by Anna James
“Why would you say that?” Grandma asked slowly.
“Just a hunch,” Amelia said, looking Grandma directly in the eyes. Neither of them said anything more.
“So what went wrong?” Grandad asked.
“The last page of my book had been torn,” Tilly said.
“I genuinely don’t think we have any cause for concern,” Amelia said firmly. “Tilly knows not to travel into that book again, and this is a good lesson in the importance of following the bookwandering rules. Maybe when Tilly’s found her feet a bit more with bookwandering, and had a little time to digest everything she’s learned today, we can revisit this, but no reason to worry for now. Much more important to get her home. But maybe watch some TV tonight instead of reading a book?” She smiled as she shook Grandad’s hand and gave Grandma a warm hug.
Tilly climbed into the back of the waiting taxi that had brought Grandma and Grandad to the Underlibrary, and she was asleep long before they got back to Pages & Co.
30
Fairy Tales
The next morning Grandma woke Tilly up with a glass of orange juice and a plate of peanut butter on toast.
“Morning, sweetheart,” she said. “How are you feeling? You’ve had a lot to think about—you know you can come and chat with me or Grandad anytime, if you want, and we’ll be completely honest with you about bookwandering, or your mum and dad—as much as we know.”
Tilly gave her a bit of a wobbly smile.
“Or Jack and I were going to do some party planning, if you wanted to join in with that for a bit? Maybe you could see if Oskar wants to come round and help too?”
Tilly nodded more confidently and took a big crunch of toast. A morning of day-to-day bookshop business was exactly what she wanted to give her time to think through everything that had happened yesterday—but first she had research to do. After finishing her breakfast, knowing she’d regret eating her toast in bed later, she picked up the ripped copy of A Little Princess and flicked back to the scene in the bakery. She was relieved to find she hadn’t been imagining things—the story was undeniably, if unremarkably, different.
“There must be a reason my mum kept this one,” Tilly said to herself, tucking it under her arm to go and compare it to the bookshop copies.
She went downstairs, through a warm but empty kitchen, and into the shop. Jack and Grandma were clustered round one of the café tables, laughing and making notes.
“I’m going to go and find Oskar!” Tilly called over as she made her way out onto the high street, which was littered with autumn leaves. But Crumbs was locked up and all the lights were off. Tilly pressed her face against the glass, but there was quite obviously no one there, and there was no note pinned to the door, or any kind of explanation. She pulled her phone out and sent Oskar a text.
crumbs is closed? are you okay? Tilly x
A few minutes later she had a reply.
my mamie is poorly :( mum closed shop to sort plans at home. oskar
what’s going on? t x
mum might have to go to paris to help. or emilie might come back here for a bit. o
are you going to france too? t x
not sure. maybe. not today tho. waiting for more news.
do you want to come to the shop and help with the party? we can meet you at bus stop if your mum’s worried?
will ask
And then, after a few minutes:
k, coming now. mum says thanks. she will call shop and speak to elsie or archie. no. 81?
no. 81, get off at beech court stop. see you soon. we have fresh doughnuts!!!! t x
Tilly dashed back into the shop.
“Oskar’s French grandmother isn’t very well,” she shouted over to Grandma. “Crumbs is closed—he’s going to get the bus over from his flat, if that’s okay? Mary’s going to call you.” And just as she said it the phone started ringing.
“Yes, of course, Mary. Yes, don’t worry . . . We’ll be there at the bus stop to meet him, I promise . . . Yes, Tilly has his phone number . . . No problem, as long as you need . . . Tell us if there’s anything else we can do at all . . . Yes, speak soon . . .”
About half an hour later Tilly got a text from Oskar that he was nearly there and Jack went with her to wait at the bus stop round the corner. An exhausted-looking Oskar arrived a few minutes later. They exchanged glances that had to replace words that couldn’t be said in front of Jack.
“All right, mate?” Jack said. “Sorry to hear your mamie is poorly. Do you want to talk about it or just get on as usual?”
“Get on as usual,” Oskar said firmly. “I do not want anyone making a fuss.”
“Sure thing,” Jack said. “There’s heaps to do around here for the party. Plenty to keep you occupied for hours! Elsie’ll have you cutting out decorations all day, if you’re not careful.”
Grandma waved them over to her as they arrived back at the shop. Oskar stared at all the pieces of paper littering the table. Bad sketches, lists of people and ideas, lots of empty coffee mugs.
“Right, team,” Grandma said. “On today’s agenda: decorations, RSVP list, confirming food and drink.”
“Isn’t that everything?” Tilly asked, and Grandma laughed.
“Not even close, my darling. The party is tomorrow night after all. Now, how do we feel about the decorations? Something to do with playing cards, I suppose?”
“Well, I was thinking I could do something along those lines in the window,” Jack said. “Maybe try to copy one of the illustrations from the book? I’m not sure what would work best.”
“Oskar’s good at art,” Tilly volunteered.
“Uh, no I’m not,” he said.
“Yes you are. I saw you drawing the other day.”
“Just because I like doing it doesn’t mean I’m any good at it,” Oskar said.
“Well, I bet you are,” Tilly said.
“Why don’t you have a doodle, see if you can come up with anything?” Grandma said encouragingly, pushing a pen and some blank paper toward Oskar. “We’re not expecting you to be Picasso, don’t worry. All ideas are useful. Look at what a state we’re in!” Oskar looked unconvinced, but shielded the paper with his arm and started scratching.
* * *
After an hour of companionable silence, Jack went to refill the teapot, juice glasses, and the plate that had only a scattering of crumbs left on it. Oskar had gradually forgotten to keep his arm over his paper and now had several sheets laid out in front of him covered in colorful flowers and vines as well as sketches of impossibly high cream cakes. Interspersed with party ideas were doodles of pirate ships and treasure maps.
“Have you always enjoyed art, Oskar?” Grandma asked.
“Uh-huh.” Oskar nodded as he drew. “Actually it was my mamie who first encouraged me. I used to always be scrawling on bits of paper, and she was a book illustrator when she was younger and helped me learn a bit more about, you know, actually making things look like real things.”
“Ah, Oskar, I knew there had to be some literary lineage somewhere!” Grandma said in delight.
“Literary what?” he said.
“Lineage . . . It means your ancestors, your family, the people you’re descended from. No wonder you were so attuned to bookwandering if your grandmother was an artist—what sort of thing did she illustrate, do you know?”
“All sorts, I think, although she always says the thing she was most proud of was this huge version of a book of fairy tales—she has some of her artwork from it up in her apartment in Paris.”
“How wonderful,” Grandma said. “We’ll have to ask your mum which edition it is and see if we can track it down; I’d love to see her work. We should send her some of your drawings, Oskar; I’m sure it would make her happy to see them.”
Oskar flushed and nodded, a small smile on his face.
“The thing is about bookwandering—” Gr
andma started, but stopped abruptly as Jack came back with a tray. Tilly and Oskar exchanged a look and went back to their paper.
“All still being very studious, I see,” Jack said, setting down a plate of scones with cream and jam. “I’m very impressed indeed. Oskar, you’re clearly a good influence; it normally takes Elsie and Tilly forever to get anything done.”
Grandma grinned at him affectionately as he sat back down and started working on the shopping list. As Oskar returned back to his drawings and Grandma looked back at the guest list, Tilly kicked her heels together, not sure how she was supposed to be helping.
“Why don’t I go and get some copies of Alice in Wonderland maybe?” she suggested. “For inspiration.”
“Ah, good idea, Tilly, yes, of course. But, um, don’t stray too far, yes?” Grandma looked intently at her, and she nodded her understanding.
Once she arrived in the children’s section, instead of heading for the C shelf to find Carroll, Lewis, Tilly went to the shelf above for Burnett, Frances Hodgson, and pulled down a few different copies of A Little Princess. She settled down to compare the books herself. She found the bakery scene in three different editions—and they were all the same as one another, but also the same as her mother’s copy. Tilly felt a cold, leaden feeling settle in her stomach. She had been so sure she was going to find some clues to her parents’ love story, and yet her mum’s copy seemed to be entirely normal. She checked the whole opening, in which her father appeared, against all the books and had to accept they were word for word the same. Which meant, she realized with a jolt, that it was Chalk’s copy that was different.
As she sat with the pile of books next to her a familiar voice said, “Why, hello again,” and Alice settled down next to her in a rustle of petticoats.
“You look most perturbed,” she said. “Do you want to escape for a bit with me?” She held out her hand to Tilly, who shuffled away.
“I’ve got to stay here and help,” Tilly said firmly. “Plus, yesterday, I tried to go inside a book and everything went wrong.” Tilly found herself distinctly wobbly about the idea of bookwandering after everything that had happened the day before, not to mention desperate for some time to herself to think about what she’d learned.
“Boring!” Alice said. “Firstly, no one will notice you’ve gone, and secondly you’ll be with me so it’s fine. Do you want to come and see the most beautiful garden?”
“Maybe you could stay here and talk instead? Or help?” Tilly said hopefully.
“What are you doing?” said Alice.
“We’re getting ready for the party,” Tilly said.
“Oh, how marvelous,” Alice said, clapping her hands together in delight. “I love parties. Will you have games?”
“Um, maybe,” Tilly said. “Although it’s more of a chatting sort of party.”
“That doesn’t sound like a party to me, and I know the most wonderful game—it’s called a caucus race.”
“And how do you play that?” Tilly asked. “Isn’t it kind of chaotic?”
Alice paused. “The best way to explain it is to do it, really.”
“Well, you’ll have to try, because I’m not coming with you,” Tilly said.
“Fine,” Alice huffed. “Well, you need a racetrack, which should be a circle sort of shape, but it doesn’t really matter so much, and then everyone starts running until the race is finished.”
“But how do you know when it has finished?” Tilly asked.
“I’m not quite sure, to be honest. The first time I saw it I was confused, I admit. Everyone got prizes, so I suppose everyone won.”
“It doesn’t sound like it makes much sense, and I don’t think we could have a race in the shop anyway.”
Alice sighed. “No, you’re probably right. Sometimes being sensible is ever so dull, don’t you find?”
“I suppose,” Tilly said, “although sometimes being sensible is, well, the sensible thing to do.”
“How contrary you sound,” Alice replied. She paused. “I really do think you should come with me to the garden, you know; it’s ever so beautiful.”
“I can’t. I promised Grandma I’d stay here. Maybe we could go after the party?” Tilly suggested.
“I would like to go now actually,” Alice said. “I’ve not had a friend like you before and I want you to come with me.” She leaned over and tried to grab Tilly’s hand.
“No!” Tilly said, snatching her hand away, but Alice managed to get hold of her little finger and the shop began to melt away just as Tilly pulled her hand back.
“Bother,” she heard Alice say as she faded away.
31
Curiosity Creates the Very Best Adventures
Tilly was in a garden, but Alice was not. The garden was beautiful, though, Alice had been right about that. There were red roses growing everywhere, with ornate fountains dotted around bright flower beds. Tilly absentmindedly touched a rose and was alarmed to see that her fingers came away red. She thought she had pricked her finger until she realized that it was paint and that the roses were white underneath a messy layer of red paint. Of course, she thought, I’m in the Queen of Hearts’s garden, and she started looking for Alice with more urgency. A small wooden door in a tree was suddenly flung open and Tilly nearly fell over as a giant version of Alice’s face appeared at the doorway.
“What are you doing in there? And why are you so big?” Tilly whispered.
“Oh bother,” Alice said. “I’ve ended up on the wrong side again. Hang on.”
“No!” Tilly shouted after her. “I’ll come through to you! I’m small enough to get through the door and I don’t fancy running into the Queen of Hearts by myself, not with her habit of chopping people’s heads off.”
It was a bit of a squeeze to get through the door in the tree, but when Tilly did she realized that she only came up to Alice’s knee.
Alice picked her up carefully and took her over to a huge three-legged table made of glass and placed her on top. There was a bottle with a paper label marked “DRINK ME” and a tiny golden key, and Tilly felt as though she was experiencing déjà vu. Alice was crouched down on the floor, looking for something.
“Aha, here it is,” she said triumphantly, setting down a cake next to the bottle. The cake was marked in raisins. “Now, if I could just remember which way round they are . . .”
“I think maybe the cake is for growing, and the drink for shrinking,” Tilly said, “seeing as how the cake was on the floor and the bottle is up here.”
“Now, you say that, but things here can be rather topsy-turvy, so perhaps the opposite is true,” Alice said, reaching for the bottle.
“No, no, no!” Tilly shouted. “I definitely think you should just try a crumb of the cake first. And—Stop, Alice! Wait! You need to put me on the floor first, with the bottle, so we have all the options available.”
Alice stared at her. “You’re ever so logical,” she said in a pitying voice. “No wonder you don’t fit in here.”
“Since when was being logical a bad thing?” Tilly said accusingly. “It means you don’t get stuck at the wrong size constantly.”
“Now, I know you must have a good imagination, otherwise you couldn’t be here, but it’s hardly on display. Curiosity creates the very best adventures in my experience. That’s what your mother used to say, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Be brave, be curious, be kind,” Tilly said.
“Well, exactly. She sounds like she knew what she was talking about.” And with that Alice placed Tilly down on the floor alongside the bottle and popped the whole cake into her mouth in one go. Within seconds she had shrunk to the same size as Tilly.
“You’d better have that key,” Tilly said. Alice opened her palm to reveal it shining in her hand.
Alice grinned triumphantly. “Shall we?”
They walked back to the tiny doo
r, which Alice made a great song and dance about opening with a dramatic flourish, and they were back in the beautiful garden with its roses dripping with paint.
Alice touched one gingerly and her fingertips came away red.
“I wonder why they have been painted,” she said. “They already looked so beautiful.”
“It’s because it’s the Queen of Hearts’s garden,” Tilly said. “You must know that; it’s your story.”
“It’s the queen’s garden?” Alice said in horror. “I’ve heard the most monstrous things about her. We must make sure she doesn’t spot us.”
“What? How do you—”
But Tilly was interrupted by three gardeners, all dressed as playing cards, manically dabbing at roses that had not yet been painted.
“Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!”
“I couldn’t help it,” said the Five of Spades. “Seven jogged my elbow!”
“That’s right, Five!” grumbled the third gardener. “Always lay the blame on others.”
The arguing went on for ages until Seven threw its paintbrush down, splattering bursts of red paint all over the grass and the other gardeners. It turned away from them, crossing its arms in a sulk, and laid eyes on Tilly and Alice, watching them with mouth open.
“Would you tell me, please,” asked Alice, “why you are painting those roses?”
“Why, the fact is, you see, Miss,” said the Two of Spades, “this here ought to have been a red rose-tree and we put a white one in by mistake, and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—”