The Bookshop Girl

by Sylvia Bishop

  Every instinct in Property shouted at her to get closer to the ground, so she carried on downwards. At each room, she took one arm off the rope and bashed open the door, glimpsing the room inside before it banged shut again.

  It was strange to see the rooms from back here, warm and inviting, like scenes from another world. Pirate ship and boarding school, dragon’s cave and snowy tundra, painted caravan and giant bird’s nest, all flashed in and out of view. A theatre and a tea party and a junkyard and a circus tent. And suddenly, there! – the Room of Dictionaries!

  “Yes!” cried Property. She swung hard against the rope to prepare for her final leap. The whole stack rattled, as if in applause.

  All that remained was to get back inside. With one final swing, she gave the door a hearty kick, and let go of the rope. The door swung inwards, and she went flying in after it, letting it bang shut behind her.

  The Room of Dictionaries was waiting patiently, ever so clean and bright and polite. Property gave a small sob of relief. For a few lovely seconds she just lay there in the light, checking that she still had all the body parts that she had started out with. Her stomach slipped back to its rightful place, and tried to pretend that it had been on board with the plan the whole time.

  MAWR, said an angry voice.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Property. And she opened the door to let the Gunther in too.

  With the kitten restored to her shoulder, Property turned to the open door facing the shop floor. It was already light out there, and she could hear movements and voices. She realized that she had no idea how long she had been unconscious – or any real concept of how long she had spent climbing the stacks. It was already morning.

  Surely she wasn’t too late?

  OUTSIDE

  It took Property a moment to adjust to being back on the shop floor. In the weak morning sunlight, it looked dreary and defeated. Boxes littered the floor, Wollups were yawning in armchairs, and the piles of books looked lifeless and dull. Every movement echoed.

  Netty was up, but not Michael, so Property guessed that it was some time between eight and nine. She was always up and out of her hammock long before the others, so Netty probably hadn’t even noticed she was missing.

  Netty looked tea-deprived and befuddled. Next to her, Eliot was folding away some papers. The corners of his mouth almost looked as though they might be smiling.

  “STOP!” Property yelled.

  Netty and the half-awake Wollups looked at Property in confusion. It wasn’t clear what they were meant to be stopping. One of the Wollups sat entirely still to be on the safe side.

  MAWR, explained the Gunther.

  This didn’t help.

  “Don’t sign anything,” Property said, picking her way across the shop floor.

  Eliot raised one eyebrow a fraction. “How did you get out?”

  “I climbed.”

  “Climbed what?” said Netty.

  “The stacks,” said Property. “Listen, the important thing is—”

  “Why were you in the stacks?”

  “I put her there,” explained Eliot.

  “WHAT?”

  “Look,” said Property, “I’ll explain later, the important thing is—”

  “Good morning,” said Michael, shuffling out of the Room of Desert Islands and shaking a pile of sand out of his hair.

  “Michael,” said Netty, “please shake the sand out in the desert, not the shop floor.”

  “I did,” said Michael, folding his arms and dislodging more sand.

  “MUM,” said Property, “listen. Don’t sign anything. We don’t owe any money. The play’s a fake.”

  Netty’s mouth had already started to tell Michael off about the sand. It changed its mind, and hovered around in an O-shape for a while in confusion. At last, she said, “Oh.” She didn’t sound as pleased as Property had hoped.

  “You’re too late,” said Eliot. “Mr Gimble brought the papers round twenty minutes ago. We’ve signed.”

  “But if we don’t owe you anything—” Netty began.

  “Then you have very kindly given me two bookshops,” he finished, “and all your money. As a gift.” He smirked. “How thoughtful of you.”

  “That,” said Property, “is cheating.”

  “Gosh,” said Eliot, “so it is.”

  “Um,” said Michael, “I’m a bit confused.”

  “Delightful as this little chat is,” said Eliot, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t have it on my property. Time to go.” And he opened the door, and waited.

  “No,” said Netty.

  Eliot raised one eyebrow. “Pardon?”

  “This isn’t right,” said Netty. She was doing her firmest voice, the one that made Michael and Property do whatever she said at once. “We’ve been tricked. I want my signature back. You can’t expect to walk in here and take everything from my family and get away with it.”

  “I rather think I can,” said Eliot. And he signalled to three Wollups, who took hold of a Jones each. Property squirmed against the Wollup’s heavy hand, which did no good. The Gunther launched a heroic defence, but the other three Wollups got up to restrain him too, and after that he could only MAWR and spit.

  “I don’t know why you’re so shocked,” said Eliot, talking over Netty, who was still arguing. “It’s your own fault. You should have wondered why you were being given a free bookshop. And that fool Montgomery should have checked the play properly. If you people can’t be bothered to pay attention, then someone smarter than you will cheat you, in the end.” He turned away from them, and waved a hand. “Get them out.”

  And the Wollups pushed them outside, ignoring Netty’s sensible arguments and Michael’s clever thoughts about Justice and the Gunther’s spitting. The door was shut on the Joneses with a heavy bang. For a minute, they carried on yelling and hammering at the door, until at last it sank in that nobody was listening.

  Out here on the pavement, the world carried on as if nothing had happened. People ambled past. A driver honked his horn. The dull November light made London look a bit peaky, and everything shivered in the wind, including the Joneses.

  Property looked at her mother and brother, hoping that one of them was going to know what to do now. Neither of them spoke. Michael was blinking very fast.

  “Michael,” said Property, “what happened to your glasses?” There was a thin crack all the way across one of the lenses.

  “The Gunther,” said Michael “I think he was trying to help, but he missed.” The Gunther MAWRed sheepishly at their ankles.

  Netty made a noise that was either a laugh or a sob. “That cat,” she said, “is a nightmare. Come here, you two.” And she hugged them both, and took a couple of long shaky breaths. “Well,” she said, still holding on to them tightly, “we can’t stand here worrying all day, eh? Let’s find somewhere to sit down and have a think.” She ruffled Property’s hair. “And I need to hear what you’ve been up to, Prop. Sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure.”

  Netty was pretending to be all right, but her voice was a little too bright. Property wished that she was better with words, and could say something kind. But she couldn’t think of anything, so she just nodded.

  They looked up and down the street. There was a fancy-looking café across the road called the Café Splendide, but after counting the change in her pocket, Netty decided that it might be wise to just sit in the bus shelter. They perched on the red plastic seat, a little squashed.

  Property explained everything that had happened, skipping out the bit about being illiterate and useless. When she told them about the stacks, Michael let out a bellow of rage. A nervous young man who had been waiting for a bus quickly decided that it was a nice day for a walk, and hurried away.

  “Property Jones,” said Netty, when she had finished, “you are brilliant.”

  “But I was too late.” Property didn’t feel brilliant. If only she hadn’t spent so long feeling sorry for herself. Things could have been so different.

&n
bsp; The Gunther climbed comfortingly on to her head, but nobody knew what to say. The wind rushed past them, making them all shiver, rushing off to wherever-it-was-going. But where should the Joneses go?

  “Well,” said Netty, “I suppose the first thing to do is to complain to the police.”

  No one thought that this was likely to do very much good, but they agreed to try. Which was all very well, but they no longer had a telephone, and none of them knew where the nearest police station was.

  Netty asked passers-by, and eventually someone told them to take the number six bus. It turned out that Netty didn’t have enough change for all of them to get on the bus, so she went alone, and the other two waited for her at the bus stop.

  “Look after your sister, Michael,” she said, as she stepped on board. And Michael nodded solemnly, as if this was very reasonable. As if Property hadn’t just spent the night proving that she was more than capable of looking after herself.

  Property didn’t mind. Michael could take charge for a bit if he wanted to. She was suddenly very tired.

  Michael did his looking-at-her-properly thing. “Prop, did you sleep at all?” She shook her head, and he put his arm round her, and said, “Have a nap.” And that was the most sensible thing that Property had heard since they left the White Hart: so she did.

  It was a fitful doze, interrupted over and over again by the wind, and full of dreams. She dreamt about ropes and rattling doors, and the smell of vanilla in dark rooms. She dreamt that she was trying to tell Netty something urgent, but there was an ocean full of Wollup-walruses in the way. She dreamt that she was alone at the bus stop, because Michael had found out that she had lied about being able to read, and had left in a huff.

  When a man in plum-coloured velvet started warbling, Property thought that he was a dream too. But then Michael replied, and she could feel his voice rumbling in his chest – not like a dream-voice at all. So she dragged herself into wakefulness.

  There, entirely real, was Albert H. Montgomery himself.

  Michael and Montgomery were having an argument. Michael was getting more and more spluttery and his glasses were getting further and further down his nose, while Montgomery kept trying to say something about breakfast. It seemed to Property that breakfast was a colossally important idea. She wished Michael would stop interrupting him.

  “I’d like breakfast,” she announced.

  The argument stopped, as both of them turned to look at her. The Gunther purred approvingly.

  “Well, there we go then,” said Montgomery. “Splendid.”

  Michael opened his mouth to argue, looked at his shivering sister, and shut it again. Property felt him taking some deep breaths, like he did whenever a customer was rude about a favourite book. “Fine,” he said. And they stood up, and followed Montgomery into the Café Splendide.

  It turned out to be a very fancy café indeed. It was all decked out in pink and gold, with huge bunches of lilies in crystal vases, and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. It was all a bit much. Property was still only half-awake, and it was thoroughly muddling to be in a glitzy café when just a short time ago she had been climbing around in the stacks. And, her brain sleepily protested, what is Albert H. Montgomery himself doing here, anyway?

  The waiter at the door didn’t look too sure about the teenage boy in too-small clothes, or the little girl with a goblin-cat on her head. But he was very sure about Montgomery, who was clearly a regular. He ushered them to the best table. With amazing speed, more waiters appeared with three jugs of lemonade.

  “Splendid, thank you,” said Montgomery. “And I will have the knickerbocker glory breakfast special, please.”

  “Very good, Monsieur Montgomery,” said the waiter. “And for the young Monsieur and Mademoiselle?”

  Property ordered a cooked breakfast, because her night-time adventures had left her starving. Michael ordered a cooked breakfast too, because you never really need an excuse. Their orders arrived double-quick. Michael was still trying to look angry, but it is very hard to look angry at a delicious cooked breakfast.

  “Mr Montgomery,” said Property, “why have you come back?”

  Montgomery blew some sad bubbles in his lemonade through his straw while he considered how to reply. “I was hoping,” he said, “to put things right. I should have been the one to lose everything to Pink. I was coming back to face him myself. But young Michael informs me that I was too late.”

  Property had been half-asleep at the time, but she was pretty sure that young Michael had been a lot less polite than that.

  “I owe you an apology, my dear Joneses. And an explanation, perhaps. Not that it will excuse what I did.” He produced a photo from his jacket pocket. It showed five children and a rather stern woman, all dressed in plum-coloured velvet. “This is my family,” he said. “My wife, Aramanthea, is a good woman. Very good. Yes. A much finer woman than I deserve.” He had an encouraging nibble of ice cream. “I rather disappoint her, I’m afraid. She doesn’t approve of all the lemonade I drink. Seems to think I have rather a problem.”

  He paused hopefully, so Property said, “Oh, really? Surely not.” Michael had a mouth full of hash brown and couldn’t talk, so he just looked surprised. The Gunther had a mouth full of Property’s hash brown, and didn’t care a fig what Montgomery was talking about.

  Montgomery sighed. “I never told her about the play. All our money, lost! I couldn’t. She would have left me, I’m sure, and taken the children too. She is always saying I’m a bad influence on them.” He looked sadly at the photo. “Such a very good woman.”

  The Joneses didn’t know what to say. They looked at their plates. The Gunther discovered baked beans, which he had never eaten before, and he started purring furiously.

  “I have always believed,” Montgomery continued, “that I would do anything for my splendid children. But when I met you, my dear Joneses, it was all rather more difficult than I expected. To be frank, you were off-puttingly nice. I found I couldn’t cheat you after all. I had to try and undo the damage.” He raised his eyebrows at Property. “You were quite right, Miss Jones – most unfortunately, saying ‘goodbye’ didn’t mean I couldn’t come back.”

  The waiter came gliding over to check on the food.

  “Is everything to your satisfaction, Monsieur Montgomery?”

  “Not really,” said Montgomery, staring into his lemonade. “I believe I may be a terrible sham of a human being.”

  The waiter bobbed a small bow and went gliding off very fast, like a startled duck.

  Montgomery sighed. “Can you forgive me?”

  Property found, to her surprise, that she could. She didn’t even have to try very hard. He had tried to put it right, after all. And she knew all about doing stupid things for your family.

  Michael was harder to please. He folded his arms. “Do you realize we have nowhere to live?”

  “My dear Michael,” said Montgomery, “I promise you that I will make sure you have everything you need.”

  This should have been a relief. Instead, Property suddenly felt choked up, because all she needed in the world at that moment was the lost property cupboard in the White Hart, and Eliot had that now. “It’s not fair,” she said. “He’s cheating, and I caught him, and we should have won. I just want to go home.”

  Montgomery didn’t know what she was talking about, so Michael filled him in on the whole liquorice-business, while Property stroked the Gunther and tried to feel a bit less lost. As Michael talked, Montgomery got redder and redder and redder.

  “The rascal!” he exclaimed, when Michael had finished. “I can’t believe it! Ahforjeree!”

  “Bless you”, said Property. But Michael explained that a forgery was just another word for a fake, and that it comes from the old French word forgier which meant to shape something metal over a fire”. Before Property could ask what fire had to do with anything, Montgomery was off again.

  “The scoundrel! The thief! The knave!” he bellowed. “This canno
t be allowed. I will not leave my beautiful Emporium in that villain’s hands.”

  Michael pushed his glasses up in the special way that showed he Meant Business. “We feel the same. But what do you propose?”

  “Did your mother sign anything?”

  Michael nodded. “That Gimble person brought something over this morning.”

  “Right. We find that paper, and we destroy it. Burn it! Chop it up! Eat it! Throw it in the river!” Montgomery waved his spoon around, chucking knickerbocker glory on to a smart lady at the next table. “If he’s going to cheat, so can we.”

  “Do you know where he might keep it?” asked Michael.

  “Of course. We met in his office, the first time.”

  Property was a bit startled by the idea of Eliot having an office. He had seemed to just appear from nowhere, like a shadow, or the plague.

  “Right then,” said Michael. “Let’s go and get my mum’s signature back.”

  “Splendid. Splendid. Are we agreed, young Property?”

  Property hesitated. The memory of Eliot’s face twitching in the half-light was still fresh, and she wasn’t especially keen to run in to him again. But she did want to beat him, and win back the Emporium, and the White Hart.

  “All right,” she said. She grinned at the others. “Let’s do it.” And the Gunther gave a warlike MAWR, with a baked bean on his nose – so that settled that.

  PINK AND GIMBLE

  Property was bubbling with impatience to get started, but there were two difficulties to deal with before they had even reached the office. First, there was still no sign of Netty. They waited a little, but she didn’t reappear, and at last none of them could stand to wait any longer. In the end, Michael left a note at the bus stop to let her know that they were safe and would be back soon, and they went without her.

  The second difficulty was worse. When they reached the corner of the little cobblestoned alleyway where Pink’s office stood, they saw him walking towards them from the other end. They pulled back out of sight quickly.