Bookweirder

by Paul Glennon

  “Did your mum not say anything about where the map might be?” Pippa asked hopefully.

  Startled, Norman looked over at her. He hadn’t thought she was listening.

  “There ought to be a clue. There’s always a clue,” the red-haired girl continued. In her world there always was one.

  Norman shook his head dejectedly.

  “What exactly did she say?” Pippa pressed.

  “She said,” Norman began, imitating his mother’s all-knowing tone, “ ‘Your map is safely hidden away.’ ” It didn’t sound right when he said it, so he repeated it: “ ‘Your purloined map is safely hidden away.’ ”

  “She said that? ‘Purloined?’ ” Pippa’s attention was piqued.

  Gordon scratched his head. “I ought to know that word. It sounds familiar.”

  “I just thought it meant ‘old’ or ‘parchment’ or something.” Norman had a habit of guessing what a word meant just by how people used it. He wasn’t always right.

  “It means ‘taken,’ ” Pippa explained. “ ‘Stolen,’ but in a nice way, almost.”

  “Aye, ‘pilfered,’ ‘nicked,’ ” Malcolm explained. He was, after all, an educated stoat. “Yer mum’s purloined my map, all right.”

  Gordon seemed to wake up from his own thoughts. “It’s from that story!”

  They all looked at him.

  “ ‘The Purloined Letter‘!” Pippa exclaimed. “Of course!”

  No wiser for this information, Norman and Malcolm stared at the Cooks.

  “It’s a story by Edgar Allan Poe. The thief hides the letter in plain sight in his own letter box.” Pippa’s voice gained certainty as she spoke. “So it makes sense that the map will be in the map box with the other maps.”

  “That’s not hidden at all!” Gordon protested.

  “That’s why it works,” his sister continued. “No one would think to look there.”

  Norman and Malcolm exchanged a glance.

  “I don’t think my mom has a map box,” Norman told them skeptically.

  The Cooks fell silent. It had seemed like a good clue.

  “There’s a map cupboard in our library.” They all turned to look at George. He must have just caught the end of their conversation as he descended the stairs with the dog, Nelson, at his side. Nelson gave Malcolm a wary look. They might have spent two weeks in the same house, but the border collie was obviously still at a loss as to how to treat the talking stoat.

  Malcolm smiled firmly at the dog, acknowledging him, and Nelson gave him a reluctant nod of his snout back.

  George grabbed a jam sandwich from the counter and beckoned the dog to follow.

  “I’m off to Kestleton to ask a few questions at the Book and Badger. If you need a map to get home,” he said, regarding Norman coolly, “you can ask Mr. Todd when you have your little talk with him.”

  Norman strode slowly across the lawn to Kelmsworth Hall wondering what he might possibly say to Fuchs—or Todd, as he supposed he should call him now. Norman tried to put a good spin on it. He wanted to hear that Todd knew what he was doing. Maybe he really was here to keep an eye on things. Maybe, just as he had before, back in the Conran thriller, he’d recognized that Norman was out of his depth. Maybe Todd just didn’t understand that he was messing up this book. Norman reassured himself that he’d be able to explain it all.

  He passed through the long shadow of the Rook and felt a chill go through him. His pep talk to himself hadn’t really worked. He’d never trusted the man, not when he was the fox abbot of Tintern, not when he was the social services man in The Magpie, and especially not when he was the substitute librarian back home. Why should he trust him as Todd the lawyer?

  He had never told Norman the whole story, had never explained anything. He’d helped him out with a few things—helped him escape that New York police station, helped him fix what he’d broken in Malcolm’s world—but if he’d wanted to make things easier for Norman, there was a lot more he could have done.

  At the back kitchen door Norman clenched and raised his fist to knock, then paused, his hand hanging in the air, while he composed himself. Perhaps he should go around to the front, he thought, rather than knocking at the back. He had the vague memory that the back door was supposed to be the tradesman’s door. The peeling black paint didn’t look all that impressive. Real guests would arrive at the front. He didn’t even get a chance to lower his hand, though, because the door suddenly opened. Surprised, Norman took an involuntary step backwards.

  A tall man dressed in grey trousers and rolled shirtsleeves peered down on him from the open doorway. “Who are you?” he asked. “What do you want?” His forehead wrinkled into deep horizontal frown lines.

  “I’m … I’m Norman,” Norman stammered. He hadn’t thought this out. He must have looked like an insignificant schoolboy. If he were to ask to see Todd without a good reason, the servants would just send him away.

  The man’s face didn’t soften as he watched Norman fidget and stammer nervously.

  “I’m … I’m here to see Mr. Todd.”

  “And why would he want to see you?” the man asked, his face twisted with disdain.

  “I have an important message for him, from London,” Norman tried.

  The man at the door scoffed, “You’re no lawyer’s messenger.”

  “No, it’s important,” Norman insisted. “He’ll want to hear this message.”

  The man waved him away impatiently. “No doubt it’s important to you, but the master has more pressing things to do than receive the neighbourhood children.” He began to close the door in Norman’s face.

  “He’ll want to see me,” Norman insisted, raising his voice.

  The servant relented for a moment, leaving the door open just a crack. “Why? What are you to him?”

  “I’m …” Norman cast about for a plausible lie, something that would make him more than a strange child from the neighbourhood. “I’m his nephew. Mr. Todd is my uncle.”

  “Your uncle, you say.” The man frowned and looked him over again from head to toe. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

  “He’s not expecting me, but he’ll want to see me. I have a message for him.”

  The servant paused, perhaps weighing the dangers of annoying his master with a frivolous interruption. After a moment’s thought, he appeared to decide that turning away his nephew was probably worse. He opened the door wider and waved Norman into the kitchen brusquely.

  “Wait here.”

  Norman sat at the kitchen table and stared at the blue ceramic plates on the sideboard for what felt like half an hour. The servant looked no happier when he returned. He scowled and gestured for him to get up. Then he guided Norman to the great hall and pointed him to the stairs.

  “Master says he’ll see you. Second door on the left.” He moved aside and watched Norman climb the stairs.

  Norman had only read about the inside of Kelmsworth Hall. He wasn’t prepared for its grandeur in reality. A broad stone stairway rose from the black-and-white marble of the hall to the upper storeys. Norman put one hand on the ornate banister and strode upwards. His steps echoed through the vast foyer. It made Norman feel small and insignificant. His steps became slower and less confident as he rose past gigantic paintings of historic Kelmsworths on horses, in uniform, posing in elegant costumes. The strong, confident features of George Kelmsworth were echoed in every face, the same dark hair growing to different lengths according to the fashion of the period.

  At the top of the stairs, a large darkened area on the wallpaper indicated where a painting had once been. He stopped and pondered it for a while. Was this where George’s father’s portrait had hung? His anger rushed back into him.

  “Come along,” Todd’s voice called from an open doorway down the corridor.

  Norman stomped down the carpet and through the open doorway. He didn’t wait to explain himself or even to say hello. “Are you putting your own portrait up at the top of the stairs?” he asked bitterly.
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  Todd, unperturbed, lifted his head from the papers he had been reading and smiled his annoyingly serene smile.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted, scratching his ear languidly with his fountain pen,”but it’s an excellent idea. Do you have any suggestions for the composition? Me in armour? Or perhaps with one of those feathery admiral’s hats. How about fox hunting? Is that too tacky?”

  Norman scowled at him and surveyed the room. It was a library, like the one at the Shrubberies, only about four times as large. His eyes flicked over the dark-panelled cupboard behind Todd’s desk, where Pippa had told him the maps were kept.

  “I hear that you’re my nephew now,” Todd teased. “Why not go all the way and say that you’re my son?”

  “Would you have let me in if I’d told the truth?” He tried to avert his eyes from the cupboard. His map wasn’t going to be there, of course—his mother could never have been here—but he didn’t want to give this man any clues.

  “Of course,” the lawyer insisted in a patronizing tone. “I always have time for my poor, lost friend Norman.” A smug smile wrinkled the lawyer’s face.

  “Do you really consider me your friend?” Norman challenged.

  “Of course,” Todd assured him. He placed his pen down and brought his hands together with theatrical emphasis. “We share a great bond. The bookweird binds us.”

  “Then give George his house back,” Norman demanded. He stepped boldly towards Todd’s desk.

  Todd raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised by this request.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because it’s not your house,” Norman replied, incredulous. He put both hands on the desk and leaned over to make his point. “It’s his family’s house, and you’re wrecking this book.”

  Todd leaned back in his chair as if avoiding Norman’s breath. “Well, you’d know all about that. You’re quite the little book-wrecker yourself. How are you doing with the stoat map?” he drawled. “Have you found it? Young Malcolm’s little kingdom will be in complete disarray by now.”

  “Why do you care?” Norman spat back. “Isn’t it just another book for you to wreck?”

  “I care very much about the little creatures,” he replied in his usual mocking tone. “The map is a very important document. How could you have lost it?”

  Norman clenched his fists in rage. Todd was getting right up there with Dora in his ability to drive him crazy.

  “No, really, Norman,” Todd continued to lecture, “you ought to be getting young Malcolm back where he belongs.”

  “You brought him here,” Norman countered. “Why don’t you take him back?”

  “I honestly would like to.” The lawyer’s voice was all mock concern. “Things are not going at all well for the stoat faction back at Lochwarren, from what I hear.”

  Norman knew that Todd was just trying to distract him, but he couldn’t help it. “What do you hear? How?”

  “Ah, well, one reads things, here and there.” He picked up some papers from his desk and began examining them.

  “Why did you bring him here anyway? If it’s the map he needs, why didn’t you just bring him to my house? Why are you making things hard for us?” The questions tumbled out. “Why won’t you help us now? Is it because you can’t do it?”

  Todd bristled for a moment, as if Norman had hit a sore spot, but he composed himself and regarded him earnestly. “I am trying to help. It’s this business about the map. There’s no use sending him back without the map. Only you can help him with that.”

  Norman stood, lowering his eyes to the floor. He looked for all the world as though he were studying his toes.

  “I don’t have the map,” he finally admitted in a small, reluctant voice.

  Todd stopped pretending to read and put the papers down on the desk. “But you did have the map? Isn’t that correct?” He leaned over the desk and grasped Norman’s hand insistently. “You had it in Undergrowth.”

  Norman pulled his hand away and answered, “Yes,” sullenly.

  “You haven’t lost it, have you?” Todd pressed.

  “I didn’t lose it. It was taken from me.”

  “Taken, you say? That’s quite a plot twist.” His eyebrow twitched and he leaned in towards Norman again. “Who is the thief?”

  “There’s no thief.” Norman paused, not sure how much more to say. “My mother took it.”

  “What?” the lawyer cried, his hand reaching up to his ear in an anxious gesture. “Your what took it?”

  “My mother,” Norman repeated more loudly.

  The smirk perpetually lurking on Todd’s face flashed out clearly now. “Your mother has it,” he repeated. “Well, that is awful. She’s what? A master criminal? A cruel queen? Dungeon master? Wait, wait. She’s not a dragon or anything, is she?”

  Norman wanted to grip Todd by his ridiculous mutton-chop sideburns and give him a shake. Instead, he just gave his own head a sullen shake.

  “She’s not a criminal, or a dungeon master, or anything else. She’s just my mother.”

  “And did this nefarious mother of yours indicate what she might have done with the map?”

  Norman gave up. He might as well tell Todd about Pippa’s idea. “It might be in a map cupboard.”

  Todd glanced quickly over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because of ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” Norman wondered how much more he should say. “Mom said she hid it.”

  “Poe?” Todd said thoughtfully. “Edgar Allan Poe? And have you ever read any Poe?”

  “He seems to have a thing for murderers. There’s that story where the dead guy’s heart is hidden under the floorboards. Then there’s the cask of something, where the killer walls somebody up in his wine cellar. Pippa told me about ‘The Purloined Letter.’ But it’s not like we have a map cupboard. If the map is anywhere, it’s probably back at our house in America.”

  Todd peered at him intently. “Did your mother say why she took the map?”

  “She took it to protect me.”

  Todd appeared to think about this for a moment. “To protect you from what, exactly?”

  Norman stepped back away from the desk, unsure how much to tell Todd. For once he sounded genuinely curious, as though he didn’t already know the answer. “From the bookweird, I guess.”

  “Did she say that?” Todd demanded. He leaned across the desk and peered into Norman’s eyes, his pretense of disinterest gone. “Did she say the word ‘bookweird‘?”

  Norman looked away, unnerved by the lawyer’s unblinking golden eyes. They really were fox eyes set in a human face. “Not exactly,” he replied. “But she said that what I was doing was dangerous, and that I was too young to understand how dangerous.”

  “Implying that she understood the danger … That’s very, very interesting.” Todd rubbed his palms together and peered upwards, as if the solution to the problem might be written somewhere on the ceiling. “Could it be? Could it be?” he repeated to himself.

  Todd leapt to his feet and strode to one of the tall bookcases. “In a Poe story!” the lawyer muttered to himself, more agitated than Norman had ever seen him. “That’s diabolical!”

  Norman edged closer as the lawyer ran his finger along the spines of the leather-bound books until he reached the one he wanted. Removing it with a tilt, he scanned the table of contents.

  “ ‘Amontillado,’ ‘House of Usher,’ ‘Tell-tale’ … A-ha!” He turned the book towards Norman. Norman took it from him eagerly and saw that it was opened to “The Purloined Letter.”

  “So you think it’s a clue, too? You think Pippa’s right?” Norman asked. “You think the story will tell us how to find the map?”

  “No, no,” Todd replied smugly, closing the book with a thud. “I think the story is where you will find the map.”

  “What?” Norman was confused.

  “Think about it.”

  Norman blinked a few times as if trying to
reset his brain. Todd was suggesting that his mother had hidden the map inside a book. That was crazy. Wasn’t it crazy?

  “How?” he stammered.

  “How would you?” the lawyer countered. And then to himself, “In a Poe story … who would have thought? Looks like a knack for the bookweird might run in the family.”

  Was it really so absurd? If Norman could enter books, why couldn’t his mother? She knew something about the bookweird. She knew it was dangerous. She knew enough to ban Norman from using it. Had she seen how dangerous it was with her own eyes?

  Norman gaped at Todd, hoping that he would add more—say, perhaps, what Norman was thinking—but all the lawyer said was “I have work to do now, but you can borrow the book. Try to keep it relatively intact.” He pressed the book of Poe stories into Norman’s hand and pushed him gently towards the door, making it as clear as possible that he was being dismissed. “I think you have the itinerary for your next trip.”

  “I can’t,” Norman stammered. “I can’t leave Malcolm here. It’s too dangerous. You should never have brought him here. Didn’t you know that the murderer is here, the one from The Magpie? He’s the one who caught Malcolm.”

  “Well, you have made a mess of things. I’m glad Malcolm has turned up. I was wondering where the royal beast had got to. I put a lot of effort into training him up for him to just disappear like that. But why have you brought a murderer here? Rorschach and Darwin would have caught him eventually.”

  “I didn’t bring him here on purpose,” Norman protested. He didn’t want to believe it was his fault. “It was an accident. We have to stop him.”

  “Stop him from doing what, exactly?” Todd asked, as if it were an annoying minor point.

  Norman raised his voice. “From catching Malcolm again, from getting at George. That guy knows something’s wrong. He knows I’m not from here. He thinks I can take him back.”

  “Well, can’t you?”

  Norman stared at him, full of inexpressible rage. “I don’t know how this works. You’re the expert, remember!”

  “You’d better leave it to me, then. I’m not sure that you’ve got it all right anyway. Last time I saw Rorschach and Darwin, they had the investigation well in hand. Either way, it sounds as though this interloper is more interested in you than anybody else. You look after the map, and I’ll see what I can do to set things in order around here.”