Page 56 of Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

'Old,' she replied, whacking the ball towards me with savage backspin. 'Old and tired and I need looking after. The Grim Reaper is lurking close by – I can almost smell him!'

'Gran!'

She missed my shot and called 'No ball' before pausing for a moment.

'Do you want to know a secret, young Thursday?'

'Go on, then,' I replied, taking the opportunity to retrieve some balls.

'I am cursed with eternal life!'

'Perhaps it just seems like it, Gran.'

'Insolent pup. I didn't attain one hundred and eight years on physical fortitude or a statistical quirk alone. I got mixed up with some oddness in my youth and the long and short of it is that I can't shuffle off this mortal coil until I have read the ten most boring classics.'

I looked at her earnest expression and bright eyes. She wasn't kidding.

'How far have you got?' I replied, returning a ball that went wide.

'Well, that's the trouble, isn't it?' she replied, serving again. 'I read what I think is the dullest book of God's own earth, finish the last page, go to sleep with a smile on my face and wake up the following morning feeling better than ever!'

'Have you tried Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene?, I asked. 'Six volumes of boring Spenserian stanzas, the only saving grace of which is that he didn't write the twelve volumes he had planned.'

'Read them all,' replied Gran, 'and his other poems, too, just in case.'

I put down my paddle. The balls kept plinking past me.

'You win, Gran. I need to talk to you.'

She reluctantly agreed and I helped her to her bedroom, a small, chintzily decorated cell she darkly referred to as her 'departure lounge'. It was sparsely furnished; there was a picture of me, Anton, Joffy and my mother alongside a couple of empty frames.

'They sideslipped my husband, Gran.'

'When did they take him?' she asked, looking at me over her glasses in the way that grannies do; she never questioned what I said and I explained everything to her as quickly as I could – except for the bit about the baby. I'd promised Landen I wouldn't.

'Hmm,' said Granny Next when I had finished. 'They took my husband too – I know how you feel.'

'Why did they do it?'

'The same reason they did it to you. Love is a wonderful thing, my dear, but it leaves you wide open to blackmail. Give way to tyranny and others will suffer just as badly as you – perhaps worse.'

'Are you saying I shouldn't try to get Landen back?'

'Not at all; just think carefully before you help them. They don't care about you or Landen; all they want is Jack Schitt. Is Anton still dead?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'What a shame. I hoped to see your brother before I popped myself. Do you know what the worst bit about dying is?'

'Tell me, Gran.'

'You never get to see how it all turns out.'

'Did you get your husband back, Gran?'

Instead of answering she unexpectedly placed her hand on my midriff and smiled that small and all-knowing smile that grandmothers seem to learn at granny school, along with crochet, January sales battle tactics and wondering what you are doing upstairs.

'June?' she asked.

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