The Well of Lost Plots

'Big Martin,' she said softly. 'He must have been following you.'

'Is he still?' I asked, understandably concerned.

'Who knows?' replied Miss Havisham. 'Big Martin is a law unto himself. Come back inside.'

We returned to where the cast were dusting themselves down. Joseph was muttering to himself and trying to block the windows up with blankets.

'Well,' said Miss Havisham, clapping her hands together, 'that was an exciting session, wasn't it?'

'I am still leaving this appalling book,' retorted Heathcliff, who was back on full obnoxious form again.

'No you're not,' replied Havisham.

'You just try and stop�'

Miss Havisham, who was fed up with pussyfooting around and hated men like Heathcliff with a vengeance, grasped him by the collar and pinned his head to the table with a well-placed gun barrel pressed painfully into his neck.

'Listen here,' she said, her voice quavering with anger, 'to me, you are worthless scum. Thank your lucky stars I am loyal to Jurisfiction. Many others in my place would have handed you over. I could kill you now and no one would be any the wiser.'

Heathcliff looked at me imploringly.

'I was outside when I heard the shot,' I told him.

So were we!' exclaimed the rest of the cast eagerly, excepting Catherine Earnshaw, who simply scowled.

'Perhaps I should do it!' growled Havisham again. 'Perhaps it would be a mercy. I could make it look like an accident�!'

'No!' cried Heathcliff in a contrite tone. 'I've changed my mind. I in going to stay right here and just be plain old Mr Heathcliff for ever and ever.'

Havisham stared at him and slowly released her grasp.

'Right,' she said, switching her pistol to safe and regaining her breath, 'I think that pretty much concludes this session of Jurisfiction Rage Counselling. What did we learn?'

The co-characters all stared at her, dumbstruck.

'Good. Same time next week, everyone?'

14 Educating the Generics

'Generics were the chameleons of the Well. In general they were trained to do specific jobs but could be upgraded if the need arose. Occasionally a Generic would jump up spontaneously within the grade, but to jump from one grade to another without external help, they said, was impossible. From what I would learn, "impossible" was a word that should not be bandied about the Well without due thought. Imagination being what it is, anything could happen � and generally did.'

THURSDAY NEXT � The Jurisfiction Chronicles

I made it home on my own after the 'mopping up' had finished in Wuthering Heights. The leader of the ProCath cell was well known to Jurisfiction, and preferred our guns on the inside to Big Martin's teeth on the outside. The house was repaired within a few lines, and because Havisham had been holding the rage counselling session between chapters, no one reading the book noticed anything. In fact, the only evidence of the attack now to be seen in the book was Hareton's shotgun, which exploded accidentally in chapter thirty-two, most likely as a result of a ricocheting bullet damaging the latching mechanism.

'How was your day today?' asked Gran.

'Very � expositional to begin with,' I said, falling into the sofa and tickling Pickwick, who had come over all serious and matronly, 'but it ended quite dramatically.'

'Did you have to be rescued again?'

'Not this time.'

'The first few days in a new job are always a bit shaky,' said Gran. 'Why do you have to work for Jurisfiction anyway?'

'It was part of the Exchange Programme deal.'

'Oh, yes,' she replied. 'Would you like me to make you an omelette?'

'Anything.'

'Right. I'll need you to crack the eggs and mix them and get me down the saucepan and �'

I heaved myself up and went through to the small galley, where the fridge was full of food, as always.

'Where's ibb and obb?' I asked.

'Out, I think,' replied Gran. 'Would you make us both a cup of tea while you're up?'

'Sure. I still can't remember Landen's second name, Gran � I've been trying all day.'

Gran came into the galley and sat on a kitchen stool, which happened to be right in the way of everything. She smelt of sherry, but for the life of me I didn't know where she hid it.

'But you remember what he looks like?'

I stopped what I was doing and stared out of the kitchen porthole.

'Yes,' I replied slowly, 'every line, every mole, every expression � but I still remember him dying in the Crimea.'

'That never happened, my dear,' she exclaimed. 'But the fact � I should use a bigger bowl if I were you � that you can remember his features proves he's not gone any more than yesterday. I should use butter and not oil; and if you have any mushrooms you could chop them up with a bit of onion and bacon � do you have any bacon?'

'Probably. You still haven't told me how you managed to find your way here, Gran.'

'That's easily explained,' she said. 'Tell me, did you manage to get a list of the most dull books you could find?'

Granny Next was one hundred and eight years old and was convinced that she couldn't die until she had read the ten most boring classics. On an earlier occasion I had suggested The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, Ivanhoe, Moby-Dick, A la recherche du temps perdu, Pamela and A Pilgrim's Progress. She had read them all and many others but was still with us. Trouble is, 'boring' is about as hard to quantify as 'pretty', so I really had to think of the ten books that she would find most boring.

'What about Silas Marner?'

'Only boring in parts � like Hard Times. You're going to have to do a little better than that � and if I were you I'd use a bigger pan, but on a lower heat.'

'Right,' I said, beginning to get annoyed, 'perhaps you'd like to cook? You've done most of the work so far.'

'No, no,' replied Gran, completely unfazed, 'you're doing fine.'

There was a commotion at the door and Ibb came in, followed closely by Obb.

'Congratulations!' I called out.

'What for?' asked Ibb, who was looking surprisingly different to Obb. For a start, Obb was at least four inches taller and its hair was darker than Ibb's, who was beginning to go blond.

'For becoming capitalised.'

'Oh, yes,' enthused Ibb, 'it's amazing what a day at St Tabularasa's will do for one. Tomorrow we'll finish our gender training and by the end of the week we'll be streamed into character groups.'

'I want to be a male mentor figure,' said Obb. 'Our tutor said that sometimes we can have a choice of what we do and where we go. Are you making supper?'

'No,' I replied, testing their sarcasm response, 'I'm giving my pet egg heat therapy.'

Ibb laughed � which was a good sign, I thought � and went off with Obb to practise whimsical retorts in case either of them was given a posting as a humorous sidekick.

'Teenagers,' said Granny Next, 'tch. I'd better make it a bigger omelette. Take over, would you? I'm going to have a rest.'

We all sat down to eat twenty minutes later. Obb had brushed its hair into a parting and Ibb was wearing one of Gran's gingham dresses.

'Hoping to be female?' I asked, passing Ibb a plate.

'Yes,' replied Ibb, 'but not one like you. I'd like to be more feminine and a bit hopeless � the sort that screams a lot when they get into trouble and have to be rescued.'

'Really?' I asked, handing Gran the salad. 'Why?'

Ibb shrugged. 'I don't know. I just like the idea of being rescued a lot, that's all � being carried off in big strong arms sort of � appeals. I thought I could have the plot explained to me a lot, too � but I should have a few good lines of my own, be quite vulnerable, yet end up saving the day owing to a sudden flash of idiot savant brilliance.'