'Why would the bagpipes be dressed in pyjamas?' asked ibb.

'They weren't,' I replied, 'it was the tartan. That's just what the octopus thought they were.'

'I see,' said obb, not seeing at all. 'Would you mind going over it again?'

'That's it,' I said resolutely, 'you're going to have a personality if it kills me.'

'Kill you?' enquired ibb in all seriousness. 'Why would it kill you?'

I thought carefully. There had to be somewhere to begin. I clicked my fingers.

'Sarcasm,' I said. 'We'll start with that.'

They both looked at me blankly.

'Well,' I began, 'sarcasm is closely related to irony and implies a twofold view — a literal meaning yet a wholly different intention from what is said. For instance, if you were lying to me about who ate all the anchovies I left in the cupboard, and you had eaten them, you might say: "It wasn't me" and I would say: "Sure it wasn't," meaning I'm sure it was but in an ironic or sarcastic manner.'

'What's an anchovy?' asked ibb.

'A small and very salty fish.'

'I see,' replied ibb. 'Does sarcasm work with other things or is it only fish?'

'No, the stolen anchovies was only by way of an example. Now you try.'

'An anchovy?'

'No, you try some sarcasm.'

They continued to look at me blankly. I sighed.

'Like trying to nail jelly to the wall,' I muttered under my breath.

'Plock,' said Pickwick in her sleep as she gently keeled over. 'Plocketty-plock.'

'Sarcasm is better explained through humour,' put in Gran, who had been watching my efforts with interest. 'You know that Pickwick isn't too clever?'

Pickwick stirred in her sleep where she had fallen, resting on her head with her claws in the air.

'Yes, we know that,' replied ibb and obb, who were nothing if not observant.

'Well, if I were to say that it is easier to get yeast to perform tricks than Pickwick, I'm using mild sarcasm to make a joke.'

'Yeast?' queried ibb. 'But yeast has no intelligence.'

'Exactly,' replied Gran. 'So I am making a sarcastic observation that Pickwick has less brain power than yeast. You try.'

The Generic thought long and hard.

'So,' said ibb slowly, 'how about … Pickwick is so clever she sits on the TV and stares at the sofa?'

'It's a start,' said Gran.

'And,' added ibb, gaining confidence by the second, 'if Pickwick went on Mastermind, she'd do best to choose "Dodo eggs" as her specialist subject.'

Obb was getting the hang of it, too.

'If a thought crossed her mind it would be the shortest journey on record—'

'Pickwick would cause a sensation at Oxford — but only from within a specimen jar—'

'All right, that's enough sarcasm,' I said quickly. 'I know Pickwick won't win "Brain of BookWorld" but she's a loyal companion.'

I looked across at Pickwick, who slid off the sofa and landed with a thump on the floor. She woke up and started plocking loudly at the sofa, coffee table, rug — in fact, anything close by — before calming down, climbing on top of her egg and falling asleep again.

'You did well, guys,' I said. 'Another time we'll tackle subtext.'

Ibb and obb went to their room soon afterwards, discussing how sarcasm was related to irony, and whether irony itself could be generated in laboratory conditions. Gran and I chatted about home. Mother was very well, it seemed, and Joffy and Wilbur and Orville were as mad as ever. Gran, conscious of my dealings with Yorrick Kaine in the past, reported that Kaine had returned soon after the episode with the Glatisant at Volescamper Towers, lost his seat in the house and been back at the helm of his newspaper and publishing company soon after. I knew he was fictional and a danger to my world but couldn't see what to do about it from here. We talked into the night about the BookWorld, Landen, eradications and having children. Gran had had three herself so she told me all the stuff they don't tell you when you sign on the dotted line.

'Think of swollen ankles as trophies,' she said, somewhat unhelpfully.

That night I put Gran in my room and slept in the bedroom under the flight deck. I washed, undressed and climbed into bed, weary after the day's work. I lay there, staring at the pattern of reflected light dancing on the ceiling, and thought of my father, Emma Hamilton, Jack Spratt, Dream Topping and babies. I was meant to be here resting but the demolition problem of Caversham Heights couldn't be ignored — I could have moved but I liked it here, and besides, I had done enough running away already. The arrival of Gran had been strange, but since much was odd here in the Well, weird had become commonplace. If things carried on like this the dull and meaningless would become items of spectacular interest.

4

Landen Parke-Laine

That night, I went to the Crimea again. Not, you might think, the most obvious port of call in my sleep. The peninsula had been a constant source of anguish in my waking hours: a time of stress, of pain, and violent death. But the Crimea was where I met Landen, and where we fell in love. The memories were more dear to me now because it had never happened, and it was for this reason that the Crimea's sometimes painful recollections came back to me. I relaxed and was transported in the arms of Morpheus to the Black Sea peninsula, twelve years before.

No shots had been fired for ten years when I arrived on the peninsula in the May of 1973 although the conflict itself had been going for a hundred and twenty years. I was attached to the 3rd Wessex Tank Light Armoured Brigade as a driver — I was twenty-three years old and drove thirteen tons of armoured vehicle under the command of Major Phelps, who was later to lose his lower arm and his mind during a badly timed charge into the massed Russian artillery. In my youthful naïveté, I had thought the Crimea was fun — a notion that was soon to change.

'Report to the vehicle pool at fourteen hundred hours,' I was told one morning by our sergeant, a kindly yet brusque man by the name of Tozer. He would survive the charge but be lost in a training accident eight years later. I was at his funeral. He was a good man.

'Any idea what I'll be doing, Sarge?' I asked.

Sergeant Tozer shrugged.

'Special duties. I was told to allocate someone intelligent — but they weren't available, so you'll have to do.'

I laughed.

'Thanks, Sarge.'

I dreamed this scene more often these days, and the reason was clear — it was the first time Landen and I spent any time together. My brother Anton was also serving out here and he had introduced us a few weeks before — but Anton did that a lot. Today I was to drive Landen in an armoured scout car to an observation post overlooking a valley in which a build-up of Imperial Russian artillery had been reported. We referred to the incident as 'our first date'.