Bookweirdest Read online

  While he muddled through this, Dora kept talking—mostly to the unicorn, partly to herself. Norman was slipping back into his usual habit of ignoring her. She disappeared around the other side of the unicorn. The big creature bowed and huffed, lowering his horn to let her touch it.

  “He said that Raritan would have to go back but he could come for visits maybe.”

  “Who said?” Norman asked, suddenly and strongly suspicious. “Who said Raritan could come back?”

  Dora reappeared from the other side of the unicorn. “Uncle Kit, of course. Who else?”

  Norman could actually feel his jaw drop. It seemed to him that the unicorn snickered as he watched.

  “Uncle Kit?” he began slowly, in a low voice. “Uncle Kit is here at the Shrubberies?”

  “Of course he’s here. He’s looking after us while Mom and Dad are in Paris. You’d know that if you didn’t sleep all day. Uncle Kit is awesome. You should see if he can bring a unicorn for you. Raritan might let you ride with us.”

  As if on cue, the unicorn dipped his head again, bowing very low and kneeling on the ground, in a way that was not very natural. Norman watched in dumbstruck awe as his sister leapt onto the back of the kneeling beast and flung her arms around its neck as it rose again to four feet.

  “Where to, Acting Princess Dora?” he asked in the deepest of unicorn voices.

  “To the flower meadow!” Dora commanded gleefully.

  Raritan exhaled once, then leapt into action. Norman had seen thoroughbreds and show jumpers during his time in Dora’s horse book, Fortune’s Foal, but nothing quite as magnificent as this. The big creature cleared the hedge without as much as two steps of run-up. He was off and onto the wood path before Norman could say anything more. Within moments, the only trace of them was the heavy thumps of hooves along the sandy path to the bridge.

  Norman hurried back to the house and tried to tell himself that the rumbling in his belly wasn’t panic but hunger. There were scones in the cupboard and eight types of jam in the fridge. The lingonberry jam made him think of Malcolm. The scones reminded him of his dad. If he were here, his dad would be having a coffee right now, the first or second of about six cups he’d have in a day. The smell of coffee would be reassuring right now. There were a few too many people missing from the Shrubberies, and one person he wished was not here at all.

  Uncle Kit—or Fuchs, as Norman had known him for so long—was like a signpost for trouble. If Uncle Kit appeared, you knew something had gone wrong or was about to.

  Norman piled a dozen scones onto a plate and ascended the stairs to confront his uncle. Either Kit was behind all this or he was letting it happen.

  “Fuchs?” he shouted as he came to the top of the stairs. “Or is it Uncle Kit now? What would you like to be called today?”

  He stopped at the landing and listened to the silence. “Fuchs? Uncle Kit?” he yelled again. He still wasn’t used to the idea of Fuchs being his uncle. He’d known him so long and in so many different disguises. It was actually Kit who had introduced him to the bookweird, long before Norman had understood that Kit was his mother’s brother, and that both his mother and his uncle shared his ability to get into books. Kit kept turning up whenever Norman bookweirded. He’d appeared as Malcolm’s abbot in The Brothers of Lochwarren. He’d been George Kelmsworth’s duplicitous lawyer in Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies. He’d even helped Norman out of a few scrapes with the bookweird. Unfortunately, his crazy uncle tended to create more problems with the bookweird than he solved.

  Norman stomped down the hall, braver now that he had convinced himself Fuchs wasn’t actually here. “Fuchs!” he called, ever louder. “Kit!” And he pounded on each door. The study door was gapped. Norman pushed it open, expecting to see his mother’s laptop there on the desk, surrounded by neat stacks of paper. But the desk was empty, as were most of the shelves. Norman put the plate of scones down on the bare desk. He couldn’t put his finger on what was missing, but there seemed to be less stuff in the room, as if someone had moved out.

  His brain tried to figure out what was missing, but there was just too much going on to think properly. He closed the study door and tried his parents’ room. It would be just like Kit to take over the master bedroom. He was about the worst house guest you could imagine. He had taken over George Kelmsworth’s entire manor house once. That was the thing about Kit—he didn’t care if he messed up a book or even someone’s life in a book. He just wanted to be part of things. He thought books were his own private theme park.

  Norman half expected the master bedroom to be locked, like the library, but the handle gave way to his pressure and the door opened without a shove.

  “Mom? Dad?” he whispered. He still couldn’t completely believe that they had left for Paris without telling him, left him in the care of crazy Uncle Kit. Norman had never even met his uncle in real life. His mother ground her teeth if she even heard her brother’s name mentioned. Still, Kit wasn’t exactly bad. Norman wasn’t afraid of him the way he was afraid of wolves or Black John of Nantes. Kit didn’t deliberately try to hurt people, but people tended to get hurt anyway when he meddled with the bookweird.

  There was no response from the master bedroom, so Norman stepped inside. The bed was made, the furniture arranged and the bedside tables tidy. Norman squinted and tried to figure out if it was “Mom tidy.” There was a difference that Norman had never been able to see between his version of tidy and his mom’s.

  There was no telltale sign of Kit’s occupation. He hadn’t changed the pictures or redecorated. But then, why would he? This was his house, after all. He lived here most of the time—Norman’s family was just staying here for the summer. Norman circled the room, on the lookout now for the removal of his parents’ stuff. Dad’s glasses weren’t on his side table, but then, he would have taken them to Paris. There were no empty coffee mugs, but he was pretty sure Mom would have cleaned them before leaving. He felt a little guilty sneaking around his parents’ room. This was way worse than looking for Christmas presents. You were supposed to try to find your Christmas presents. Were you supposed to try to find your parents if they went missing?

  Norman’s fingers hesitated on the drawer of his mother’s bedside table. The last time he’d spoken to her, she had warned him about the bookweird, hinted that she knew much more about it than he did. She had taken The Secret in the Library away from him and put it into this drawer for safekeeping. The book was special to her, something from her own childhood that she didn’t want destroyed. She had made herself clear: he was not to touch The Secret in the Library.

  He didn’t like disobeying his mother, but she didn’t understand. She thought hiding Malcolm’s map in Jerome’s library would keep Norman from using the bookweird, but she didn’t know how important the treaty map was. Malcolm needed it to prove his right to the throne, and Norman would do anything for his friend.

  They’d needed the book then—just as he needed it now—to get to San Savino and Jerome, so Malcolm had snuck in through the window during the night to “borrow” it for them. The stoat was supposed to put it back later, but you couldn’t always count on Malcolm to do exactly what you told him.

  Norman held his breath as he pulled the drawer open.

  It was more cluttered than he’d expected. There were tubes of ointment and makeup, an ornate silver jar full of pins, three bookmarks, tons of pens and pencils, some scarves, an old personal CD player and a stack of books on CD, but no actual book. The Secret in the Library wasn’t there. Had Malcolm not returned it? Had his mother taken it to Paris for safekeeping? Or had Uncle Kit taken it?

  “Snooping around again?”

  The voice at the door startled him. Norman shut the drawer guiltily and turned to look.

  “I always liked that about you. I enjoy a good snoop myself. Do you want any help?”

  The figure in the doorway was strange but familiar. He was taller than Norman remembered, about as tall as his dad, he guessed, but skinnier. He looked you
nger than when Norman had last seen him. Partly it was the black jeans and T-shirt. Mostly it was because he’d shaved off the ridiculous moustache and muttonchops that he’d worn as George Kelmsworth’s lawyer. His red hair was dyed jet black. It hung over his eyes like it had when Norman first met him in the public library back home. The earrings were back too—not the huge ring that was big enough to pass a pencil through, but a row of tiny silver hoops.

  “Fuchs!” Norman half shouted it, surprise and annoyance mixed in his voice.

  “Aw, Norms, don’t call me that,” he said in a voice that was meant to be chummy. “Call me Uncle Kit.”

  Norman wrinkled his nose. This was typical Kit—pretending they were in this together. Kit was like that weird kid at school who got you in trouble by talking to you in class and wondered why you ignored him the next day.

  “No? Just Kit, then. Just not Christopher. I never liked that. Call me Kip even, or K-dawg. We’d have to fist bump on that. What do you say, Norms … Spiny?” He held out his pale knuckles for a fist bump, big silver rings flashing on his fingers.

  Norman stiffened and clenched a fist. He couldn’t have explained why the nickname bothered him. “Only my dad calls me Spiny.”

  Kit took a second to process the response. He lowered his hand, realizing that the fist bump was never coming, but the smile never left his face. “Fair enough, Norms,” he concluded.

  Norman took the time to assess Kit. There was usually some clue in his costume. The rings on his fingers had skulls and cross-bones. The T-shirt he wore was white with a black print of some old guy’s head and two birds holding a scroll that said “Nevermore.”

  “What are you supposed to be? Some sort of emo rocker? Is that supposed to impress Dora, like the unicorn?” Norman had no idea what Kit actually looked like. The bookweird changed him. Norman was always himself in every book he visited, but Kit changed physically so that he blended in. In Undergrowth, he was a fox. At Kelmsworth, he was the lawyer with the ridiculous mutton-chop sideburns.

  “Aw, Norms, don’t be like that. Can’t a guy just be himself?” He spoke in a mild British accent. It didn’t sound fake, like Dora’s did when she copied her friend Penny. It sounded natural, like George Kelmsworth’s.

  “I dunno, can he?” Norman asked rhetorically. He followed it up with a real question: “Where are my mom and dad?”

  “Hasn’t your sister told you? They are off to Paris for a lovely romantic getaway. Eiffel Tower, Champs-Élysées, Jim Morrison’s grave and all that.”

  “And they left you in charge?” Norman asked skeptically.

  “Of course. Who else? This is my house, after all.”

  Officially, Norman thought, his mom had inherited half of this house too, but you had to pick your arguments with Kit.

  “Aren’t you and my mom still mad at each other?”

  Kit shook his head soothingly. “Water under the bridge. All sorted out now. We’re one big happy family. All down to you, Norms. You really bring people together.”

  Norman grimaced. Kit always said everything in a voice that dared you not to believe him. The crooked smile did not leave his face. It only relaxed when he winked and asked, “Did you leave those scones in the study for me?”

  The rest of the day might have been just another one of the long, boring days of his summer vacation. Norman was alone in the big English house once more. Dora was off riding, and the responsible adults were in town running errands. Except that Dora wasn’t at Penny’s riding a tame old pony, and the responsible adults were not his parents but a haughty black unicorn and his crazy uncle. After his confrontation with Kit, Norman hadn’t run out of questions—he’d just run out of the energy to ask them. Kit could do that to you. None of his doubts and suspicions had gone away, but he just needed to find Malcolm and The Secret in the Library and bookweird out of here.

  He searched the house again, but it gave him no clues as to what had happened and how he’d apparently slept through it. Another tour of the garden also revealed nothing. There were no more mythological animals in the yard, no centaurs in the flower beds, no dragons in the tool shed. Inside, only the locked door of the library indicated that anything was different. It had never been locked while his parents were there. Locking it must have been Uncle Kit’s doing. There was something in there that he didn’t want Norman to see.

  As he jostled the knob and leaned all his weight on the panelled wood door for what seemed like the millionth time, his imagination started to run away with him. What if Malcolm was in there? What if Kit was keeping Malcolm captive? What if his parents were in there, bound and gagged and straining to make themselves heard? At the thought of it, Norman dropped his hand from the handle and pressed his ear fervently to the door. Nothing. Just the creaking silence of an old house. No, he reassured himself. Uncle Kit was crazy—dangerous too—but he wasn’t actually evil. He wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose. When Uncle Kit messed things up, it was because of some crazy plan. He had taught Malcolm about the bookweird because he’d thought the stoat king would enjoy an adventure. It never occurred to him that you shouldn’t tell people their world was a book. He’d taken over Kelmsworth Hall just because he liked the idea of owning a big English manor home. He didn’t think about the consequences for George and the Intrepids. Norman had to figure out what Kit’s game was this time.

  The library doorknob seemed to stare at him defiantly. Below it, the keyhole was black. Norman put his eye to it, expecting to see something inside, but the room was dark, the windows and blinds drawn. A locked room and an empty keyhole suggested a key.

  Back down in the kitchen, Norman rummaged through the many kitchen drawers. There were fascinating things in these drawers; besides regular cutlery, there were dozens of implements Norman had never seen and could not fathom how to use. He recognized about three: a pizza cutter, a melon baller and a kebab skewer. The rest were clearly intended for prying open or cutting foods that old English people used to eat, but were now extinct. There was no key either.

  There was no more luck in the dining room. The sideboard was mostly for china and glassware. One drawer contained a cribbage board and an ancient wooden board game, but again no keys.

  The best bet, and the place he should have looked first, was the master bedroom. Kit had interrupted him as he was searching the bedside table. Maybe he was closer to finding something than he thought.

  Within minutes, Norman was rifling the bedside tables again: jars of makeup, ointment, hair scrunchies on his mom’s side; a digital voice recorder, some reading glasses and a pack of gum on his dad’s. But no key. When he was convinced of it, he sat down on the side of the bed and considered his next step. Something was very strange here, and it wasn’t just that his parents were missing and there was a unicorn in the backyard. There was something else. All day as he searched through the house, the feeling had grown. Something else was different about the place. Something had changed—something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  The sound of car tires on the gravel outside interrupted his thinking. He rushed out to the landing to peer through the window, hoping to see his parents’ little yellow rental car. It would have made him feel a lot better if they were home, but it was not the yellow hatchback that pulled up in front of the house. Norman didn’t know much about cars, but it looked fast. It was low and silver and with scoops on its long pointed hood. He didn’t have to guess who was driving it.

  He was downstairs and at the front door just as the silver machine skidded to a stop on the gravel. Its engine growled as it shut off, and its two doors opened upwards with a hissing sound, like the hatches of a space vehicle, to allow Uncle Kit to step out. Kit grinned at Norman as he pressed a button on the key fob to close the doors again. They retracted slowly, tucking in like wings. Another press of a button caused the silver vehicle to bleep and a small hatch to open at the back.

  “Dinner is in there. There’s something special for you too, Norms.” Kit motioned to the hatch with his head.
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  Norman didn’t budge. “Where did you get the car? Let me guess: some spy dude just finished his mission and is wondering where he parked it. Did you leave him some bus tickets?”

  Uncle Kit smiled conspiratorially, enjoying the joke, or perhaps thinking this was very close to the truth. “You pick things up on your travels, as you well know.”

  Norman glared at him. Of course, the silver car had come out of a book, just like Raritan had come out of a book, just like his sister’s new tiara.

  “Did you pick up anything of mine? The Secret in the Library? Malcolm’s treaty map?”

  Kit wagged a finger at him. “Don’t get grabby, young man. That’s my book. An old family friend gave me The Secret in the Library for my birthday one year. Didn’t you see my name on the flyleaf? I thought you were more observant than that.”

  “You wrote your name in it yourself,” Norman countered. “My mom told me so. It’s her—”

  Kit cut him off. His face, usually smooth and condescending, became pinched and angry like a spoiled child.

  “Meg is a sneaky, lying—” He caught himself and stopped. “A childish disagreement. We laugh about it now.”

  “How about you let me borrow it, then?” Norman bit his lip as he asked. He should have waited. He should have found a time when Kit wasn’t looking for an argument.

  Kit let his wagging finger drop and smiled a knowing smile. “Oh, don’t worry, Norms. You’ll find I can share my toys. Why don’t you take the SL3 for a spin?”

  Norman reacted just quickly enough to catch the keys that were tossed to him.

  “I’ve dismantled the rocket launcher, but the other evasive features are still active. Give the oil slick a try.”

  “What?” Norman asked.