Page 32 of The Bookshop Book

When a lizard, nearly as tall as her and walking on its hind legs, emerged without warning from the thicket of stems, both of them screamed. The lizard went one better by throwing into the air the stack of papers he had been carrying.

“Gosh,” said Rose on recovering her equilibrium. The lizard, which had a rather friendly face, was scurrying around after its lost pages. “I’m sorry. Let me help!”

She spent several minutes recovering the papers, which all seemed to be invitations to the palace for a ball, held in honor of the Heart-Smith. Finally, she handed her half stack to the lizard to add to his own. “Sorry again. I’m Rose. Nice to meet you.”

“Bill,” said Bill the Lizard. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He gave her back one of the invitations. “Do come. The Red Smith is dying to meet you.”

“He is?” Rose frowned.

“Of course. And you must come. Do say you will. The Smith of Hearts fashions all manner of wonders that simply must be seen to be disbelieved! Well, he directs really. The actual work is done by Oomp—” The lizard put a finger to where its lips would be if it had lips. “Ssssh. Let’s just call them slaves.” And with that he was gone, quick as blinking. A thrash of his tail and he had vanished, with just the grass shaking in his wake to say he had ever been there at all. That and the invitation.

Alone once more, Rose pressed on, swimming through the sea of grass, getting loster and loster. And thus, with the tips of the green blades at arm’s length above her head and the water drawing ever closer but not quite showing itself, she plunged forward and discovered, with no warning, a mushroom whose cap came level with her eyes and was wide enough for her to lie spread-eagle upon.

She might have climbed up and used it as a platform from which to seek confirmation of the river’s presence, but the top was already occupied by an enormous blue caterpillar that was busying itself sucking on a long tube leading to a bubbling, smoke-filled jar.

The aroma of the vapor exhaled from spiracles along the caterpillar’s length seemed immediately familiar.

“Are you smoking poppies?” she asked, forgetting her manners.

“Who are you?” the caterpillar asked, seeming to notice her for the first time. It kept the tube in the corner of its mouth as it spoke, faint pink clouds escaping with each word.

“I’m Rose.”

“A rose what?” the caterpillar asked.

“Not arose. I’m Rose.” Under the caterpillar’s multifaceted blue gaze Rose realized that if anything was likely to host the bookworm, then this might be it—the creature already had many wormlike features after all.

“What kind of a rose are you?”

The caterpillar seemed very relaxed, but Rose kept her guard up. “Rose Penrose.”

“And that’s who you are?” The caterpillar sucked on its strange pipe.

“I’m not entirely sure who I am, sir, to be honest. The Rat told me that I was written down. There was a baby, but—”

“Are you well written?” the caterpillar asked.

“I…uh.”

“In cursive? Are your curves precise? Your strokes well executed?”

“What I really want,” said Rose, trying to steer the conversation in a productive direction, “is help. I’m being chased.”

“Being chaste is highly appropriate for a young lady such as yourself. Are not Faith, Hope, and Chastity the daughters of Wisdom?”

“I think it was Charity, not Chastity.” Rose had been tutored in the theological virtues by Miss Havisham at a frightfully young age. “But I said ‘chased,’ as in something is chasing me.”

“OIC.” The caterpillar nodded.

“And I was hoping for hope…” Rose left the words hanging.

“Being chased is a chOICe.” The caterpillar’s blue eyes seemed to spin, and Rose felt the world’s spin too, rotating beneath her feet as if she had breathed in too much of the poppy smoke.

“I certainly didn’t choose to be chased.”

“Choose not to be.” The caterpillar puffed away thoughtfully before adding, “One side makes you see more and the other makes you see less.”

One side of what? Rose wondered.