The consequence of this was terrible to consider—a new version of The Scarlet Letter where things actually happen.

“Impact time?”

“Three minutes.”

I had an idea. “How many people are reading Scarlet Letter at present?”

“Six hundred and twenty-two,” replied the Cat, who as librarian had these figures at his paws twenty-four hours a day.

“Pleasure readers?”

“Mostly,” replied the Cat, thinking hard, “except for a class of thirty-two English students at Frobisher High School in Michigan who are studying it.”

“Good. Bradshaw? I want you to set up textual sieves in every book ever written by Hemingway—even the bad ones. Sieves are to be set to coarse in all short stories, letters, Winner Take Nothing and In Our Time, medium in The Sun Also Rises and The Green Hills of Africa. I want to channel the storm, slowing it down as it passes. By A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, sieves should be set to fine. The storm will bounce between all the works, moving west towards the void between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. If it makes it that far, we’ll reset the sieves and attack it again.”

There was a pause.

“But, Thursday,” said Bradshaw slowly, “the storm isn’t going to hit Hemingway.”

“It will if we shut The Scarlet Letter down.”

“Out of the question!” exploded Senator Jobsworth, spontaneously and automatically rejecting any possible infringements of his sacred regulations. “The rules do not permit any book to be shut down without a vote at the Council of Genres—I can quote the rule number if you wish!”

Technically, he was right. Even with a vote, nobody had tried anything so audacious before. It usually took an hour to shut down a book, more to bring it up to full readability again.

“Is that wise?” asked Dr. Howard.

“Not in the least,” I replied, “but I’m out of time and ideas right now.”

“Isn’t anyone listening to me?” continued the senator, more outraged at our lack of respect than at losing The Scarlet Letter.

“Oh, we’re listening all right,” purred the Cat, “we just don’t agree with you.”

“Rules are there for a good reason, Miss Next. We have ordered the demolition of bigger books than The Scarlet Letter. I personally—”

“Listen,” I said, “classics have been lost before but never during my tenure as Bellman. Tomorrow morning you can have my badge if I’m wrong and send me packing. Right now you can sit down and shut up. Cat and Bradshaw, are you with me on this?”

“Appreciate a woman who can make bold decisions!” muttered Bradshaw, repeating my orders to the DanverClones. Senator Jobsworth had gone red with impotent fury, and his mouth was twitching as he sought to find words to adequately express his anger at my insubordination.

“Two minutes to impact.”

I picked up the footnoterphone and asked to be put through to the storycode engine floor.