Bookweirder

by Paul Glennon

  It was the monkey that sealed it—the wild, toothy grin of the monkey in the crate next to him. It had happened. It had finally happened again. He was in the book! He had fallen asleep in his room at the Shrubberies and he had woken up in the book. The book-weird was real.

  The monkey was poking Norman through the bars of its crate with a long, crooked stick. It was starting to hurt. Norman shifted out of the way. The little white-faced monkey went berserk. The game was on, he guessed, but Norman had no time for it. He had to think, had to get his bearings. He had to figure out what was happening, why he was here. He felt dizzy, almost giddy. His heart beat so hard inside his chest that he was sure it would give him away.

  He had to figure out whether he had arrived before the Intrepids or after. He needed to decide how to introduce himself. Introducing yourself to characters in books was a tricky thing. Norman knew this from experience.

  Norman did his best to ignore the shrieks and cackles of the grinning spider monkey. Another crate shielded him from the counter. He could not tell if Dodgeworth stood there or not, but if he moved just slightly to his left, he might be able to spy the counter through the bars of the spider monkey’s crate.

  The tinkling of the bell turned Norman’s head. His heart leapt. That would be the Intrepids, he thought. They’d be coming in to buy those stupid mice. Heavy footsteps immediately told him he was wrong. It was not George, Gordon and Pippa. It was someone else. Norman ducked behind the crate and watched. Even the monkey went silent as the stranger entered. His loud, shuffling steps resounded on the wood floor. The stranger was big and scruffy. His hair was cropped so close that you could see his thick, tanned skull between the bristles. There was more hair on his chin than his head. He wore a long, green coat, dull with mud. Something about the dirty red kerchief tied around his neck was familiar. Where had Norman seen that before?

  The voice of Dodgeworth was just as he’d imagined it. He’d heard this accent in the market stalls of London, but there was no friendly lilt to the storekeeper’s question. “What can I do for you, sir?” Dodgeworth clearly liked the look of the stranger about as much as Norman and the monkey did.

  “You’re gonna wanna see this,” the stranger declared abruptly. The accent was completely different. That’s right, Dodgeworth had said that the stranger was an American, a Yank … the one trying to sell the talking stoat.

  The stranger swung the cage he carried onto the counter and pulled the dirty canvas covering aside.

  Norman stared, his mouth agape from the shout that had not come. His few minutes in the pet store had allowed him to come to grips with a few things. He had accepted the fact that he was in the book Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies. He had accepted that it was possible to be in a book. It was something he wanted to believe. He wanted Undergrowth to be real. But he didn’t want to believe what he saw now. He didn’t want to see anyone from Undergrowth here in Dodgeworth’s—not here, not like this, and especially not this someone.

  Ducking back behind the monkey crate Norman closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, following his mother’s advice for stressful situations, but when he looked again he felt no better prepared to deal with what he saw. The ruffian in the long, green coat was leaning on the counter now, talking to Dodgeworth in a low, threatening voice. The lanky pet store owner was not to be intimidated. He remained behind the counter, his arms folded in front of him, regarding the other man and the contents of the cage skeptically.

  “I don’t care if it can talk, dance and play cricket. I wouldn’t pay halfpence for any animal in that condition,” Dodgeworth countered, shaking his head dismissively. “It looks half dead already.”

  Norman felt a sharp pain in his stomach, as if somebody had punched him hard without him expecting it. The creature at the bottom of the cage had not stirred since it was dumped roughly on the counter. It had raised its head just slightly then and Norman had seen its face. It was a stoat, a sort of weasel, russet-coloured on top with a white underbelly. It had small, inquisitive eyes. They were sharp eyes, Norman knew, far sharper than his own. Under normal conditions, the little creature in the cage would easily have spied Norman in his hiding place amongst the crates. Tired or sick as he was, the stoat didn’t even open its eyes.

  It physically hurt Norman to see this stoat lying there so lifelessly, because this particular stoat was Malcolm, Norman’s best friend in this or any universe.

  He had to stop himself from screaming, from leaping out and clutching at Malcolm’s cage. He wanted to yell out Malcolm’s name, but he could not give himself away.

  The bookweird was acting up. Norman had seen it before. When you broke into a book, some things broke out, and it was never good. But why Malcolm? Something was very wrong.

  Malcolm’s captor was now waving an angry fist at the still nonplussed Dodgeworth.

  “Why don’t you leave the poor beast with me?” Dodgeworth suggested. “I’ll see what I can do to bring it back to good health, and we can talk about price then. It’s no good to anyone dead.”

  The seller was having none of it.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’tcha, little man! You think I’m stupid? If you want it now, then pay up. If not I’ll find someone else who knows the value of a little freak weasel like this.”

  The man’s American accent sounded out of place. Norman had assumed that British books had British villains.

  Dodgeworth placed his palms calmly on the counter. “Good luck to you, then, but no one’s going to throw good money after a dying animal.” He peered into the cage. Malcolm appeared to stir ever so slightly. “It’s not a weasel, just so you know,” Dodgeworth added. “It’s a stoat. The black tip on the tail is the giveaway. If you’re not going to leave him with me, you’d best look after him a little better yourself.”

  The man in the green coat grunted and grabbed the cage viciously. He swung around so quickly Norman hardly had time to duck and hide. He sat there on the floor behind the monkey crates for a few seconds longer, his mind racing, until the ring of the bell and slam of the door spurred him to action.

  Norman didn’t stop for a second to see the look on Dodgeworth’s face when he burst out from behind the crates. Nor did he turn to see the distorted face of the little monkey, whose frantic screams woke every sleeping creature in the shop. He hurtled through the door out onto the street, skidding to a stop on the wet cobblestones.

  The man in the green coat was already at the corner. Norman dashed off after him, his sneakers squeaking on the slick cobbles as he dodged crates, delivery carts and slow-moving shoppers. The next street was even narrower and more crowded. Workers in grey coveralls poured out of a warehouse door into the lane. Ahead, Malcolm’s captor bulldozed through the crowd. Norman’s sneakers slipped on the smooth cobblestones as he chased, dodging this way and that around the sauntering workers.

  Again and again Norman lost sight of his quarry in the fog. Each time he made out the red flash of the man’s bandana he was farther away. If the man turned down any one of these side alleys, Norman would lose him for good. Norman ducked and weaved through gaps in the crowd. He was moving as fast as he could, but he was losing ground.

  Soon Norman could no longer see the bald head and red bandana above the crowd. His only clue that he was still on the right track was the way the traffic parted up ahead to make way for the big man.

  At each winding the turns grew tighter and the walls higher. The crowds thinned slowly as the factory workers peeled off down side streets or ducked into pubs along the road. The streets darkened as buildings grew taller and their upper storeys began to overhang the street, but Norman hardly noticed. He didn’t notice the figures in the dark doorways peering out after him. He just kept running. He could not lose Malcolm.

  Up ahead he could hear the hard knock, knock of the man’s big boots on the cobblestones as he swaggered down an alley, but Norman was tiring. He could not make himself go faster. Ahead the big man turned again.

  Norman rac
ed to the mouth of one alley, his lungs burning. He turned the corner and stopped, unable to keep going. He buckled over, put his hands on his knees and gasped for air. Alone at the other end of the long alley, almost indistinct in the fog that surrounded him, was the man with the cage.

  “Hey! Hey, you!” Norman shouted breathlessly.

  His quarry either never heard him or ignored him. Norman was wasting his breath.

  “That’s my stoat!” he bellowed.

  For a moment, the man with the cage stopped and turned just his head to look back. There was a flurry of movement in the cage. Norman caught the flash of white fur on the stoat’s chest as Malcolm leapt to his feet and clutched the bars. The stoat moved as quickly as his old self, his ears twitching as he sought the source of the shout. Norman opened his mouth again. “Malcolm!” he cried. The name echoed down the alley. But the big man had turned back again, rounding the corner and disappearing out of sight.

  When Norman reached the end of the alley, his quarry had already disappeared. He eyed the doorways along the abandoned street. Had the bald man ducked inside one of these buildings? The doorways were dark and forbidding. The few windows on the street were shuttered or boarded over. Norman listened for voices, but the alley was eerily silent. As he stared and listened, a figure stirred on one of the doorsteps. A gaunt man, dressed in rags, unravelled himself from the knot of blankets that concealed him and shuffled slowly towards Norman.

  “Did you see a man with a cage come down this street?” Norman asked, gasping for breath.

  The thin, beggarly figure drew closer, his wrinkled mouth open in a sort of wordless croak. He held out a withered hand towards Norman, who backed away slowly.

  “A bald man in a green coat, carrying an animal in a cage—which way did he go?” Norman asked, a timid squeak in his voice.

  The silent figure beckoned with the curled fingers of his emaciated hand, but Norman could not bear to go nearer. He turned and fled. Fear fuelled his legs better than anger, but it did nothing for his sense of direction. He fled blindly through the web of mazy alleys, turning left and right without thinking, looking only for wider streets, a glimpse of sunlight breaking through a gap in the warehouses.

  It might have been only a matter of minutes, but Norman felt as if he’d been running for hours. He ran as though he were running for his life, and Norman knew what it felt like to be running for your life. The fog, the smoke, the muttering voices in doorways drove him on and on until finally the streets grew wider and busier, and he gradually allowed himself to slow down. As his legs slowed, his thoughts slowed, too. He had no idea where he was. He began to look around at the painted wooden storefronts, the delivery men in their loose shirts and wool caps. There were no T-shirts or sneakers here, no bright colours, except for him in his jeans and his bright blue-and-yellow St. Louis Rams sweatshirt. People were starting to stare.

  “Dodgeworth’s? Dodgeworth’s pet store. Can you tell me how to find Dodgeworth’s pet store?” he asked each passerby. It was his only point of reference. If he went back there now, perhaps Dodgeworth could help him track the man in the green coat. But the few people who paid attention to his question merely stared and frowned before walking on.

  Norman wandered onwards and repeated his question, ever more forlornly. Soon he was out into a wide boulevard. The sidewalks were filled with men in dark suits and round hats. Bowler hats—what had he read about them?—businessmen. Perhaps they would be more helpful.

  “Excuse me,” he called out. “Can someone tell me how to find Dodgeworth’s?” The men in the bowler hats streamed by. They didn’t even bother to stare at the strange boy in the bright blue sweatshirt. “Dodgeworth’s?” he repeated defiantly. Norman was genuinely afraid now. Modern London had been scary enough. To be lost in this big city, in the past, in a book, was to be triply lost.

  “Dodgeworth’s?” a plummy little voice asked. “You’re looking for Dodgeworth’s? Rare animals and animal feed?” There was a little surprise and incredulity in the question.

  A red-haired boy turned to him from the crowd. He was Norman’s height, dressed in grey flannel shorts and a matching V-neck sweater. One side of his white collar was tucked in and the other was sticking out. Beside him a taller boy looked down bemusedly and shook a shank of dark brown hair out of his eyes. A red-haired girl hung back a little farther. She wore her school sweater, too, but her blouse and skirt were neatly tucked and ironed. Brother and sister had the same pale, freckled skin and red hair. The girl’s was braided tidily, but little wisps of it curled in the humid London air. Norman had to stop himself from calling out their names.

  “What do you want with Dodgeworth?” George asked, taking over from Gordon. “You’ll not find any puppies or kittens there, you know. Dodgeworth’s specializes in much more exotic animals.” His voice was high and reedy but still conveyed an adult’s confidence and authority.

  Norman told the truth, as much of it as he could. He found this worked best in books. “I’m looking for my stoat, my pet stoat. Someone stole it from me. I followed the thief to Dodgeworth’s.”

  “If you followed the villain there, then you ought to know very well where Dodgeworth’s is,” George pointed out.

  “I wasn’t paying attention,” Norman explained. “I was just following the thief.”

  “Well, you’ve a lot to learn about the art of detection,” George declared.

  “I suppose so,” Norman admitted. “The thief tried to sell my stoat to Dodgeworth, but Dodgeworth didn’t want it, so I followed the thief again. I lost him in an alley.”

  “Well, London is a big city. I don’t expect you see much like it in America,” George conceded. “Unless of course you are from New York. You’re not from New York, are you?”

  “No,” Norman replied emphatically. He had been to New York once, in another book, and had not enjoyed it.

  Gordon reasserted his right to be part of the questioning. “We’re actually going to Dodgy’s right now. You should come along.”

  “That’s right,” George agreed. “And we’d best be off if we’re to get everything done.”

  As they walked, the Cook children and George quizzed Norman on life in America. Norman kept it simple and hoped he didn’t mention anything too modern. There were buses and trams on the London streets, but the few cars were very old-fashioned, with skinny, exposed tires and tall, square compartments, like buggy carriages. Norman didn’t care enough about cars to guess the era, but he knew not to talk about computers and televisions. As for his reason for being in London, it was as close to the truth as possible—his father was a professor over here for the summer.

  The Intrepids found this completely plausible. Only Pippa Cook appeared suspicious. Norman caught her pale blue eyes assessing his clothes critically: his nearly white sneakers, his blue jeans and his brightly coloured Rams sweatshirt. She made Norman realize how much he stood out in London’s sea of grey wool. He wanted to shrink and hide, but he did his best to walk normally and smiled faintly every time he caught Pippa giving him the once-over.

  Dodgeworth’s was surprisingly easy to find once you knew where it was. Gordon was completely at home on the London streets, scurrying forward eagerly, proud to be at the head of the little group. George strode behind him, taking it all in, occasionally pausing to jot down little notes in his notebook. Pippa, quiet and wary, kept an eye on them all. In a few turns they were at Dodgeworth’s door.

  “Ah, young Master Cook,” Dodgeworth greeted them, “and friends.” His eyes flickered momentarily over Norman, surely recognizing him as the boy who had been hidden in his shop not an hour ago. The monkey certainly recognized him, too, pressing his manic face to the bars and gibbering as if making some rude joke. Norman edged away, doing his best to stand back behind the Cooks and out of sight.

  “What can I do for you young people today?” Dodgeworth asked.

  George explained that they needed mice, telling him the story they’d concocted about feeding a wounded haw
k they’d found. Norman watched Dodgeworth’s face as George spoke. The shopkeeper’s thin lips stretched in a bemused smile, making his long moustache twitch. It was not that he didn’t believe them. He just didn’t seem to care if the story was true, as long as it was harmless.

  When Dodgeworth disappeared into the back to fetch the box of mice, Pippa Cook turned her freckled face to Norman.

  “Do you want us to ask Dodgy about your stoat?” she asked helpfully.

  “No, thanks,” Norman replied. “I’ll do it.”

  Pippa’s face scrunched into a frown. “That’s horrible, someone stealing your pet. Have you reported it to the police?”

  George interrupted Norman before he could answer. “A stoat is an unusual pet. Is it tame?”

  The question made Norman smile despite himself. He would hardly have called Malcolm tame.

  “I’ve known him … I mean, I’ve had him since he was a kit,” Norman said. It was almost true. Norman had saved Malcolm’s life when he was still very young. “He’s good with me, but not so much with other people.”

  Dodgeworth returned with the box of mice.

  “I’m sorry about earlier.” Norman stepped forward as the storekeeper put the cardboard carton down on the counter. “Bursting out of here like that … hiding in here.”

  Unconcerned, Dodgeworth shrugged and smiled. “Did you catch our man with the stoat?” he asked.

  “I lost him in an alley,” Norman told him. “That’s why I came back. George, Gordon and Pippa helped me find the place again.”

  “That stoat was stolen,” George declared. “The ruffian who offered it to you is a thief. It belongs to Norman here.” George had taken Norman at his word and was now prepared to champion him.

  Dodgeworth nodded knowingly, as if he had guessed as much. “I’m afraid to say your little stoat was in a sorry state. It’s not been well taken care of.”

  Norman bit his lower lip and clenched his fists.

  “I was of half a mind to buy it just to save the poor creature, but I’m loath to give my money to villains of his kind. I’ll tell you what, though, if he comes in again, I’ll have it off him and we’ll settle up after.”