by Anna James
“Do we have any idea where he’s gone? I know you are more than capable of dealing with this, Amelia, but a Source character on the loose who seems determined to bend the rules of bookwandering to his own aims is a rather unprecedented turn of events, even for the Underlibrary.”
“We’ve got some educated guesses about where to begin,” Amelia said. “I’ve asked some colleagues to seal off his office, and we are going to start with the very small supply of books in there, and any books we know he has a historic link to. The rules of bookwandering are being stretched and tested in a way they haven’t been before, maybe even beyond Chalk’s meddling.”
“You must let me know if I or Elsie, or Tilly and Oskar, can be of any help,” said Grandad. And to one side Oskar choked a little on a mouthful of cake when he heard his name.
“I will, of course, Archie. We’ll find him and deal with him,” Amelia said, and Grandad nodded. “He may be a Source character, but they still have their limits.
“But, Tilly, I have one more question: how did you get back to the Underlibrary again without any of the librarians noticing? Did you use the damaged copy of A Little Princess?”
Tilly shook her head fiercely. “No, you said not to! We, uh, we sort of went via the Endpapers of Alice in Wonderland,” Tilly confessed sheepishly. “I sort of put everything together—what Seb told us, and what happened when I ended up back at the Underlibrary when the last lines were missing from A Little Princess—and realized that I could travel from the Endpapers because of who my father is, and the whole being half-fictional thing.”
“So we just traveled to the very end of the book and waited, and everything went all trippy and weird and sort of rewound around us,” Oskar finished.
“That was incredibly risky,” Amelia said, pale-faced. “I’m sure Seb warned you that the Endpapers are a dangerous place.”
“But ingenious, you have to admit,” Grandma said, failing to keep a distinct note of pride from her voice.
Amelia tutted, but with the hint of a smile on her face. “Honestly, Elsie.”
“Speaking of the end of Alice,” Tilly said, trying to change the subject a little, “why does Alice’s story end with the whole thing being a dream?”
“Well,” Grandad said, “I’ve always thought that it’s because the writer is saying that our dreams and our stories matter. I think it’s quite beautiful that you can read the whole book as Alice telling her sister a story. And then Alice’s sister is thinking about passing on the story to their future children, because stories last much longer than we do. Our stories are how we will be remembered—so we’ve got to make sure they are worth telling.”
Epilogue
“I think it’s time,” Bea said to Tilly, who nodded. It was a frosty weekend at the start of December and every day since she had come home Bea and Tilly had got to know each other a little better than they had the day before. Their relationship was still fragile, but it was beautiful and sweet like spun sugar.
Tilly got out her brand-new copy of A Little Princess and turned to the page where Captain Crewe and Sara first arrive at Miss Minchin’s—the moment Bea had first met Captain Crewe, and the moment Tilly had first seen her father. They held hands and Tilly read them in.
Even as the smoggy Victorian square blossomed around them, they did not drop each other’s hands. They watched as the black cab drew up to the school steps and a small girl with a black bob got out, clutching the hand of a tall man. The two characters climbed the steps to the school and rang the doorbell. As the door opened Captain Crewe happened to glance behind him to where Bea and Tilly were standing. He tilted his head as if he recognized them but couldn’t place from where, and then offered them a smile and a tip of his hat before disappearing inside. Bea pulled Tilly closer to her as she wiped a tear from her cheek. She took a deep breath and smiled, and Tilly read them back to Pages & Co., where Grandad had the kettle on.
Acknowledgments
To Mum and Dad, who gave me a childhood full of books and library visits, and taught me to love learning and words. To my sister, Hester, who I love fiercely, and who this book is for. To my grandparents; I borrowed bits of all of you to make Tilly’s grandparents so special.
To all the Brays and Kitchens, and the Collier/Cotton family.
To my agent, Claire Wilson, who is a constant source of wisdom, encouragement, and kindness. To Rosie Price and Miriam Tobin, and everyone at RCW.
To the three editors of this book: Lizzie Clifford, who acquired it; Sarah Hughes, who tamed it; and Rachel Denwood, who helped it over the finishing line. To Jo-Anna Parkinson, Alex Cowan, Elisa Offord, Julia Sanderson, David McDougall, Elorine Grant, Francesca Lecchini-Lee, Beth Maher, Jessica Dean, Carla Alonzi, Ann-Janine Murtagh, and the whole team at HarperCollins Children’s Books who have made this experience so wonderful. To Paola Escobar, for her beautiful illustrations.
To Katie Webber and Cat Doyle, for more things than I have space to list here.
To my friends: Kiran Millwood-Hargrave, Rosalind Jana, Kate Rundell, Tom de Freston, Kevin Tsang, Melinda Salisbury, Lizzie Preston, Amy Stutz, Erin Minogue, Jamie Wright, Jon Usher, Anne Miller, Sarah Shaffi, Sarah McKenna, Alice Ryan, Eric Anderson, Naomi Reed, Naomi Kent, Sarah Richards, Jo Kitchen, Laura Iredale, Jen Herlihy, Jennie Rickell, and Jules at the Aylmer Pantry, where I wrote and edited so much of this book.
To those who encouraged me at the earliest of stages: Alan Weir, Jacqueline Hughes-Williams, Cathy Rentzenbrink, and John Ironmonger.
To the literary world, online and in real life, including everyone I worked with at The Bookseller, who gave me a community of book-lovers and friends and like-minded people just when I needed it most. To Anne Shirley, Sara Crewe, and Alice, and also to Lyra Belacqua, who is sadly still in copyright.
And to Adam Collier, for everything, always.
About the Author
Anna James is a writer and journalist. She was a school librarian before joining The Bookseller as their Book News Editor. She now writes for a variety of newspapers and magazines, and chairs events at bookshops and literary festivals across the UK. She lives in north London, in a flat full of books. Visit Anna online at anna-james.com. Follow her on Twitter @acaseforbooks.
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