“You can stop poking your nose in where it’s not wanted,” said the hedgehog haughtily, “that’s what you can do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Painted Jaguar?” suggested the tortoise. “Can’t curl, can swim. Ring any bells, smart aleck?”

“Oh! You must be Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid.”

“The same. And that little mnemonic you so kindly gave to the Painted Jaguar is going to cause us a few problems—the dopey feline will never forget that in a month of Sundays.”

I sighed. Living in the BookWorld was a great deal more complicated than I had imagined.

“Well, why don’t you learn to swim or something?”

“Who, me?” said Stickly-Prickly. “Don’t be absurd; whoever heard of a hedgehog swimming?”

“And you could learn to curl,” I added to Slow-Solid.

“Curl?” replied the tortoise indignantly. “I don’t think so, thank you very much.”

“Give it a go,” I persisted. “Unlace your backplates a little and try and touch your toes.”

There was a pause. The hedgehog and the tortoise looked at one another and giggled.

“Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!” they chortled, thanked me and left.

I closed the door, sat down and looked in the fridge, shrugged and ate a large portion of Apples Benedict before having a long and relaxing shower.

The corridors of the Well were as busy as the day before. Traders bustled with buyers, deals were done, orders taken, bargains struck. Every now and then I saw characters fading in and out as their trade took them from book to book. I looked at the shop-fronts as I walked past, trying to guess how they did what they did. There were holesmiths, grammatacists, pacesetters, mood-mongers, paginators—you name it.1

It was the junkfootnoterphones starting up again. I tried to shut it out but only succeeded in lowering the volume. As I walked along, I noticed a familiar figure amongst the traders and plot speculators. He was dressed in his usual African-explorer garb: safari jacket, pith helmet, shorts, stout boots and a revolver in a leather holster. It was Commander Bradshaw, star of thirty-four thrilling adventure stories for boys available in hardback at 7/6 each. Out of print since the thirties, Bradshaw entertained himself in his retirement by being something of an éminence grise at Jurisfiction. He had seen and done it all—or claimed he had.

“A hundred!” he exclaimed bitterly as I drew closer. “Is that the best you can offer?”

The Action Sequence trader he was talking to shrugged. “We don’t get much call for lion attacks these days.”

“But it’s terrifying, man, terrifying!” exclaimed Bradshaw. “Real hot-breath-down-the-back-of-your-neck stuff. Brighten up contemporary romantic fiction no end, I should wager—make a change from parties and frocks, what?”

“A hundred and twenty, then. Take it or leave it.”

“Bloodsucker!” mumbled Bradshaw, taking the money and handing over a small glass globe with the lion attack, I presumed, safely freeze-dried within. He turned away from the trader and caught me looking at him. He quickly hid the cash and raised his pith helmet politely.