully. Even Malcolm was sullen. They all blamed him, and they had every right to.

  The more Norman thought about it, the worse he felt. Todd was breaking up the Intrepids. Could anything more go wrong?

  “Did you get Malcolm’s map, after all that?” Gordon asked. Norman was surprised that Malcolm had told them, but now he had to go over the story again.