Pages & Co. Bookwandering Adventures – Volume One
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‘I’m sure you’ve already told Grandad all of this, but I’d love to hear about when you first realised what was happening.’
‘I didn’t really realise until just now,’ Tilly said. ‘I didn’t know what was happening to me, and when I first told Oskar he thought I was imagining things because I felt sad about Mum after finding those books of hers.’
‘I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier, Tilly,’ Grandma said. ‘It’s something we talked about a lot, but we decided that there was no way of explaining it before it actually happened; you would have thought we were going mad.’
‘I just can’t believe I have magical grandparents and I didn’t know!’
Grandma laughed. ‘Oh, Tilly. To my eternal sadness we are not magical at all; we’re just lucky enough to be able to use the natural magic of books and reading. It exists for everyone, but some of us can exert a little more control over it. I can no more cast a spell than I can convince your grandad to stop hoarding shoeboxes. So, where have you been so far? I hope it was somewhere particularly enjoyable and not too perilous?’
‘I went to the tea party in Alice in Wonderland first, and then to school with Anne Shirley,’ Tilly said, feeling like she was reading lines from someone else’s story, not talking about her own life. ‘Before I knew I could go inside books, when I’d just met Anne and Alice at Pages & Co., I tried to get Sara to come out of A Little Princess, but nothing happened.’
‘Why A Little Princess?’ Grandma asked slowly.
‘I’m not sure, it just felt like the right book,’ Tilly said. ‘It feels like ages since I read it, but Grandad had just told me it was my mum’s favourite, and it reminded me how much I liked Sara.’
‘He did, did he?’ Grandma said. ‘Well, I suppose that’s true, but she liked a great many books apart from that one. And, if you didn’t yet know what was possible, I’m not surprised nothing happened. When everything first kicks in it’s only the characters you have the very strongest relationships with that tend to start popping up – it’s why Anne and Alice ended up visiting you in Pages. Now, tell me what happened with Oskar.’
So Tilly told Grandma everything that had happened over the last few days, right up to Oskar getting yanked into Avonlea with her and them confronting Grandad.
‘And that brings us to here,’ Tilly concluded. ‘Grandad says we have to go and visit a librarian at the British Library.’
‘Well, it’s sort of nearby the British Library,’ Grandma said. ‘But this is a bit of a special library, and a bit of a different librarian. Different but wonderful, and it’s brilliant that you get to share it all with Oskar. It’s good to have a friend around in this sort of situation.’
‘You mean the sort of situation where you find out you live in a magical bookshop and you can talk to your favourite characters?’ Tilly said, a flicker of excitement starting to glow inside her.
‘Exactly,’ Grandma said, smiling.
‘No time for tea, thanks, Mary,’ Grandad said. ‘And yes, of course, happy to have him along! Give them both a change of scenery, you know.’
‘Oh yes,’ Mary said, looking pleased, ‘it would be good for Oskar to get out for a bit and experience some culture at the same time. Is there an exhibition on at the moment that you fancied?’
Grandad faltered and Oskar jumped in. ‘It was something to do with Alice in Wonderland that you were keen on, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, I believe you can see some of Lewis Carroll’s manuscripts in the Treasures Gallery,’ Grandad bluffed.
Tilly and Oskar nodded along.
‘Lovely,’ Mary said. ‘Thanks so much, Archie. Oskar, do you have your Oyster card?’
Oskar patted his jeans pocket in response.
‘Perfect,’ Mary said. ‘Can’t wait to hear all about it.’
The trio set off for the station, which was only a five-minute walk down the high street. They scanned their cards on the machines and bundled on to a train heading into central London; Tilly spotted one person with a Harry Potter book, but people were mainly reading the free newspapers.
The British Library was a couple of minutes down the road from King’s Cross station, but Oskar and Tilly still had to break into an awkward half-jog to keep up with Grandad, who was striding ahead, weaving speedily in and out of people wearing suits, and tourists wielding Tube maps and cameras. They nearly crashed into the back of him as he suddenly stopped outside a huge red-brick arch that marked the entrance.
‘The British Library’ was carved into the stone above their heads and a black iron grid of letters spelled out the same words underneath it. They stepped through into a large courtyard full of every kind of person you could imagine: students with unwashed hair, weighed down by threadbare tote bags full of books; slick-looking businesspeople shaking hands and hipsters with slim laptop cases and reusable coffee mugs all mingled around them. The floor of the courtyard was a grid of red and white bricks and the coppery buildings that surrounded them were lined with red accents. The spires and clock tower of King’s Cross station peeped out from behind the library walls and a huge statue of a man holding some kind of mathematical equipment dominated the view.
‘Who’s that supposed to be?’ Oskar asked, pointing at the vast sculpture.
‘That’s Sir Isaac Newton,’ Grandad said. ‘The statue was made by a sculptor called Eduardo Paolozzi. It’s inspired by a drawing of Newton by William Blake, the writer.’
‘Awesome,’ Oskar breathed.
Grandad shepherded them towards the steps up to the main entrance. They passed the line of people having their bags checked by security guards and walked into a huge, airy entrance hall. There was a giftshop to their left, and a low white desk immediately in front of them where people were being given directions and information. Stairs and escalators led off in several directions and the air was filled with a gentle musical hum of noise and typing. It smelled like coffee and paper. Behind the reception desk was a huge tower made of glass and black metal that stretched up towards the ceiling, and which was lined with thousands upon thousands of ancient-looking books. Grandad headed straight towards it.
On the first floor there was a set of padded black doors with a gilt sign overhead saying ‘The King’s Library’. A narrow walkway led to a door behind a gate that said very clearly in large letters ‘Staff Only’. Grandad pushed it open without hesitation.
‘Uh, Grandad, it says staff only in here. I don’t think we’re allowed,’ Tilly said nervously.
‘Don’t worry, Tilly, it’s okay. You’ll see …’ Grandad said, not seeming to notice the curious glances from the people working at the nearby desks. There was a black keypad by the door that Grandad punched four numbers into before pushing one of the heavy doors open with a satisfying click. Tilly and Oskar slipped through after Grandad into a cool dark space lined with countless books. When she wasn’t looking directly at them Tilly could have sworn the page edges were rustling and whispering to each other.
Grandad led them down a twisting metal staircase to what looked like a lift door tucked away in a corner. There was an ‘Out of Order’ sign pinned up, but Grandad pressed the button anyway and the doors slid open.
Tilly and Oskar looked at Grandad in confusion, but he pushed them gently inside.
‘Most of the British Library is four levels under your feet,’ Grandad said, ‘but, um, we sort of borrow some of the space from them.’
‘Who’s we?’ Tilly said, looking at him quizzically.
‘You’re about to find out,’ he said as he swiped some sort of card down a slot and pressed one of the buttons. The lift juddered and started to move, but, instead of going up or down, the now familiar toasty, marshmallowy smell filled the air and the sides of the lift cascaded down like wallpaper strips peeling away. In place of the beige walls there was an ornate interior made of dark, shiny wood and gilt decorations. Lines of gold buttons stretched from the floor to the very top of the lift, too high for Tilly to have pushed if she wanted to.
The doors pinged open.
‘Welcome to the British Underlibrary,’ Grandad said. ‘After you.’
Grandad’s tone had implied something huge and grand, but they were standing in a narrow corridor with wooden floorboards and nondescript doors lining the walls that curled round into darkness. It was far from unpleasant, but the majestic towers of books that they’d come from were much more impressive and Tilly had grown used to book magic transporting her somewhere wild and wonderful.
‘Where did you say we were exactly?’ she asked, looking up at Grandad.
‘The Underlibrary,’ Grandad repeated, gesturing.
‘Do you know something I don’t?’ Oskar said to Tilly under his breath. Tilly shook her head in response and he elbowed her into another question.
‘What exactly is the Underlibrary?’ Tilly asked. ‘We did the whole flippy magic thing in the lift, but we’re just in a normal corridor. Ohhh … Are we in a normal corridor that is actually in a book?’
‘What book is there an underlibrary in?’ Oskar whispered to Tilly.
‘No, no.’ Grandad was flustered and frustrated. ‘The Underlibrary is not from a book. This normal corridor is where all the “flippy magic” – as you so casually put it, Matilda – comes from. Perhaps you’d better follow me.’
Grandad set off down the corridor and Tilly and Oskar followed. Tilly was so focused on keeping up with Grandad that it wasn’t until Oskar nudged her and pointed to one of the doors they were passing that she realised some of the signs were a little out of the ordinary. In between ‘Accounts’ and ‘HR’ they passed ‘The Map Room’, ‘Classifications’ and ‘Character Registry’, and all the signs were prefaced by a string of numbers and dots. It didn’t look much like either the calm, modern British Library upstairs or the cosy, friendly public library down the road from Pages & Co.
Eventually the corridor ended in a set of wooden double doors with twisty, carved handles.
‘Let’s try this again,’ Grandad said, and pushed them open.
‘That’s more like it,’ Oskar said as he stepped into a room that was exactly what you might hope a secret, magical library would look like. The ceiling was painted deep turquoise and billowed high above them, cradled by ornate wooden arches. The floor was also wooden and the sound of their tapping heels echoed around them, mixed in with hushed conversations and the whispering of pages being turned. They had entered through a door that was set into one of the narrow ends of the rectangular hall. The wall that faced them was painted cream and hung with wooden panels covered in gold writing above double doors that mirrored the ones they had just come through. Between the two sets of doors five floors of long aisles lined with shelves and shelves of books opened out into the main atrium. Each aisle ended with an ornate metal grille. The central atrium was empty of furniture apart from a large, circular desk in the very middle, which was looped round a huge wooden box made up of hundreds of tiny drawers with gold handles. Carved into the front of the desk were the words
‘LEGERE EST PEREGRINARI’.
‘What does that mean?’ Tilly said, pointing.
‘It’s Latin,’ Grandad explained. ‘It doesn’t have an easy English translation, but the verb peregrinor means to travel about, to roam or to wander, so it essentially means “to read is to wander”. It’s the motto of the Underlibrary.’
The hall was full of people wearing navy blue cardigans with a gold trim. There were people carrying books and files, groups of them talking in small huddles and Tilly glimpsed even more on the floors that stretched away from the hall, writing at long wooden desks. There was a cluster of librarians nearby, sorting and loading piles of books into an elaborate paternoster, like a giant dumb waiter system. But, instead of the plain metal boxes Tilly had seen being used to deliver food in restaurants, this was a large, intricate selection of wooden caskets hung together on coppery chains being hauled up and down and sideways, and being sent off to different floors of the library as they watched. Every few seconds the sound of peaceful chatter was interrupted by a thump as a man at the main desk stamped a book and threw it into a chute behind him.
‘Okay, enough gawping for now; you’ll have a chance to see more of it at some point, I promise. Let’s go and find the Librarian,’ Grandad said, gently poking Tilly in the back to get her moving. Oskar followed, his mouth still open in wonder. They walked over to the desk in the middle and the young man who looked up as they approached wore an easy smile on his face until he saw Grandad.
‘Oh! Mr … P-Pages,’ he stuttered. ‘I don’t think we were expecting you?’
‘No, I doubt you were,’ Grandad said, studiously avoiding Tilly’s gaze. ‘Is Amelia around?’
‘I don’t know, sir. She’ll probably be in her office. Shall I get someone to take you up?’
‘I know the way,’ Grandad said, smiling gently at the man who was now nervously straightening his glasses.
‘Oh yes, of course you do,’ he said sheepishly. ‘Can I let anyone else know you’re here, sir?’
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you,’ Grandad said quickly. ‘Let’s go, kids.’ He ushered them past the desk, where several of the people were now openly staring at them, and towards the doors at the opposite end of the hall. As they left the main atrium Tilly looked back over her shoulder to see that every single cardiganed person in the room had stopped in their tracks and was watching them leave.
‘Grandad, why is everyone staring?’ Tilly asked tentatively.
‘Don’t be silly, darling – they’re just excited by visitors. This way, come on.’
The trio were in another long corridor lined with wooden doors, although this time they were not named but numbered. Grandad counted under his breath until he reached number forty-two, then stopped abruptly. This time Tilly and Oskar did plough into the back of him.
‘Here we are,’ he said and knocked sharply on the door. It opened to reveal a woman with very straight, long, black hair whose eyes widened at the sight of Grandad before her face broke into a broad and sincere smile.
‘Archie Pages. It’s been a while. Come in,’ she said, standing back to let them enter. They walked into a large, cosy but decidedly normal office, not that dissimilar to the head teacher’s office at school. A crumpled cardigan was hanging off the back of a chair behind a desk piled high with books and papers, and a very new-looking computer.
‘Amelia, this is Oskar Roux, a friend, and Matilda Pages, my granddaughter.’
An expression that Tilly couldn’t quite read swept across Amelia’s face before she smiled and held out her hand to them. A large gold key on a chain round her neck swung as she leaned towards them.
‘Welcome to the British Underlibrary. I’m Amelia Whisper, Librarian. Pleased to meet you.’
Amelia gestured towards a collection of worn but comfortable-looking armchairs clustered in the corner of the office. She shrugged her cardigan on as they sat down, and Tilly noticed that there was an ornate key embroidered in gold thread on the breast of the cardigan alongside the same Latin words they’d seen in the main hall.
‘You’ll see that not much has changed, Archie,’ she said. ‘Cup of tea, anyone?’
Tilly nodded a yes please. ‘You’ve been here before, Grandad?’ she asked.
Amelia laughed. ‘Well, of course he’s been here before. The Librarian can hardly work from home.’
‘But you’re the Librarian,’ Oskar said, confused.
‘Right, I’m the Librarian now. But it used to be Tilly’s grandad …’ She faltered. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘No, Amelia, they didn’t know. After everything that happened, Elsie and I decided it was for the best to start afresh – for Tilly’s benefit,’ Grandad said.
Several emotions flickered across Amelia’s face. ‘Well, I suppose that’s your decision, Archie,’ she said in the end.
Oskar and Tilly exchanged a confused look.
‘Can I just ask—?’ Tilly started, but Grandad and Amelia kept talking.
‘I need to sit down with you at some point and talk about Enoch too,’ Grandad was saying.
‘Who’s Enoch?’ Oskar whispered to Tilly.
‘I think he’s Mr Chalk,’ Tilly said.
‘Would you mind not whispering while we’re talking?’ Grandad said much more sharply than usual.
‘But we don’t know anything!’ Tilly said, stung by Grandad’s tone. ‘You keep mentioning all these secrets and things and people, and I have no idea what is going on, and you just suddenly bring us to this hidden, magical underground library and expect us to be quiet and nod along and drink tea and YOU HAVEN’T EXPLAINED ANYTHING.’
Oskar scuffed his heels together awkwardly and Amelia became very focused on her cup of tea.
Grandad looked at Tilly as though his heart had just cracked open.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This can wait, Amelia. Matilda, Oskar – I suppose we should start at the beginning.’
‘So I pulled Anne and Alice out of their books without trying to?’ Tilly asked.
‘How come I haven’t done that too?’ Oskar said at the same time.
‘I know you’re going to have an awful lot of questions about this, but most of those questions will be covered in your induction session with one of the librarians, and I expect they’ll be able to do it in a way that’s more manageable, and enjoyable, than my fact-dumping. Actually – do you think we can squeeze one in today, Amelia?’
Amelia gave a small nod and went over to her desk and made a quiet phone call.
‘They will be able to teach you how to control your bookwandering,’ Grandad went on. ‘The Underlibrary exists to protect readers, and our stories, and we have important rules in place to help do this. As I’m sure you can imagine, some books are far safer than others to explore, and we’ve had some pretty close calls in the past when people have pulled through all sorts of unsavoury characters when their abilities awoke. Remind me to tell you about Gary and the orc one day.
‘Now, as Amelia mentioned, I used to be the Librarian. I retired just after you were born, Tilly, as your grandma and I decided that with your mum not being around and us both getting older we would stay put at Pages & Co., especially as we didn’t know whether you’d turn out to be a bookwanderer.’
Amelia had now finished her phone call and was tapping her fingernails quietly but insistently on her desk. When Grandad paused she broke in.
‘Archie. Do you think that—’
Grandad stopped her immediately and received a sharply raised eyebrow in response. ‘I realise that there is more to this story, but I think it best to let Tilly and Oskar get used to the basics first, don’t you agree?’ Grandad said, nodding his thanks.
‘I want to hear the whole story,’ Tilly said instantly.
‘This is just the basics?’ Oskar said under his breath, shaking his head.
‘I think you have more than enough to wrap your head around for now, Tilly. And, Amelia, if at all possible, I would appreciate you letting the other librarians know that we’re just going to let the Underlibrary and the idea of bookwandering sink in a bit with Tilly and Oskar before we go into any more details. There’s nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart,’ he added to Tilly.
‘She wasn’t worried until you said that,’ Oskar interjected, earning a hard stare from Grandad.
‘Could my mum bookwander?’ Tilly asked quietly.
‘She could, yes, love,’ Grandad answered.
Tilly couldn’t tell if the cracks in her heart were getting a little wider, or healing ever so slightly.
‘You’re so much like her, Matilda. I don’t want to make you feel like Harry Potter, but you really do have her eyes,’ Amelia said, and Oskar struggled to suppress a giggle.
‘You knew her?’ Tilly said.
‘Why, yes, we actually went to university together. She would have so loved to hear about your first bookwander. Anyway, there will be time to reminisce soon enough. Let’s go and find the Reference Librarian to get you two registered,’ she said, giving both Oskar and Tilly an encouraging nod.
They went back out into the long corridor and walked a few metres down to a door where the number was covered by a handwritten sign in spidery letters that read ‘By Appointment Only’.
‘Ignore that,’ Amelia said. ‘Much as he hates it, I am still his boss and definitely do not need an appointment to see him.’ She pushed the door open at the same time as knocking and the others followed her into a room that was almost identical in shape and size to hers, but much more sparsely furnished and with walls covered with metal filing cabinets and shelves full of huge, uniformly sized books.
‘I do not tolerate people opening my door without knock— Ah, good afternoon, Ms Whisper. I see you have guests,’ an icy voice said.
‘You,’ breathed Tilly as Enoch Chalk turned round to face them.
