Jelly

On Mother’s Day, my siblings and I returned to Perthshire and gathered around our dear Mama’s feet, to watch Herbie Rides Again and the 2003 remake of Pollyanna.

This wasn’t the plan, per se. It just sort of happened. Mum wasn’t feeling well and there was nothing much on TV, so we all flaked out and watched the aforementioned programming gems.

I mentioned this in passing to Captain Tact who, rather than spending the weekend with his own mater dear, was engaged in selling books to idiots. That’s sort of his wont, these days. Anyway, his reaction to my news was something along the lines of “Polly what now?”

Naturally I was scandalised – surely Pollyanna is a fixed point in our culture? Apparently not. It’s not a very manly book, I suppose.

For anyone else similarly in the dark, Pollyanna is an oppressively cheerful child from literature. She was written by Eleanor H. Porter in 1913, and spends most of her time waging war on unhappiness. Evidence for the case against child labour laws, you might say.

The only thing that stops her terrifying campaign to ensure that everyone in the village is happy ALL the time is someone ‘accidentally’ mowing her down in a car, leaving her paralysed from the waist down. And even then she bounces back, it just takes her a little bit longer than other sad things that have happened to her (including the death of both her parents).

Pollyanna’s MO is centred around ‘the glad game,’ invented by her tirelessly optimistic father (who ironically died tragically young). The basic premise is that in a negative situation, you look for the good side.

Witness an example:



Yeah. She’s like that all the freaking time. If I was Pam Ferris I’d smack her in the mouth.

Her brand of inane happiness would probably get her beaten up if she bandied it about in this day and age. The closest modern equivalent, I suppose, is that person who tells you to, “Smile! It might never happen!” as though it’s socially acceptable to go about your everyday business with a big stupid grin etched onto your face. I must have missed that facebook update. The fact I’m not smiling all the time doesn’t indicate I’m having dark thoughts, I’m probably just thinking about something else.

Having said that, I was trying to think of themes to blog around, and it struck me that the glad game might be a fun one to do. Lots of things make me glad – broccoli soup, amusing graffiti, implausibly bad television...

But as aficionados of the game are no doubt clawing at the screen to point out, listing things that cheer me up is missing the point. You’re supposed to think of something sad, bad or other negative emotion, and then find the upside.

Much more of a challenge. I will see you tomorrow for day one.

Chapter Twenty Six

47882 words. Aw yeah. Chronological chapter times here.

Tim and Adric arrived at the facility whilst Nicky and Bracken were chatting in the mysterious room the guards referred to as The Chamber.

Through the blind fold Time could make out that it was some sort of building with more than one floor. Not the highest vantage point he’d ever had, but it was something. There’s nothing worse than having your blindfold removed in a dingy room and discovering on your escape that you’re on a boat, or in the middle of a volcano. Sometimes, just knowing you’re in a normal building which will contain some stairs and possibly a lift, puts you in a position of great mental strength.

Tim didn’t have much time to enjoy this inner calm, though, because the heavies had parked in their allotted spaces in The Facility’s car park and were roughly manhandling him and Adric out onto the concrete.

“Alright,” he said cheerfully, “I’m going.”

He pretended to stumble so that El Nombre’s companions wouldn’t realize he could see where he was going, and stole a quick look at Adric. He was still completely out of it, his gangly frame propped up by the guy who was preoccupied with sausages.

They formed a convoy and entered the building, each balaclava-wearing figure stopping to have his or her retinas scanned and fingerprints checked. In actual fact, none of this information was relayed anywhere, or even backed up onto a floppy disc (remember them) or pen drive. It was all set up to create the illusion that The Facility was a fortress, with unbreachable security. ‘Nobody ever gets out or in without our say-so,’ the scans seemed to imply. But if you wanted to, you probably could, Tim suspected. He wondered whether El Nombre knew, and was merely playing the game.

Once inside, Adric was whisked away to a cell a couple of doors down from Nicky's and put to bed by the nurse with the scarred face. Being the kindest of the guards, and the only one with actual nurse’s training, she was required to deal with all the new arrivals.

Meanwhile, El Nombre secured Tim in a basement room. Well, that was what he told his colleagues. In actual fact, he only walked Tim down to the basement. No securing occurred, as such. He merely removed the blindfold and said

"I dunno which cell they'll have put him in to sleep off the effects of the sedative, but all those rooms are on the second floor."

Tim nodded his thanks. El must have known the whole time that the guy they were kidnapping was the guy he wanted to rescue.

"Want to chum me on this one, for old time's sake?" he asked hopefully.

"I can't," El replied regretfully, "I'm busting out of this joint, right now. It's time to do what I set out to when I became a mercenary."

"Pack it all in for a life of leisure?" Tim joked, like the jokey joke-maker he often was in times of stress.

"Find and destroy Wizard Chinnigan," El Nombre explained, missing the humour like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies.

"If you'd only hold on a couple of hours for me to rescue my friend, I could come with you," Tim offered, partly for old time’s sake and partly to repay the debt he had accrued by getting El to bring him here.

El shook his head no.

"This is something you need to do alone, huh?"

"It is."

"What if you get yourself killed? He's tricksy, that wizard."

"Tim, I know his ways better than no one. No, wait. Nobody knows the ways of that wizard better than I. You know this to be the case.”

Tim nodded reluctantly, feeling his hair swoosh against the back of his neck. It was getting too long.

“However, if anything in the way of mortality does happen up in my grill, I will expect you to avenge my death.”

“In the usual way?”

“In the usual way,” he agreed solemnly. “Death by cupcakes.”

Tim blinked.

“That isn’t the traditional – oh, I see. El, I do believe that you just cracked a joke.”

El smiled, and his perfectly white teeth dazzled out of the darkness of his balaclava till Tim was nearly blinded.

“I have been practicing, since that first quest. It was funny, yes?”

“Oh yes, very funny. Although death by cupcakes is too good for that old goat.”

“It is,” El agreed. “But in actuality I suspect that it will not be the way the wizard will go.”

They hugged awkwardly, in the manner of men who became close under extenuating circumstances, lost touch for a couple of years, then met up again just briefly, only to be parted once more by further potentially life threatening circumstances. There were a lot of complicated emotions at work in that hug, and it was a beautiful and touching thing.

“Give me a ten minute head start,” El muttered into the hug, “then head for the second floor. You will find your young man there.”

“Thanks, El, I will. Good luck with finding and murdering Chinnigan.”

“It sounds so distasteful when you put it that way,” El realized, pulling out of the hug. “And yet, it is what it is, and what it is must be done. The badger must kill the fox before it can truly find peace.”

“Is that an old Chilean saying?”

“No, I saw it on Autumnwatch.”

And with that, El bounded off up the stairs, wearing two balaclavas, never to be seen again. Probably.

Tim leaned against the wall and looked around him.

It wasn’t one of those interesting cellars that you hear about in some books, like ‘The Kid in the Cellar’ or ‘Get Me Another Chianti’. It had never been used as a dungeon, or a gym, or a place to keep wine. In fact, it was all but forgotten about by the people who owned the building, truth be told, even though it wasn’t plagued by damp or rats or unusual smells. It just sat there, quite a nice space, albeit a bit on the dark side, almost entirely empty apart from an old wheelchair with a broken seat and only one wheel; and several enormous piles of dust.

“Passing ten minutes in this place is probably going to be my biggest challenge yet,” Tim told himself with a chuckle. A mouse inside the wall rolled its eyes, and proclaimed him a goner. The mice had the run of the building, and knew how the owners perceived intruders, adventurers, and people who thought they were funny when they weren’t. It didn’t look good for someone who ticked all three of those boxes.

He heard footsteps above and to his right, and moved towards the tiny, grimy window to peek outside.

Dawn had broken, bathing the outside world in a pinky blue hue that would have made quite a nice colour for something that would look good in pinky blue. Tim enjoyed it for a moment, before remembering the footstep situation.

There were iron bars on the outside of the window which were totally in the way, but he was pretty sure he could make out the figure of Aloysius advancing towards the door of the building along with some sort of animal. Tim wasn’t all that great with nature, but was moderately sure that this one was a sheep dog of some sort.

“What is he doing,” he groaned, watching as Al strode purposefully towards the front door, “they’re gonna get him! And apparently, they’re gonna get his little dog, too!”

Tim grabbed the wheelchair and pulled it over to the window, intending to try and force his way out or at least attract Al’s attention so that he would not pursue this hideous course of action.

Unfortunately he wasn’t quick enough, and from his precarious position atop the rickety frame all he saw was the door closing behind Al as he entered the building.

Tim jumped down with a ker-thunk.

“That’s probably been ten minutes anyway,” he reasoned aloud, one assumes for the benefit of the mouse as there was nobody else present to hear him.

He bounded up the well-worn steps and out of the cellar as El had done some moments before, pulling the door open with a careful yet enthusiastic creak. Once out in the relative brightness of the corridor he made to travel back in the direction he had come, which wasn’t too difficult as he’d had years of practice at going back the way he had come.

To begin with he pressed himself against the wall like people do in action films, but then he decided there was little point, as there was nothing to shield him if someone did come the other way. He stuck out like a sore thumb against the holographic underwater scene they had used to decorate the place. It was an interior design nightmare, he thought to himself, not even a child would find this appealing and their taste in décor is bizarre.

Up ahead there was an archway, which he remembered led to a lobby area at the front of the building. Now at least he could hide behind something if the need arose, he thought with a satisfied nod.

He could hear voices a little way further, and recognized one to belong to Al, but the other was unfamiliar.

“If you’ve got to go,” Al was saying sympathetically as Tim drew nearer to the sound of their jibber jabber, “then you have to go, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I can’t go here,” the other voice said, “there’ll be hell to pay.”

Tim risked a look-see around a pillar that conveniently stood by the archway.

Al was the only person there, and his only companion was the dog from outside. That breed was called a collie, Tim remembered now. They got their name due to something about only eating cauliflower.

‘Talking animals, eh,’ he thought to himself. ‘The plot thickens.’

“I’m not talking,” the dog said patiently, looking in Tim’s direction as if waiting for him to come out of his hiding place. “I’ve set up a telepathic link between myself and anything living within a half mile radius. Heard you coming before we even got here, your thoughts are that loud.”

“Sorry,” Tim said, not really sure whether an apology was required but deciding to err on the side of politeness.

“It’s eaten the amulet, before you say anything about me mucking up the quest,” Aloysius told him defensively.

“I wasn’t going to slag you,” Tim replied, “I’m sure you did your best.”

“But my best wasn’t good enough.”

“Well, we’ll see. This thing isn’t over yet, there are four days left in November after all.”

Al looked confused, but didn’t say anything for fear of humiliating himself further.

“I’m not an it,” the dog said suddenly, “I’m a he. My name is Brian, actually.”

“Nice to meet you Brian,” breezed Tim, “I’m Tim Mahogany-Barnes, and this here is Aloysius Hunkington Smythe.”

“Tim Mahogany-Barnes,” Brian said, or thought, if you want to be pedantic (in which case, why are you here? Go and do something less first draft-y.) “why do I know your name?”

“Not sure,” Tim reported, scratching his nose.

“You’re not a relation of Cassius Mahogany-Barnes, by any chance?”

“Why yes,” said Tim, “he’s my uncle. Do you know him?”

“Know him? He was my owner, till I was dognapped a couple of years ago. Best old man I ever knew.”

“You’re the dog that went missing? Well that’s great, I’ll tweet him and say you’ve been found! He’s never given up the search, you know.”

“I know,” Brian said with a mixture of pride and sadness, “I saw the reports on Crimewatch. But he’ll never take me back now.”

“Whyever not?” Tim puzzled, “he misses you dreadfully. Never got another dog after you were taken from him.”

Brian’s lip trembled, which for those of you who’ve never seen a sad dog, was simultaneously the most adorable and the most heart wrenching thing you are ever likely to see.

“Because I’ve been a bad dog,” he moaned mournfully.

“I’m sure he’d forgive you,” Tim replied dutifully, although he wasn’t really sure. He didn’t know Cassius brilliantly well, as he was an eccentric old chap who liked to keep himself to himself.

“No,” Brain asserted with his tail between his legs. “Ever since the clan of the cape recruited me… Well I don’t want to go into it, really. But it’s been dark times.”

“Well how about you redeem yourself now, by giving us the amulet instead of letting the clan of the cape take it?”

This was Al speaking, using his famous logic to manipulate an animal into doing what he wanted. How like a human.

“I can’t,” Brian quaked, conflicted like a girl choosing between the sexy bad boy and the safe, dependable husband type. “They’ll kill me if I do. Or worse.”

“So the clan of the cape have a penchant for inflicting fates worse than death, eh,” said Tim, stroking his chin as if this information had in some way made him think. It hadn’t. “That’s no good at all. We must stop them, Aloysius.”

“How are we going to do that?” Al asked, logic to the forefront once more. “We know literally nothing about them, other than they want that magic amulet, and they have a base here. We don’t know how many there are, we don’t know whether this is their main HQ or just a holding place, we don’t know whether they’re sanctioned by any authorities in this country…. We’d be going in totally blind, with no weapons, and no idea whether they want to kill, maim, or let us go.”

“Well, I think it’s about time someone got you guys that information,” pealed a tiresome voice from one of the doorways.

“And as usual, that someone is probably me.”

And that was how Tim and Al were introduced to Jeremy Kyle.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapters 1 - 12 in order can be located by clicking here.


Back in the library, you might remember that Aloysius had finished a flashback detailing certain points of his history heretofore unknown to us, with no regard for continuity or tenses.

The teenage girl had removed herself and her Gucci knock off shoulder bag from the counter, but this was less on his say-so and more because of events outside his control. In point of fact, if we were to be brutally honest, it was pretty much down to the drive by shooting that was going down.

You might think that libraries are quiet places, populated mainly by the very young (whose mothers need to escape the house, just for a bit), the very old (who need to escape the house, just for a bit) and students (who have missed the essay deadline and now have to do some frenzied last minute reading – just for a bit).

It is possible, too, that you may have a vague childhood memory of being asked to keep the noise down in your local library as you coloured in your Asterix picture with a particularly squeaky crayon, or turned the pages of your Sweet Valley Twins book too loudly.

This is not that sort of library.

The library of which we speak is at the centre of a community the bulk of whom are quite close to the poverty line. It is well used, but largely as a meeting place almost exclusively by the children and young people who have got themselves banned from the nearby community centre. Except of course when they are at school, at which point the aforementioned mums with under fives and older people rush in with shining eyes to pick up the latest Lee Child bestseller.

Anyway, there are a lot of kids and young persons milling about the place, and most of them are in gangs. Although I hasten to add that this is not in the way that the Secret Seven were a gang - these kids don't set out to solve mysteries. Some might be the perpetrators of mysteries, but they aren't really too excited by the prospect of finding and solving hidden clues, or unmasking criminals. After all, who wants to shop their own dad?

What makes them gang material is something of a pack instinct. They're pretty into defining themselves against who they are not, within the context of loosely defined geographical boundaries. Gangs are generally named for the couple of streets their members live on, and Thor help you if you try to say that ‘Mayfield’ isn’t big enough to constitute an area on its own and that if anything its part of the larger constituency of Newington. That’s actually a made up example, the gang around that bit is known as the EH8 Crew. I’ve seen it written on lamp posts in permanent marker.

If you aren't interested in being in the gang you are a tramp, reviled by most and treated with suspicion. As such the library, standing as it does between the stomping grounds of several gangs (and one or two groups of mates who like each other but have no official gang affiliations) can be the scene of some pretty fraught meetings.

This was one of those occasions.

The rain had come back on, so the building was busy - full of hyperactive, damp young people aged 7-17. They were mostly engaged in various non-traditional library activities that are the norm in this modern technological age - checking their social networking sites, playing on games consoles, making figures out of paper mâché, and beating the crap out of each other when they thought nobody was looking.

Aloysius has recovered from that odd, stream of consciousness style flash back – the one he had in front of a bemused girl who wanted to borrow change for the vending machine, or vendor as it is known.

Outside, the street was deserted.

"You didn't actually give her your own money," Adric asked in dismay in a way that was more a statement than a question.

He didn't get any further, because the glass in the front door made a cracking sound and the place erupted with the overexcited, e-numbered shrieks of a metric gaggle and a half of young persons.

Everyone in the building gathered round, in spite of Adric's protestations that there might be broken glass and danger underfoot. There was a small, round hole in the glass window of the door, and cracks spread out from its centre, like a beautiful spider web. Had it been frost, Adric would have taken a photograph on his phone to use as the library Christmas card.

"As soon as someone touches that, it's going tae go," the teenager who had borrowed money from Al proclaimed, tempting fate to some extent.

Al shook his head at her, wondering if she had done it on purpose or was yet to understand the contrary nature of younglings.

"Everyone away from the door NOW," Adric boomed, choosing the correct vocal volume for the occasion for a change.

Slightly cowed, the metric gaggle and a half of kids did as they were told. Adric knew he had only seconds to act before they were all back though, pressing their fingers against the fissures in the glass like they were the cast of Jackass.

"Al," he said, "call the window fixer guy. The number's in the diary.”

He cleared his throat, in a taking charge of the situation sort of a way. “Small child," he continued, directing his attention towards a small child with a gleam on his cufflinks, "pass me that cardboard box and some sellotape."

The child did, and Adric set about flattening the box so he could cover the damage with it until such time as the window fixer – or glazier – came to sort it out properly.

This was the point at which a small purple nova drove past, and someone in the passenger side wound down the window and produced a gun.

Almost in slow motion – which would be quite helpful if this was a film that needed to be fifty thousand seconds long, but unfortunately slowing things down doesn’t pad out one’s word count in the same way – Adric threw himself to the floor, pushing the small child out of the way as he went.

The pane of glass exploded behind him as the drive by took a turn for the more. Sparkling shards flew everywhere, cutting Adric’s favourite bow tie to shrebbons and lodging painfully in various parts of his arms, legs, torso and so on.

Blood happened.

“Ow,” he said, decisively.

“You touched that wee laddie,” said one of the teenagers, presumably referring to Adric’s daring rescue of the small child from being the one to get covered in broken glass. “That means you’re gay and a paedo. GAYDO. He should sue you. Hear that wee man? You should sue.”

The small child smiled obligingly, and stuffed an entire mars bar in his mouth sideways.

Adric took that as a sign he was undecided.

With a groan, he got to his feet. There was glass in his shoes.

“Right,” he said, “I think we’re going to need to close early today.”

“What do you mean,” Smokey Jones said smugly, “it’s already quarter past five!”

Adric groaned again, in frustration and pain and vowels.

“That means I’ve missed my bus. And it’s poker night tonight! Rubbish. They won’t let me play if I’m late.”

Al raised an eyebrow.

“I play with accountants, what can I say,” he shrugged apologetically.

“OK, everyone out the fire exit way,” he announced to the room, switching the lights off to emphasise his point. “Anyone who does the ‘we’re no leaving, hide and seek’ crap tonight will be locked in until we open up tomorrow. I will not be returning from my flat at the other end of town to let you out, and my telephone will be switched off specifically so my boss can’t make me.”

It was unnecessary to go into this detail, however, as most of the kids were itching to get out and see if the drive by guys were still around.

Unconfirmed rumours circulating amongst the young people implied that it was Jimmy Bob’s youngest brother, Bobby Jim, who had been driving the purple nova, and one of his mates from The Gang Who Must Not Be Named that had done the shooting.

The Gang Who Must Not Be Named were the arch nemesis gang of Smokey Jones’s gang, who were called the Snider Boys. The reason these two were nemeses was because they were the only gangs in the whole of Edinburgh not named according to the geographical criteria laid out by the author previously. They were vying for the headlines in the Evening News, but as yet had been pipped to the post on several occasions by other, worst gangs from other parts of the city. If only they tried to work together to out-gang all those other gangs, imagine what they could achieve.

But instead they fought with one another, and whenever The Gang Who Must Not Be Named heard that any of the Snider Boys was at the library, they headed down to enact some form of justice. Often there were fisticuffs in the car park, and wars of words happened almost daily, but it was comparatively rare that the building or its inhabitants were brought into the furore.

Adric speculated that the kid with the gun was probably new to The Gang Who Must Not Be Named, and that once the full effect of his initial militant stance had been smacked out of him by an indignant parent, things would go back to normal. The teenage girl with the knock off bag, meanwhile, proclaimed the mysterious gunman totally mint by the way, even though she hadn’t seen his actual face, which might be covered in pustules or anything like that. Love takes people in that way, sometimes.

Al swept up the broken glass as if in a dream, and taped the cardboard onto the door frame without saying a word. He was looking broody, Adric felt, and not in the way that meant he wanted to have a baby.

Ironically enough, one of the things Al had been brooding about was the possibility of finding and helping with the looking after someone else’s lost baby.

IT WAS BRACKEN.

It’s OK, Reader, I don’t expect you to follow the complexity of this plot all by your onesie.

“Shall we go for a pint?” He asked Adric, suddenly and uncharacteristically.

“I’d love to,” Adric replied, “but I think I had better go to the hospital first. I seem to have lost quite a lot of blood.”

And then he fainted.

Chapter Nine

"Like, for repairs?" Bracken asked hopefully.

"No," Adric yelled sadly, twirling one of his bow ties. "One of the local kids was burying a cat out in the garden - don't ask - and he found a big wedge of Mayan gold. At first we thought it was a hoax by some of the older boys – ” he gestured towards a row of computers where a line of older teenage boys sat in silence checking their social networking sites and hatching plots.

“– they need to get jobs like – but the council was interested enough by the prospect of money to get some professor down here to check it out... The kid was pretty annoyed, as it turns out it's real, authentic and very very old."

"Mayan gold, though," Bracken said, incredulous and slow. "As in the ancient civilisation in south America?"

"That's the one." Adric confirmed squeakily, putting up some shelves as he did so.

"But how did it get here? Under a library in Edinburgh? It doesn't make any sense."

"Oh Bracken," Adric said paternally, placing an assortment of library related knick knacks on the aforementioned shelves, "you said it yourself. The Mayans were an ancient civilisation. This building has only been here since the mid seventies. I know that seems ages to a young snip of a girl like you, with your flighty fancies and frippery doodads. But it's really not that long in the grand scheme of things. You'll start to see that as you get older."

"No," she said patiently, "I mean physically how did this gold get from South America to Scotland? Who went to all the trouble of removing what was probably a cursed treasure - they usually are, at any rate - sailing back here, and burying it in the Scottish countryside, never for them to lay eyes on again?"

"I would have thought that was pretty obvious," Adric said, "it must have been pirates. They love nicking shiny stuff and burying it."

"That's a myth propagated by Treasure Island," Bracken informed him wearily, "you might just as well say a dragon did it."

"Don't be silly," Adric said dismissively, "you don't get dragons this far north. They hail from Wales. Must’ve been pirates. With big hats, and peg legs, and hooks for eyes. No, wait. Hands. That’s right, isn’t it? Like in Peter Piper. I mean Pan."

"So what will happen to your jobs then," Esmerelda asked, when the flow of nonsense seemed to have come to a natural end, "what with the economic climate how it is? The Edinburgh Evening News says the council are firing people at a rate of lots."

"Knots," Aloysius corrected automatically.

"What?"

"The phrase is at a rate of knots," he said, "it's a seafaring term."

“I know,” Esmeralda pouted, irritated at her amateurish mistake, “I was just making a joke. God, Al. Way to make me sound like an idiot.”

"We'll probably be offered the chance to go to different branches," Adric explained, blissfully unaware of the tension in the room. Bracken noticed it though, and a flicker of hope twangled in her tummy like a rowdy gerbil.

"Or if we refuse, a minuscule pay out. I'll probably go to another branch, myself. Maybe in the Maldives, haha. Only kidding. The council doesn’t run any libraries in the Maldives. Not any that are legal and above board, at least."

"Actually, I was wondering about volunteering in a Romanian orphanage," said Aloysius, to the evident surprise and chagrin of his alleged girlfriend.

Bracken noticed that their body language was very distant as well. Could it be that Esmeralda had lied to her that night at the hospital?

"Where did that come from, all of a sudden," Esmeralda was asking through gritted teeth.

"I just think that maybe it's time to do something different," he said, "something to help other people rather than worrying about myself all of the time."

Esmeralda looked genuinely blank. This was a concept that was alien to her. Because she was secretly mean.

"And anyway," he continued, shooting a sneaky look at Bracken under his lovely (in a butch way) eyelashes, "there's not really anything for me here."

"Ally-poos," came the tinkling voice of Nigella in full slap, "how can you say that? After last night?"

She emerged from the staff room brandishing two cups of tea, and gave one to Al with a lingering look.

"What happened last night?" asked Bracken and Esmeralda in unison.

"It's always the quiet ones," remarked Adric, pulling a custard cream out of his shirt pocket and munching cheerfully.

"Nothing happened last night," Aloysius said quickly. "I just walked her home, that's all."

Knowing how honest he was, Esmeralda was inclined to believe him.

Knowing what a fantasist Nige was, Bracken tended to agree. And yet there was something not quite right about his demeanour, or her snake eyed look of triumph.

"Well, that was pretty much the most boring revelation ever," Adric said, scanning through a bunch of graphic novels for comic book guy and stamping eight of them due back on the 41st of April 2026 before realising it had been tampered with.

"You know me," said comic book guy, "I'll have them back within the week anyway!". He laughed, implying that this had been a joke of some kind.

Adric, who had never seen comic book guy in his life, was confused.

He overcompensated by laughing uproariously and shouting, "yep, that sounds like you."

"Maybe it's not such a bad thing we have to close," he said sadly after comic book guy hooded up and dashed out into the rain, "I don't know the customers anymore anyway."

"You know me," Bracken pointed out.

"Yeah, but this is the first time you've been here in weeks. Where have you been? We've got a book in that you reserved, actually. That one about the woman who turns everything she touches into marine creatures."

"That the one with the moustachioed porpoise on the front?" Al asked, going to retrieve it.

"The very same."

"I don't have my card," she admitted regretfully, "sorry guys."

"That's alright," Al said, "we put your card number on the book when it comes in."

"Not just yours," Adric qualified, taking the book from him and typing her borrower number into the database. "It's standard procedure."

"Gosh," Esmeralda said sarcastically, "how fascinating. Nobody should live at this speed."

"Thanks," Bracken said quietly, examining the cover.

The moustachioed porpoise gazed back at her with the calm of the sea.

“Maroona Fusible was an ordinary, strikingly beautiful girl… Until the clock struck 12 on her eighteenth birthday,” began the blurb on the back in flowing silver calligraphy. “But then her family’s secret curse was unlocked, and strange things began to happen to the people she loved. Whenever she touched someone with whom she had a connection, they turned into citizens of the sea.”

“I think it’s meant to be some sort of strangled metaphor,” Bracken muttered, “wonder if it explains what for or whether I’ll have to try and work it out from context and the author’s background.”

“Well guys,” Nigella trilled, interrupting her train of though, “I’d better be going. People to do, places to see. Oh, what am I like.”

Bracken rolled her eyes.

“See you soon, Al,” Nige added sweetly, clopping away in her tallest pulling shoes.

“Break a leg,” Bracken wanted to shout after her, but she didn’t.

“I should go too actually,” she remembered, “the kids’ll be finishing soon.”

“No they won’t,” Adric asserted, “they’ve got an in-service day. Nobody in the school at all.”

“Oh,” Bracken said, “that’s why they’re all running about in here making a racket. I’m so used to them now I just tune them out, I thought it was quiet in here.”

“ADRIC,” shouted a chubby boy with mud all over his face, “WHEN AM AH GETTING MA GOLD BACK?”

“You’re not getting it,” Adric explained, evidently not for the first time. “It’s been taken away to go in a museum.”

“Should I not get a reward for finding it or suhin?” persisted the boy, picking his nose and wiping it disinterestedly on the counter.

“Well, in a perfect world maybe,” Adric admitted, “but nobody knew it was missing, so there isn’t really a reward going as such. You got your picture in the paper, though. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“NUT,” expostulated the boy, “ah’ve been in the paper like, about, a HUNDRED times. Like for ma golf and when we did that thing for Robbie Burns night and when my sister got married…”

“Ooooh,” Bracken said, recognizing the kid at last, “you’re Kelly’s wee brother aren’t you.”

“Aye,” he said.

“I was in school wi her.”

“Oh.”

Adric shrugged apologetically.

“Well can I book on the playstation 3?” Enquired the boy.

“That depends,” Adric responded, “have you got your library card?”

“Ew nut,” the boy shrieked, “that’s pure geeky!”

He saw the look on Adric’s face.

“Eh, I mean, I lost it.”

Adric folded his arms.

“Dog ate it.”

A shake of the head.

“Ma wee sister accidentally on purpose flushed it down the toilet.”

“Your wee sister, aye,” Bracken interjected doubtfully.

“Ma wee brother.”

“You don’t have a wee sister or a wee brother,” Adric and Bracken chorused. Such was the benefit of living in a tiny community where everyone knew everyone. Through very different channels, both of them knew that Dillon Mackay (for this was his name) was the youngest of nine children.

“Just find someone who does have a card and play with them,” another kid suggested from the sidelines.

“I think I might go,” Bracken concluded, having glanced outside and noticed that the rain had stopped; “now that I’ve realized they’re here I’m going to end up shouting at them. They’re wee toe rags when they’re in here.”

“What, are they mild mannered and delightful when they’re outside?”

“No. You know what I mean. Youse’re good wi them, but I couldnae stand it.”

“You’d be surprised,” Al disagreed, reappearing from a Super Mario Brothers tournament in which he had been pwned by an eight year old girl. She was now doing a victory dance on the craft table as some other kids cheered her on.

“Well,” Adric told her, “don’t be a stranger, OK? We’re all rooting for you and hoping things work out with Nicky and the wee one.”

Bracken was genuinely touched by this unexpected display of kindness. Because her aunt and Nige and Jeremy Kyle had been so vocally against her, she hadn’t thought that anyone was on her side.

“Thanks,” she nodded, the lump in her throat threatening to swell up to kitten size. “I’ll see you when I bring this back –” she waved the porpoise book – “if not before.”

“You take care,” he smiled.

“Will do.”

Which was ironic really, because as soon as she stepped outside, she was grabbed from behind, a gloved hand went over her mouth, and she was bundled into the back of a car by a man (or a female bodybuilder like on Louis Theroux) in a balaclava.

“What the-” was all she got out before everything went black.