“Will you two cut it out!” I said crossly. “Honestly, I think Friday’s proved he’s no duh-brain over the Short Now thing, so just pack it in. Right. I know your gran gave us some food, but does anybody want anything proper to eat?”

“There’s some pizza in the freezer,” said Landen. “We can have that.”

We all got out of the car and walked up to the house with Friday and Tuesday bickering.

“Geek.”

“Duh-brain.”

“Geek.”

“Duh-brain.”

“I said cut it out.” I suddenly thought of something. “Land, where’s Jenny?”

“At a sleepover with Ingrid.”

“Oh, yeah. Again?”

“Thick as thieves, those two.”

“Yeah,” I said with a frown, “thick as thieves, those two.”

Bowden called during dinner. This was unusual for him, but not totally unexpected. Spike and I had crept away from Acme like naughty schoolkids, as we didn’t want to get into trouble over the cost of Major Pickles’s carpet, not to mention that it had taken us both all day and we’d done nothing else.

“It’s not great, is it?” said Bowden in the overserious tone he used when he was annoyed, upset or angry. To be honest, I had the most shares in Acme, but he was the managing director, so day-to-day operations were up to him.

“I don’t think it’s all that bad,” I said, going on the defensive.

“Are you insane?” replied Bowden. “It’s a disaster!”

“We’ve had bigger problems,” I said, beginning to get annoyed. “I think it’s best to keep a sense of proportion, don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” he replied, “but if we let this sort of thing take a hold, you never know where it might end up.”

I was pissed off now.

“Bowden,” I said, “just cool it. Spike got stuck to the ceiling by Raum, and if Pickles hadn’t given the demi-devil the cold steel, we’d both be pushing up daisies.”

There was silence on the line for a moment, until Bowden said in a quiet voice, “I’m talking about van de Poste’s Address to the Nation—what are you talking about?”

“Oh—nothing. What did he say?”

“Switch on the telly and you’ll see.”

I asked Tuesday to switch channels. OWL-TV was airing the popular current-affairs show Fresh Air with Tudor Webastow, and Tudor, who was perhaps not the best but certainly the tallest reporter on TV, was interviewing the Commonsense minister of culture, Cherie Yogert, MP.

“…and the first classic to be turned into a reality book show?”