The Book Jumper

by Mechthild Gläser

  We entered a circular room somewhere deep beneath the island. It had walls of roughly hewn rock and was completely empty apart from a claw-foot table in the middle.

  “This is the end of the Secret Library,” Desmond explained. “There are no more books here. Apart from this one.” He pointed to the table.

  We moved closer and now I saw that there was a pane of glass built into the carved wooden tabletop, and that beneath the glass lay a few scraps of charred paper. I read the words monster and knight. Written on one of the larger fragments was the phrase: “I choose you,” said the princess. “Kneel.”

  “This is all that remains of the manuscript,” said Desmond. “It is all that your ancestors were able to rescue from the flames. Just these scraps of paper and … us.” His hands trembled on the glass. He looked me straight in the eye and a look of pain that was much older than his outward appearance flickered across his face. “Glenn, Clyde, and I—we can never go back. We have been living in the outside world ever since, getting by as best we can on Stormsay.” Please don’t condemn me, his eyes seemed to say.

  I nodded almost imperceptibly. Since my conversation with Alexis I no longer blamed either of them for having fallen in love. When people lived so close together on such a tiny island they were going to fall in love sometimes, like it or not.… The whole thing was still weird, obviously. Finding out that Desmond was my father had been a shock. But I would get used to it in time.

  “I didn’t know there was so much of it left,” said Betsy, leaning over the pane of glass with evident interest. “It’s a shame none of it seems to be connected. Have you ever tried to fit the pieces together?”

  “We have tried everything, believe me. But it is difficult,” said Desmond. “Too many memories.”

  Will, too, seemed fascinated by the remnants of the manuscript. He pored over the scraps of paper, dotted with burn holes and soot marks. “He would stop the monster,” he murmured under his breath.

  I, on the other hand, was still staring at Desmond. He was studiously avoiding looking at the manuscript.

  “Who…” I began at last, gnawing at my bottom lip. I hardly dared ask the question. But I felt that I had to know, if I was to understand who and what my father was. “Glenn said the manuscript was a fairy tale,” I whispered at last, too quietly for Betsy and Will to hear. “Who were you in the story? What was it about?”

  Desmond lowered his eyes. “I was a knight,” he said. “And the story was about the pursuit of a terrible monster.” Then he handed me the lantern. “You three go back. Glenn wants you to spend some time in your practice books today.”

  “But don’t you need light for the way back?” I asked. The lantern was heavier than I’d expected.

  “No. I know the way.” He looked as if he wanted to be alone for a while in the darkness. Alone with his memories. We left him.

  Half an hour later Betsy jumped from the stone circle into her book of fairy tales and I jumped into the jungle, while Will sat on one of the boulders watching us. He was still refusing to return to the book world.

  I landed, as usual, among the roots of the giant jungle tree. By now I’d mastered the art of landing without falling over. As soon as the greenery of the forest unfolded around me I picked my way out of the tangle of tree roots and went over to join Werther and Shere Khan the tiger, who were discussing the strange thefts and debating whether or not the fairies could be trusted.

  “Hello,” I greeted them.

  “Ah, how wonderful! There you are!” Werther beamed at me.

  The tiger gave me a nod.

  “So—any news?” I asked.

  “Dracula’s on the warpath. Says somebody’s raided his treasure chamber,” rumbled Shere Khan.

  “Perhaps we should go there first, then, and have a scout around,” I said to Werther.

  But he immediately turned a shade paler and shook his head.

  “If the fellow really has been robbed, it might be best to give his story a wide berth,” Shere Khan chipped in. “He can be rather irascible at times, and when he gets like that he’ll bite you as soon as look at you.”

  “And besides, I already had, er—an alternative plan,” added Werther, straightening his ponytail, which had got tangled up in a creeper. “If you will permit me, Miss Amy, I should like to show you a flower.”

  “A flower?”

  “It is a very special flower—the only one of its kind in all the universe. It is beautiful, just like y—”

  “If there really is a criminal going around destroying stories, I wouldn’t have thought this was the best time to be looking at ridiculous flowers,” Shere Khan cut in.

  Werther pursed his lips, offended. “Botanical study is not ridiculous,” he said. “Don’t you agree, Miss Amy? Do you not wish to see this extraordinary flower?” He gazed hopefully at me. “It really is wonderfully, wonderfully pretty!”

  “Well,” I began hesitantly. “Where is it? Is it far from here?”

  “Not at all. A stone’s throw, so to speak.”

  The tiger sighed. “At least wait for me to finish my next scene, then, and I’ll come with you. Who knows what the thief is up to? You need somebody to protect you, Book Jumper.”

  Werther squared his shoulders beneath his embroidered frock coat. “I am perfectly capable of protecting a young lady under my—”

  “Wait for me,” repeated Shere Khan, and slunk off through the undergrowth.

  Werther was evidently affronted, and barely said a word as the three of us set out a little while later along the roads of the book world. Lips still pursed, he led us along a series of winding paths to another crossroads. This one also had a signpost at its center, and we followed the sign for The Little Prince. Soon afterward the road petered out in the middle of a sand dune. It was suddenly so stiflingly hot that I took off my sweater and tied it round my waist. In a T-shirt I padded out across the fine golden-yellow Sahara sand that stretched in billowing waves to the horizon. The air shimmered above the smooth hills, and it was a while before we could make out what the dark blob in the middle of the desert actually was.

  It turned out to be an airplane, with somebody sitting in the sand beside it.

  “It doesn’t look to me as though there are many flowers around here,” grumbled Shere Khan.

  “Ha—just you wait,” said Werther, strutting on ahead with his head held high.

  I followed them, trying to think what I knew about the story we were in. I’d heard of The Little Prince, of course. When I was at primary school there’d been a poster on the wall showing a boy perched on the surface of a tiny planet. But as for the plot … I seemed to recall something about a fox asking to be tamed. But what else? I couldn’t remember what the desert had to do with the story.

  We marched for a long time over the hot sand before reaching the aircraft, which turned out to be a little propeller plane. Various tools lay scattered on the ground beside it. A man with an old-fashioned flying cap on his head was sitting with his back to the landing gear. He seemed to have given up on repairing his plane for the time being and was scribbling something on a piece of paper. A small boy with white-blond hair, dressed in a long blue coat, was looking over his shoulder. “No, that sheep is too old,” said the little prince. “Draw me another one.”

  The man screwed up the piece of paper and started again.

  Not until we were standing right in front of them did the man and the boy look up.

  “Good day,” said Werther. “Please do not let us disturb you—I merely wished to show this young lady—”

  “Can any of you draw me a sheep?” asked the Little Prince. “I would so love to take a sheep back with me to my planet.”

  “Well,” I said, “I could try. But wouldn’t that be interfering in the plot?”

  The Little Prince shook his head. “I’d hide your drawing in my pocket. Then I’d have two sheep, yours and the one he’s drawing.” He pointed to the man. “There’d be just enough space on my asteroid for both of
them. But we’ll still tell the readers there’s only one sheep.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, and I, too, sat down in the sand. The pilot gave me a pencil and a sheet of paper from his notepad. I started drawing, and the Little Prince turned to Shere Khan. “Would it put you off eating a flower if it had four thorns?” he asked.

  “Tigers don’t eat flowers,” said Shere Khan.

  “But if they did?” inquired the prince, and told us about his home planet where there were three knee-high volcanoes and a rose with four thorns. He told us that if you didn’t watch out, the surface of the planet became overrun with baobab trees.

  Bit by bit the story came back to me: of the Little Prince who left his asteroid to find a friend and ended up visiting a whole series of other planets, finishing with the Earth, where he tamed a fox and realized that he loved the rose he had left behind in spite of her capricious nature. I drew the prince a woolly little lamb and handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said, putting the piece of paper in his coat pocket. “So you’ve come to see my flower?”

  Werther nodded. “There is no other flower like her in the universe, after all.”

  “Yes,” sighed the Little Prince. “And she’s all the way up there, so far away from me. But when I look up at the stars I’m happy, because I know she’s waiting for me.”

  “Um…” said Shere Khan, who had been studying the sky for a while now with his head tipped back. “What did you say the thief was doing, Werther? Stealing the core ingredients?”

  We looked up. At the same moment, the little prince began to sob loudly.

  “No!” he cried. “Not my flower!”

  In the sky was a whole row of little planets. And on one of the asteroids, where I could also make out the silhouettes of three knee-high volcanoes, a shadow was plucking the most beautiful rose I had ever seen.

  The Little Prince screamed when the stem finally broke. The rose glowed brightly for a moment and then disappeared. The prince threw himself down on the sand and beat it with his fists.

  Werther and I exchanged a glance, then set off at a run. Shere Khan overtook us in huge bounds. He struck out with his paw at an insignificant-looking stone lying in the sand and the desert snapped shut on top of us. We flicked through the pages of the story as fast as we could until we found ourselves out in space.

  But by the time we reached the Little Prince’s asteroid, the thief was gone. Where once the rose had stood, all that remained were the first few shoots of a baobab tree poking up out of the ground.

  There was something moving, however, on one of the neighboring planets, which was very small and inhabited by a king in a voluminous ermine robe. “Ah, a subject! What a pleasant surprise!” cried the king. We skipped hastily forward a few pages, jumping from planet to planet.

  “We mustn’t let him escape!” panted Werther. Beads of sweat stood out on his pale forehead.

  The tiger growled in agreement. “I’ve a good mind to rip somebody to shreds.” He bared his teeth.

  But the thief was fast. We followed his shadow past a lonely lamplighter, a garden full of roses, and a fox who begged us to tame him. But we couldn’t catch up with the thief, so deftly did he skip back and forth between the pages. At last we came to the end of the story and found ourselves on a road that stretched across a tract of English countryside. We saw the shadow go scurrying off into the distance. Shere Khan was about to set off in pursuit when Werther came to a halt and stood bent double with his hands on his knees, huffing and puffing. I was out of breath, too.

  “We must go on,” urged the tiger. He closed his yellow cat’s eyes for a moment and sighed. “Climb onto my back if you must. I will carry you.”

  “A gentleman does not ride on a tiger,” said Werther. “And a lady most certainly does not.”

  But I had already swung myself up onto the tiger’s muscular back. “Come on—we don’t have time for this!” I called.

  Werther dabbed at his face with his embroidered handkerchief for a moment before finally relenting and clambering laboriously onto the tiger’s back behind me.

  Shere Khan shot off toward the horizon. He bounded over the hills so fast that the countryside around us soon became a blur. I held tightly to his fur while Werther clung to my shoulders, yelping. Soon we were whizzing past mansions, balls and fine ladies sitting in drawing rooms and at pianos, but Shere Khan was flicking us through the story far too quickly for me to make out any details. The tiger’s back rocked back and forth so violently with every bound that I had to focus all my energies on not falling off. The whole thing reminded me of my first and only ever ride on a roller coaster a few years before. In the end I just shut my eyes and prayed it would soon be over. Behind me, Werther was yelling something about having a delicate stomach.

  Our wild ride through the novel ended as suddenly as it had begun. Shere Khan came to such an abrupt halt that Werther and I were flung forward and fell head over heels into the grass. We were greeted by the sound of voices and quickly got to our feet. Feeling slightly wobbly, we made our way toward the source of the sounds.

  Dusk had fallen over the English countryside, and there was somebody sitting in a ditch by the roadside nearby. But it wasn’t the thief in his hooded cloak. It was a girl a few years older than me with dark hair and dark eyes. She was wearing a ball gown, its skirts stained with blood, and cradling her right leg, which was sticking out sideways at a funny angle. Her face was contorted with pain. Four other girls in frilly dresses, all bearing a strong resemblance to the injured girl, were clustered around talking to her along with a middle-aged married couple who looked like their parents. Behind the family lay an overturned carriage with a broken wheel axle. Two horses pawed the dusty ground nervously.

  “Have you had an accident?” I asked.

  The father of the family nodded. “Somebody appeared in the road all of a sudden,” he said, stroking his whiskers in puzzlement. “A hooded figure, just like that, in the middle of the plot. We weren’t able to stop in time. It’s a mystery to me where this person suddenly appeared from. A mystery!”

  Shere Khan, having prowled all the way around the scene of the accident, was now sniffing at the sand on the road. “From the outside world, I should say, judging by the smell around here,” he growled.

  “Oh—we shall be late to Netherfield!” cried one of the younger girls. “It is too horrid! We may miss a whole dance!”

  “And there will be so many officers there!” cried another.

  I approached the injured girl. “Lizzy?” I asked—for I had realized by now which story we’d stumbled into. I’d read Pride and Prejudice so often that I was almost ashamed not to have recognized the family earlier.

  The girl nodded. “Elizabeth Bennet,” she introduced herself and added, turning to her sisters, “I believe we will have to miss the ball entirely. I am afraid I have broken my leg.”

  Now Mrs. Bennet, the girls’ mother, chimed in too. “We cannot miss the ball!” she cried. “Your sister Jane must dance with Mr. Bingley! They are as good as engaged!”

  “It does not matter, Mamma,” said Jane, the eldest of the five daughters.

  “What are you thinking of, child? Do you not want to be mistress of Netherfield Hall? Do you want your sisters reduced to poverty when your father dies? Come, Lizzy, try to stand, at least. You may be able to dance after all. Make haste, child!”

  “My dear,” Mr. Bennet said with a sigh, “Lizzy is hurt. We need a doctor, not a dance.” He led his wife gently over to the upturned carriage. “The coachman must have reached the village by now. Sit down here while we wait.”

  “Oh!” groaned Mrs. Bennet, burying her head in her arms. “My poor nerves! Why must she break her leg today of all days!”

  “Indeed, that was most tactless of Lizzy,” said Mr. Bennet. “How could she be so selfish as to injure herself, and compromise all your matchmaking schemes?”

  “Oh!” wailed Mrs. Bennet again.

  The sisters were whispe
ring together.

  “Might we be of service to you?” Werther asked Lizzy meanwhile. “We happen to have a tiger with us, and he makes an excellent mount. We would be delighted to lend hi—”

  Shere Khan let out a hiss that clearly indicated he considered it beneath his dignity to be described as a mount.

  “No, thank you. We will manage. The doctor will be here soon,” said Lizzy quickly. “I will probably have to forgo balls for a while, but I do not mind that. I did not care to dance with that conceited Mr. Darcy anyway.”

  “Lizzy!” cried Mrs. Bennet.

  I turned to the tiger. “Someone from the outside world, you say?” I felt a knot of rage form in my stomach. Now even Pride and Prejudice, one of my favorite books in the world, was coming apart at the seams! I had to find out who was responsible.

  Shere Khan nodded his massive predator’s head. “The scent is weak and not entirely clear—but unless I’m very much mistaken, it smells rather like your island, Amy.”

  * * *

  When I got back to the stone circle I realized it was already five o’clock in the afternoon. There was no sign of Betsy—she’d probably gone home long ago. But Will was still there. I glimpsed his tall, thin figure in the shadow of one of the stone arches where he lay sleeping in the grass.