Free Something rotten by Jasper Fforde Page B

left the scene as a very excited and confused middle-aged man tried to tell anyone who would listen about his “near-death experience.”

    I went to bed past midnight, my head spinning from my experience of Kaine’s almost hypnotic hold of the populace. Still, I wasn’t out of ideas. I could try to grab him again and, failing that, use the eraserhead I had smuggled out of the BookWorld. Destroying him didn’t bother me. I’d be no more guilty of murder than would an author with a delete key. But while Formby opposed him, Kaine would not become dictator, so I had a bit of time to work up a strategy. I could observe and plan. “Time spent doing renaissance,” Mrs. Malaprop used to say, “is never wasted.”

4.
    A Town Like Swindon
Formby Denies Kaine
President-for-Life George Formby vetoed Chancellor Kaine’s attempts to make himself dictator of England yesterday during one of the most heated exchanges this nation has ever seen. Kaine’s Ultimate Executive Power Bill, already passed by parliament, requires only the presidential signature to become law. President Formby, speaking from the presidential palace in Wigan, told reporters, “Eeee, I wouldn’t have a ***** like that run a grocer’s, let alone a country!” Chancellor Kaine, angered by the President’s remark, declared Formby “too old to have a say in this nation’s future,” “out of touch” and “a poor singer,” the last of which he was forced to retract after a public outcry.
Article in The Toad, July 13, 1988

    I t was the morning following Evade the Question Time, and I had slept badly, waking up before Friday, which was unusual. I stared at the ceiling and thought about Kaine. I’d have to follow him to his next public engagement before he discovered that I had returned. I was just thinking about why Joffy and I had nearly been sucked into the whole Yorrick circus when Friday awoke and blinked at me in a breakfast sort of way. I dressed quickly and took him downstairs.
    “Welcome to Swindon Breakfast with Toad, ” announced the TV presenter as we walked in, “with myself, Warwick Fridge, and the lovely Leigh Onzolent—”
    “Hello.”
    “—bringing you two hours of news and views, fun and competitions to see you into the day. Breakfast with Toad is sponsored by Arkwright’s Doorknobs, the finest door furniture in Wessex.”
    Warwick turned to Leigh, who was looking way too glamorous for eight in the morning.
    She smiled and continued, “This morning we’ll be speaking to croquet captain Roger Kapok about Swindon’s chances in the SuperHoop-88 and also to a man who claims to have seen unicorns in a near-death experience. Network Toad’s resident dodo whisperer will be on hand for your pet’s psychiatric problems, and our Othello backwards-reading competition reaches the quarterfinals. Later on we talk to Mr. Joffy Next about tomorrow’s potential resurrection with St. Zvlkx, but first the news. The CEO of Goliath has announced contrition targets to be attainable within—”
    “Morning, daughter,” said my mother, who had just walked into the kitchen. “I never thought of you as an early riser.”
    “I wasn’t until junior turned up,” I replied, pointing at Friday, who was eyeing the porridge pot expectantly, “but if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s eat.”
    “It’s what you did best when you were his age. Oh,” added my mother absently, “I have to give you something, by the way.”
    She hurried from the room and returned with a sheaf of official-looking papers.
    “Mr. Hicks left them for you.”
    Braxton Hicks was my old boss back at Swindon SpecOps. I had left abruptly, and from the look of his opening letter, it didn’t look like he was very happy about it. I had been demoted to “Literary Detective Researcher,” and it demanded my gun and badge back. The second letter was an outstanding warrant of arrest due to a trumped-up charge over possession of a small amount of illegally owned bootleg