Bookweirder Read online

  Up on the tower, Malcolm nocked another arrow but held his fire.

  The poacher howled and swore as he grasped the tiny arrow in his arm. His face was contorted in pain. He braced himself to remove the arrow but could not bring himself to do it. He turned in a frenzy, like the wounded animal he was. Finally, with one violent tug, he grunted and pulled the missile from his arm. He slumped to his knees, panting and wheezing. When he looked up, his face was twisted with pain and hatred.

  Norman willed Malcolm to fire. Finish him off, he thought, but the shot never came. The poacher rose to his feet and grabbed the metal shield. Turning like a hammer-thrower, in one smooth motion, he hurled the shield up towards the tower ramparts.

  The Cooks and George poked their heads above the folly’s walls. They swivelled in unison, following the path of the sheet as it wobbled and clattered against the tower, then fell noisily to the ground.

  Norman never took his eyes off the poacher. Before he staggered away across the lawn, he turned once again to glare at Todd on the balcony. His eyes took on an insane white gleam as he stared up at his new enemy.

  By the time Norman reached the lawn, the poacher was gone. His corrugated tin sheet lay abandoned on the grass. There was a small spatter of blood on it. Norman stared down at it, mesmerized. It was weird how blood made everything more real.

  “By the Maker, Strong Arm, you left it late this time!” Malcolm called down from the ramparts.

  Norman waved up to him apologetically. The stoat rappelled down the tower wall.

  “Where’ve you been?” the stoat asked, exasperated, when he reached the lawn. “We were nearly done for there.”

  “The big lout has attacked us every night for three nights,” Pippa recounted breathlessly. Her face was flushed from the excitement of the battle, and her words tumbled out rapidly. “He surprised us by coming in the morning. Lucky we collected our ammunition last night rather than going straight to sleep.”

  “Lucky you had that bloomin’ great big gun of yours,” Gordon added, rubbing his unruly red hair out of his face. “Crikey, where did that come from?”

  Norman didn’t have time to answer. George Kelmsworth moved between the two Cooks to confront Norman. “We could have used that last night, and the night before.”

  Norman blinked, unsure how to explain. “I came as soon—”

  “That’s what you always say,” George cut him off. “ ‘I came back as soon as I could.’ ” He mimicked Norman’s accent. “We could have all been killed.” He lunged towards Norman, who stepped back, alarmed by George’s belligerence.

  “Steady on, George,” Gordon began. But it was Malcolm who stayed the older boy’s hand. The stoat leapt onto George’s shoulder. George patted the stoat’s sleek head and relaxed.

  “Let’s hear what he has to tell us,” Malcolm weighed in. “Norman has always stood by me. Let him have his say.”

  Norman was confused. Even though Malcolm was standing up for him, it was difficult to see him there on George’s shoulder. Why hadn’t he leapt immediately to his shoulder? He felt a twinge of jealousy and then hopelessness.

  “I sounded the alarm …” he tried to explain. He looked at the faces of the defenders. Gordon’s freckled face was frank and curious, while Pippa was frowning intently and George’s eyes were blazing with anger. Norman just raised his hands helplessly.

  “What were you doing in there?” Gordon asked, motioning towards the balcony of Kelmsworth Hall. “What were you doing with him?” He said the word “him” as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Norman turned to see the tall, dark figure of Mr. Todd looming over him. The lawyer placed a hand on Norman’s shoulder and smiled his smarmy smile.

  “Well done, boys,” he congratulated them, as if they’d won a soccer game or done well on a quiz, rather than just escaped with their lives.

  Norman grimaced and shrugged the lawyer’s hand off his shoulder.

  “Why were you in the house, Strong Arm?” Malcolm asked, “Todd’s the enemy as much as Baldy is.”

  “We need his help,” Norman insisted, looking from stoat to boy. Their eyes were hardened against him.

  “You keep disappearing on us, Strong Arm,” Malcolm pleaded. “It’s hard to know if we can count on you.”

  “How far is your house, anyway? How long does it take to get there?” Gordon asked, scrunching an eye as if trying to work it out. His sister pulled him back. Norman gave her a hopeful look, but Pippa just curled her lips, as if suppressing her own rebuke.

  “It’s complicated. My dad …” Norman didn’t know where to start, without getting into the bookweird.

  “Are you even trying to get Malcolm’s map?” George asked.

  “Of course I am!” Norman protested. “It’s just not easy.”

  “He’s not your stoat, you know,” Gordon railed, catching George’s anger, as if it were a fever. “You can’t own a talking animal.”

  Getting it from all sides now, Norman just sputtered, “I know that. Listen—”

  He felt Todd’s hand on his shoulder. “Now, now, children,” the lawyer cooed patronizingly, “let’s not squabble.”

  Norman snapped. “Get off!” he shouted, shoving Todd away again. “This is all your fault. Either help us or stay out of it.”

  Todd stepped back and shook his head, almost like a shiver, in surprise. For a moment he was too stunned to say anything. They all turned to stare at the lanky lawyer now.

  “So are you?” Pippa asked finally. The look she gave him wasn’t pleading or threatening or even indignant, but there was a sort of impatient force to it. “Are you going to help us?”

  Todd continued to stare.

  “Or is it war?” Gordon muttered pugnaciously. It would have been funny if they hadn’t just barely won a battle for their lives.

  A Deal with the Fox

  “I don’t know why you won’t just send him back.” Norman stared this plate in weary disbelief. They had been arguing about this for half an hour, but he always returned to the same question.

  Todd placed his knife and fork in a cross on his empty plate. Leaning back in his chair, he intertwined his fingers in front of him and let out the smallest of sighs. “Perhaps you think I’m a magician or something. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have the power to send people back and forth between books at will.”

  Norman looked across the table to Malcolm for some support, but the stoat king was distracted by his lemon cake. He peered intently at it, but he hadn’t yet taken a bite. The battle at the tower had made him sombre, but he was not as distracted as he appeared. In truth, he was watching Todd covertly. He wasn’t convinced that this man was also Abbot Reynard of Tintern Abbey and the Royal Chapel of Lochwarren. The abbot might have used the power of the bookweird to bring him here to this strange world, but he’d said nothing about transformation. If the abbot had come with him to Kelmsworth, wouldn’t he still be a fox, just as Malcolm was still a stoat?

  “But you could send him back to his own book,” Norman insisted. “You sent me back to my own book when we were in New York.”

  “If you remember correctly,” Todd lectured, “you sent yourself back. You have your own peculiar little ingresso. I doubt very much that our criminal friend has the same aptitude.”

  It was true. Todd, in his guise as Fuchs, had only supplied the book. Norman had brought himself back from the New York police station by eating it.

  “But it must be possible,” Malcolm reasoned. “He got here, didn’t he?” He took a distracted bite of the lemon cake. “He must be able to go back.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s possible,” Todd replied. “But it would take someone who knows a great deal more about the bookweird than I do.”

  “Do you know anybody?” Norman asked hopefully.

  “No one comes to mind.” A servant had come in with a pot of tea and all talk of the bookweird ceased for the moment.

  “Thank you, Jenkins,” Todd murmured.

 
The servant poured tea in Malcolm’s cup. Todd watched him enviously as the servant continued to pour, serving Norman, then Todd.

  Jenkins had expressed polite surprise when he’d first learned that some sort of talking weasel was joining them for dinner. He had bowed ever so slightly when Todd had introduced him as King Malcolm of Lochwarren, but Malcolm’s first act to Jenkins was to send regards from George. That Malcolm was a friend of the young master was more important to the old servant than his royal status.

  Jenkins had asked if His Highness had any special dietary requirements. Malcolm had replied that yes, he did indeed. He needed to eat often and in great quantities, he’d said, letting out one of those peculiar stoat snickers that rippled his white belly. Jenkins had merely bowed and replied, “Of course, sir.”

  Malcolm raised his head from inside the teacup and licked his lips. He squinted over the rim of the cup and regarded Todd as though he was a man who might try to steal the silverware. This could have been because Todd was the sort of man who would steal the silverware, and the entire house that contained it.

  “Answer me this one question,” he demanded, as if it were a royal command. “Are you actually the Abbot of Tintern?”

  Todd smiled and waved his teacup. “Can you ever really know who anybody is?” he asked mysteriously. “Is there a book somewhere that explains exactly who is who?”

  Malcolm scowled at Todd’s evasion.

  “You are George’s lawyer, Mr. Todd, but Norman here knows you also as Fuchs. Which are you?”

  “Oh, I am most definitely Mr. Todd,” he replied solemnly, holding his teacup high in the air as if taking an oath.

  “But was Mr. Todd always a thief and a usurper?” Malcolm asked, showing some fang.

  “Well, I should take offence to being insulted in my own home,” Todd replied, but his face showed that he was anything but insulted. He looked merely amused. “I assure you that everything is as it should be. How could it be otherwise?”

  Malcolm leapt from his chair to the table and strode across the tablecloth so he could stare Todd directly in the eyes.

  “And if I were to sneak into Kelmsworth Hall tonight”—he paused and tapped the hilt of the rapier in his belt—“and sliced your throat, would we find your dead body at Lochwarren tomorrow morning?”

  The lawyer blinked, taken aback by the suddenness and sincerity of this threat.

  Norman was glad to see him ruffled a bit. “How about we just tell our friend the poacher out there that you are the one who bookweirded him out of New York?” he said.

  The lawyer looked at Norman sharply. He quickly regained his composure, but kept glancing back and forth between the stoat and the boy, assessing them in a new light.

  “I’m afraid the bookweird, like the law, is rather complicated, and I can’t expect children and stoats to understand it.” He smiled while he insulted them. “But perhaps there is something I can do to help.”

  Norman and Malcolm exchanged wary glances. Neither was ready to take Todd at his word.

  “Why’d you send us off after the map?” the stoat pressed. He focused his sharp woodland eyes on Todd, scrutinizing his face for signs of the fox abbot he knew. “Is it what Uncle Cuilean says? Is it really a treaty map?”

  “Ah, yes, the map.” Todd tented his fingers again and pretended to remain uninterested. “You have retrieved the map?”

  “First tell us why you want it,” Norman countered. “You don’t care about Malcolm’s treaty with the weasels. If you cared about Malcolm, you wouldn’t have let him get caught, and you’d have helped us out there.” He gestured towards the window and the folly outside. “You’d have fought with us.”

  Todd looked down and fiddled with the stiff white cuffs of his shirt, making them even under his coat sleeves.

  “Tell us why you want it,” Norman repeated.

  “Or you’ll never see it,” Malcolm growled

  Todd stopped playing with his shirt-sleeves and scanned the stony faces of the boy and stoat.

  “Let’s just say that it’s an interesting artifact,” he began guardedly. “It has some peculiar properties.” There was another long pause. “I’d be interested in studying it.” Malcolm’s ears twitched with interest before the lawyer added, “If you’ll permit me.” He smiled obsequiously at the stoat.

  The king’s lip lifted at the side to expose a fang, rather than returning the smile. “How ‘bout you stop talking,” he warned, seething through his teeth.

  Todd attempted one of his smirks, but it did not have its usual effect.

  Malcolm reached over his shoulder for his bow. He twanged the string experimentally.

  Norman had never before seen Todd, in any of his forms, look at all rattled, but he flinched now. Everything Norman knew about dealing with adults he’d learned from his parents, and he knew that when adults looked weak or indecisive, you pressed your advantage.

  “Return Kelmsworth Hall to George and send this poacher back where he came from, and maybe we’ll let you see the map.” It wasn’t really within his right to offer this. He cast a glance to Malcolm, who colluded with the sort of quick wink that only a stoat can wink.

  “Let me see the map first, then we’ll talk terms,” Todd replied snippily.

  Norman hesitated just a moment too long in replying.

  Todd drew himself up to his full height and placed his hands in front of him on the table. His moment of doubt had passed. “You don’t have the map.” The all-knowing smile returned to his long, pale face. “You didn’t find it.”

  Norman didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. Todd read him easily.

  “You know where the map is. You know where this person called Meg Jespers-Vilnius has hidden it. What seems to be the problem?”

  “The problem is that this person called Meg Jespers-Vilnius is my mother,” Norman replied, suddenly tired of this and exasperated.

  Todd dismissed the argument. “Interesting, but neither here nor there.”

  “And Dupin says that if the clue is right, the map isn’t in ‘The Purloined Letter,’ ” Norman continued, happy to show Todd that he’d been wrong. “It is hidden like the purloined letter, with other maps.”

  “Yes, of course,” Todd mumbled, annoyed that he hadn’t thought of it himself. He drummed his long fingers on the table, deep in thought. Suddenly his eyes widened. He pushed his chair back from the table and rose to his feet.

  “Could it be …?” he asked, speaking to no one in particular. He began to pace. “Of course!” he concluded, answering his own question. “It’s so obvious.” Turning to the table again, he surveyed the two faces that looked up at him. “I believe we can come to an arrangement.”

  Norman and Malcolm exchanged wary glances.

  “Shall we use my ingresso this time?” the lawyer asked. “Yours doesn’t seem to allow passengers.” His eyes flicked from Norman to Malcolm, who scowled identical scowls.

  “Right, then,” Todd continued. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll bring some writing materials.”

  Boy and stoat sat quietly and waited, both impressed with their performance.

  “I won’t let him send me alone,” Norman told his friend earnestly once Todd had left the room.”I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  The stoat just nodded, his jaw set and his face full of conviction, as if he’d never doubted it.

  The lawyer sauntered back into the dining room.

  “How are your hands feeling? All loose and ready for a bit of dictation?” he asked breezily. He slid several sheets of thick writing paper across the dining table.

  Norman frowned when he read the letterhead: Radisson University, the university where his father taught. This was paper from Norman’s world. He looked up to see Todd smirking back at him.

  “I think six copies of the following paragraph should do the trick,” Todd continued. As he slid a glossy catalogue across the table to them, he sounded like a schoolteacher handing out punishment in detention.

  Norman
picked up the catalogue and began reading out loud.

  “Listing number 202, the Shrubberies. Lovely traditional English cottage nestled in the woods adjacent to a well-stocked river. Easy commute to university and to National Trust–listed stately homes …”

  “Norman, it will help if you think of someone back home as you write. Think of your dear old mum, perhaps. As for you, wee Malcolm,” Todd advised, changing his voice to the croaks and growls of the Abbot of Tintern, “just concentrate on your pal Norman here. He’s your connection. If you’re ready, the text today is a rental listing. I’m sorry we don’t have anything better.”

  Norman had a few questions to ask. Where had Todd got this house catalogue? How did he know about the Shrubberies? Most of all, he wanted an explanation. He had always wanted to know how the trickster’s ingresso worked. But Todd interrupted him before he could ask anything.

  “By the way,” he added, in that knowing way of his, “the book you are looking for is called A Secret in the Library.”

  Malcolm just whispered the name of the book to himself, committing it to memory, as he licked the tip of his pencil eagerly.

  Norman gave Todd a long, hard look before he too picked up his pencil and began to write.

  My Favourite Book in the Whole Wide World

  “This looks a lot like George’s book. Are you sure we’re in yours?” Malcolm asked.

  They lay beside each other on the bed in the Shrubberies. The orange fleece blanket was the same. The same pictures hung crookedly on the wall. Norman’s books lined the windowsill. Outside, beyond the flowered curtains, he could see the steady drizzle of a grey English morning.

  “I’m sure,” Norman told him, regarding the rain outside. “This is my book,” he added for the stoat king’s benefit. It felt weird to say it, but Norman did not want the discussion about who was more real at this moment.