Bookweirder (13 page)

“What were you doing outside?” Dora asked as he ducked through the doorway. She was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed to go riding, a cereal spoon suspended between bowl and mouth.

“Feeding the wild ponies,” he replied curtly, heading directly to the stairs.

Dora would know he was teasing—there couldn’t really be wild ponies in the backyard—but she’d have to check. She’d never forgive herself if she missed them. She opened the door and stared out at the empty back garden. By the time she had thought of something to annoy him back, Norman had dashed up the stairs.

He was far too intent on getting to his bedroom. If Malcolm wasn’t in the yard, surely he’d be there. Norman closed the door behind him and whispered again, “Malcolm, are you here? Come out. It’s not funny.” He opened the wardrobe and rummaged through the pile of clothing he’d left there—it was exactly the sort of place that a stoat would like to sleep but he was nowhere to be found.

Norman was about to close the wardrobe when he caught his reflection in the mirrored door. He was still wearing the sweater that George had given him. It wouldn’t do to be caught wearing that. He hastily pulled it off over his head and stuffed it in the wardrobe before resuming his search.

It was the same in the drawing room and the dining room—no Malcolm. The library was his last, best hope. It was the room he’d described best. Its walls of books and corners stuffed with exotic bric-a-brac had stuck in his mind. He’d described it completely,
from the square-panelled ceiling and the ladder that slid across the shelves to the uneven parquet floor protected by a worn red Persian carpet. It just made sense that Malcolm would be here. Norman could imagine the stoat gazing up wide-eyed at the walls of books. It would seem magnificent to him. There were more books here than in all the Kingdom of the Stoats. Norman could imagine him scrambling up the ladder to gaze at it all, or burrowing in the lower shelves, perhaps opening the crazy old encyclopaedia or the other Intrepids books.

He could imagine these things, but he couldn’t make them true. There was a silence so empty when he opened the door to the library that he didn’t even bother calling out Malcolm’s name. Norman had to face reality. Malcolm had not made it through the
ingresso
.

Where would he be now? Could the bookweird have sent him back to Undergrowth, or was he still at Kelmsworth with the Intrepids? Only the book would tell.

It should have been on the bedside table where he’d left it. If not there, then beside the bed, or under it. Norman’s skinny arms swept the dust bunnies under the bed—socks, old bits of paper, but no
Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies
. He had been here before. This had happened last time the bookweird had started acting up. There were other places to look, other people to ask, but deep down Norman knew the book was gone. He didn’t know where it was gone. Who knew where books went when you messed them up with the bookweird? Some damaged book section of that crazy universal library Malcolm dreamed of? Norman just knew it was gone.

Over breakfast, Norman pondered his options as he spooned cereal mechanically into his mouth. He could try to get back to Kelmsworth through one of the other Intrepids books. If he went into a book later in the series, Malcolm might still be there. He could bring a copy of
The Brothers of Lochwarren
to Kelmsworth and the stoat could get back into his own world using that. But it might be too late. The criminal from
The Magpie
could have recaptured Malcolm by then, or worse. It would be better to arrive earlier.
Maybe he could get there before Malcolm was even captured. He had never tried that. He had never thought of going further back into the story.

“Norman, are you listening?” He realized that his mother had been talking to him.

“Yes,” he replied reflexively. “I mean, no. I wasn’t listening.”

She was standing there in running gear sipping from a small bottle of water.

“I’m going in to Summerside again today after my run. Do you want to come with me?”

Norman mumbled, “No, thanks,” distractedly.

“I know that look,” his mother said with a smile. “Lost in a book.”

Norman stared back at her, not sure if he had heard her properly.

“How are you liking it?” she continued. “How do the Intrepids stack up against your usual wizard-and-warrior fare?”

“It’s okay,” Norman replied noncommittally.

“It’s
Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies
you are reading, right? That’s the one where they finally find out that George’s father has been framed—with the raid on the lawyer’s office, isn’t it? Or is it the one where they are camping and rescue the pit pony?”

“It’s the one with the lawyer’s office,” Norman replied, suddenly interested. In his mother’s version of the book the raid had worked. “With the mice,” he continued, hoping his mother would tell him some more about the original raid. Why had it worked before? What had he done to wreck it?

His mother nearly spat out her mouthful of water, and her face was wrinkled with laughter. “It’s silly when you think about it—grown men running away from something so harmless. I guess that’s the beauty of books, making the unbelievable believable. They’ve built up Montague through the whole series as such a jittery, ineffective old bureaucrat, so you can completely believe that he’d run screaming from a box of mice.”

“Montague?” Norman asked, confused.

“Yes, Montague. Wasn’t that his name? The first lawyer, before he’s replaced with Michaelmas, the one who finally exonerates Lord Kelmsworth. Funny how you remember these things.”

“It’s not Todd?” Norman asked, his voice squeaking a bit.

“Who?”

“The lawyer,” Norman repeated nervously. “Are you sure his name’s not Todd?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know why I remember it. It’s amazing, really. It’s been twenty years, but I’m sure it’s Montague. Tiny, wizened old man, face full of white whiskers. Here, hand over the book. I’ll find it for you.”

Norman opened his arms to show his empty hands and the empty counter beneath them. “It’s upstairs in my room.”

“Run up and bring it down while I stretch,” she told him.

Norman looked down at his empty cereal bowl, hoping to find an excuse there. His mother was now pushing on the counter, stretching out her calf muscle.

“Go on,” she whispered across the countertop. “Go fetch it.” It was a whisper, but even a whisper from Meg Jespers-Vilnius could be commanding.

Norman made another half-hearted search of his room. He knew it wasn’t on the bedside table. The drawer was stuffed with old knick-knacks, postage stamps, cloth crests, postcards, tiny screws and springs, but no book. The window ledge and dresser top were likewise cluttered but bookless. Nor was it under the pillow, or buried in his unmade bedcovers.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, when his mother finally called up, “Never mind. I’ll look at it later.” The back door slammed shut.

Norman kept his head in his hands. He didn’t need his mom to show him. He knew she was right. He knew in his gut that the book was screwed up. That stunt in the lawyer’s office was supposed to work. It had been written on George Kelmsworth’s face, in the shock and utter disbelief that it had failed. George Kelmsworth’s schemes weren’t allowed to fail. But how could it be Norman’s
fault? Norman hadn’t changed anything in the scene. The only thing that had changed was the lawyer. It wasn’t this Montague character that his mother remembered. How had she described him? A nervous old paper-pusher with white whiskers? That wasn’t Fuchs, or Todd, or whatever he was calling himself in this book. It was Fuchs who had screwed up the book this time. For once, it wasn’t Norman’s fault.

“You’ve lost it.”

Norman looked up, surprised, to see his father peering in through the half-open door. “You’ve lost it, haven’t you?” Edward Vilnius repeated.

Norman’s silence was answer enough.

Edward rubbed his forehead, his lips curled in a grimacing smile. “I don’t know how you do it. For a kid who loves books so much, you sure lose a lot of them.”

“Uh-huh,” Norman agreed sulkily. There was no use explaining that it wasn’t his fault, that there were powerful forces working against him.

“I’ll talk to your mother,” his father said finally. Something in his voice said that he sympathized. Edward Vilnius had lost a few books in his time. “In the meantime, find that book. It’s not just a book to your mother. You saw that. It means a lot to her.”

He closed the door behind him.

“T
his is terrible,” his mother declared, looking up from the counter where she was reading. “How could they have let this happen?”

Norman expected her to recount some disaster or scandal from the newspaper—a human rights violation in Burma or a new famine in Eritrea. The only reason Norman knew that Burma and Eritrea existed was because of his mother. If not for her editorializing, those places would have been as fantastical to him as Penwyr and the Ambrosian Republic. His friends back at school gave him funny looks when these little bits of knowledge slipped out, and he sometimes wished that his mom would let him share their ignorance.

Meg Jespers-Vilnius cast around to see if anyone felt her outrage. Neither Norman nor his father had said anything, but both watched her expectantly.

“They’ve completely changed it,” she complained. She held up the book she was reading—not a newspaper at all, but a glossy paperback. Nor man’s eyes lit up as he read the title:
Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies
.

“You found a new copy!” he exclaimed with a gulp.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice taking on that dry, dramatic tone that wasn’t supposed to be lecturing but was. “Until you figure out
where you put the original. I’m still very disappointed that you lost it.”

Norman ducked his head contritely.

“I wanted you to be able to finish the story. It’s one of my favourites from my own childhood, and I wanted to share that with you. Unfortunately …” Here she paused and sucked air through her teeth. “Unfortunately, the good people at.”—she turned the book around to read the publisher’s name from the spine—“the good people at Willow Publishing have different ideas.”

She pushed the paperback across the kitchen counter to Norman. He immediately saw what was wrong. He didn’t need to read a word. The cover told him everything.

“They’ve changed it completely,” Meg repeated. “There are additional characters. The plot is completely different. There aren’t even any Gypsies in it anymore. How stupid is that?”

The cover held all of Norman’s attention. The new edition had a glossy illustration of the Intrepids standing shoulder to shoulder, with the Cook children either side of George Kelmsworth, who stood just a little farther forward. George was the same but different, his dark brown hair a little longer and shaggier than when Norman had met him. He posed like a rock star in front of the Rook, glaring out from the picture, his arms crossed defiantly across his chest. Gordon, beside him, was wearing his school uniform and wielding a cricket bat menacingly. They’d made Pippa look prettier. She gazed affectionately towards George. It was impossible to tell whether her eyes rested on George or the furry creature on his shoulder.

Meg was still waiting for someone to share her outrage. “Are they allowed to do this?”

Edward, sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of papers, shrugged, bemused. “To do what?” he asked, apparently enjoying her agitation. Meg Jespers-Vilnius’s constant calm and cheerfulness could get irritating.

“To change the book like this.” Her voice rose as she flourished the paperback. “To reissue the book fifty years later with so many changes.”

Norman’s throat was dry. He couldn’t take his eyes off the cover. “Maybe they’re making a movie,” he croaked. “Sometimes they change the book when they make a movie.” He halted to gulp some moisture into his constricted throat. “You know, to match the movie.” He looked nervously from his mother to his father, hoping someone would agree that this must be exactly what was going on.

“It’s called a tie-in,” his mother explained, “and the movie studio’s name would be all over it—‘Now a major motion picture starring’ blah, blah, blah.”

“Do you notice that they never advertise
minor
motion pictures?” Edward asked playfully. One sour glance from Meg was enough for him to straighten his face.

“It still wouldn’t justify changing the book like this. There’s a talking weasel in it now, with a very poor Scottish accent. How do they get away with it, Edward? Shouldn’t copyright law stop them?”

Norman realized he had never seen his mother quite so upset. Why should she care? To her it was only a book.

“Copyright law protects the copyright owner, not the reader,” Edward replied. He was using his professor’s voice now. “Whoever owns the copyright can do what they like. They can send your Intrepids to space. They could enlist in the CIA. They could have magical powers.” He spouted a few more ideas, amused by his own suggestions, but it wasn’t helping. He wasn’t used to being the reasonable parent. It was usually Meg who had to talk him out of some outrage or manic funk, not the other way around.