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only other occupant of the room was Harris Tweed, who was reading a report. He
looked up as I entered, said nothing and continued reading. Miss Havisham was
studying some photographs as I walked up.
'Damn and blast!' she said, looking at one before tossing it over her shoulder
and staring at the next.
'Pathetic!' she muttered, looking at another. 'Derisive!'
'Perkins?' I asked, sitting down.
'Speed camera pictures back from the labs,' she said, handing them over. 'I
thought I would have topped one hundred and sixty, but look  well, it's
pitiful
, that's what it is!'
I looked. The speed camera had caught the Higham Special but recorded only a
top speed of 152.76 mph.
But what was worse, it showed Mr Toad travelling at over a hundred and eighty
 and he had even raised his hat at the speed camera as he went past.
'I managed a hundred and seventy when I tried it on the M4,' she said sadly.
'Trouble is, I need a longer stretch of road  or sand. Well, can't be helped
now. The car has been sold. I'll have to go cap in hand to
Sir Malcolm if I want to get a shot at beating Toad.'
'Norland Park to Perkins,' said Snell into the footnoterphone, 'come in,
please. Over.'
I looked at Havisham.
'No answer for almost six hours,' she said. 'Mathias isn't answering either 
we got a Yahoo once but you might as well talk to Mrs Bennett. What's that?'
'It's a list of demands from the nurseries outside.'
'Rabble,' replied Havisham, 'all of them replaceable. How hard can it be,
appearing in a series of rhyming couplets? If they don't watch themselves
they'll be replaced by scab Generics from the Well. It happened when the
Amalgamated Union of Gateway Guardians struck in 1932. They never learn.'
'All they want is a holiday '
'I shouldn't concern yourself with nursery politics, Miss Next,' said
Havisham, so sharply I jumped.
'Good work on the ProCath attack,' announced Tweed, who had walked over. 'I've
had a word with Plum over at JurisTech; he's going to extend the
footnoterphone network to cover more of
Wuthering Heights

we shouldn't have a problem with mobilefootnoterphones dropping out again.'
'We'd better not,' replied MissHavisham coldly. 'Lose Heathcliff and the
Council of Genres will have our colons for garters. Now, to work. We don't
know what to expect as regards the minotaur, so we have to be prepared.'
'Like boy scouts?'
'Can't stand them, but that's beside the point. Turn to page seven eighty-nine
in your TravelBook.'
I did as she bade. This was in an area of the book where the pages contained
gadgets in hollowed-out recesses deeper than the book was thick. One page
contained a device similar to a flare gun which had
'Mk IV TextMarker' written on its side. Another page had a glass panel
covering a handle like a fire alarm. A note painted on the glass read: 'IN
UNPRECEDENTED EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS'. The page Havisham had indicated was
neither of these; page 789 contained a brown Homburg hat. Hanging
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...Well%20Of%20Lost%20Plots%20(v1.
1%20htm).html (96 of 212) [10/15/2004 12:52:28 AM]
Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next 03 - The Well of Lost Plots from the brim was a
large red toggle with 'In emergency pull down sharply' written on it. There
was also a chin strap, something I've never seen on a Homburg before  or even
Page 97
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
a fedora or trilby, come to that.
Havisham took the hat from my hands and gave me a brief induction course.
'This is the Martin-Bacon Mk VII Eject-O-Hat,' she explained, for high-speed
evacuation from a book.
Takes you straight out in an emergency.'
'Where to?'
'A little-known novel entitled
The Middle of Next Week
. You can make your way out to the Library at leisure. But be warned: the jump
can be painful, even fatal  so it should only be used as a last resort.
Remember to keep the chin strap tight or it'll take your ears off during the
ejection sequence. I will say
"JUMP!" twice  by the third I will have gone. Any questions?'
'How does it work?'
'I'll rephrase that  any questions I can possibly hope to answer?'
'Does this mean we'll see Bradshaw without his pith helmet?'
'Ha-ha!' Bradshaw laughed, releasing the toggle from the brim. 'I have the
smaller Mk XII version  it could be fitted into a beret or a veil, if we so
wished.'
I picked up the Homburg from the table and put it on.
'What are you expecting?' I asked slightly nervously, adjusting the chin
strap.
'We think the minotaur has escaped,' she answered gravely. 'If it has and we
meet it, just pull the cord as quickly as you can. It always takes at least
ten to twelve words to initiate a standard jump  you could be minotaur
appetiser by that time.'
I pulled out my automatic to check it but Bradshaw shook his head.
'Your Outlander lead will not be enough.'
He held up the box of cartridges he had signed for.
'Boojum-tipped,' he explained, tapping the large hunting rifle he was
carrying, 'for total annihilation.
Back to text in under a second. We call them Eraserheads. Snell? Are you
ready?'
Snell had a fedora version of the Eject-O-Hat which suited his trenchcoat a
bit better. He grunted but didn't look up. This assignment was personal.
Perkins was his partner not just at Jurisfiction but in the
Perkins & Snell series of detective novels. If Perkins was hurt in some way,
the future could be bleak.
Generics could be trained to take over a vacated part, but it's never the
same.
'Okay,' said Havisham, adjusting her own Homburg, 'we're out of here. Hold on
to me, Next. If we are split up we'll meet at the gatehouse  no one enters
the castle without Bradshaw, okay?'
Everyone agreed and Havisham mumbled to herself the code word and some of the
text of
Sword of the
Zenobians
.
Pretty soon Norland Park had vanished and the bright sun of Zenobia greeted
us. The grass was springy under foot and herds of unicorns grazed peacefully
beside the river. Grammasites wheeled in the blue skies, riding the thermals
that rose from the warm grassland. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]