The Case of the Missing Books

‘What?’

‘Climb in, you fool.’

‘What do you mean climb in? There’s no ladder.’

‘Of course there’s no ladder. Jump!’ said Ted.

‘I’m not jumping in there,’ said Israel. ‘It’s dark.’

‘Of course it’s bloody dark. Just jump,’ said Ted. ‘What’s wrong with ye, boy? Just mind your bap, eh.’

‘My bap?’

‘Your head, you eejit.’

‘It’s quite a drop,’ said Israel, peering down into the dark interior of the van.

‘Get on with it now,’ said Ted. ‘Christmas is coming, and it’ll be here before we are if you keep carrying on.’

‘I don’t like the look of it.’

‘Well, you’re not going to like the look of it when I come up there and throw you down. Now, jump.’

‘I don’t know if I’ll fit.’

‘Of course you’ll fit. What do you want us to do, grease you like a pig? Get in there and stop your yabbering, will ye. Come on.’

‘Ah, God. All right,’ said Israel. ‘But I’m blaming you if I get hurt.’

‘Fine. Just jump.’

‘My head hurts.’

‘It’ll hurt even more if you don’t shut up and get on with it,’ said Ted reasonably. ‘Jump!’

And lowering himself over the gap, supporting himself by his arms, Israel did.

And ‘Aaah!’ he cried, as he landed awkwardly on his ankle inside the mobile library.

‘Ach, God alive, Laurence Olivier, that’s enough of your dramatics now,’ said Ted. ‘Open the door.’

‘I’ve hurt myself,’ called Israel from inside the van.

‘Ah’m sure,’ said Ted. ‘But come and open the door first.’

‘I’ve hurt my ankle,’ shouted Israel. ‘I don’t think I can walk.’

‘Well, crawl.’

‘I think I might have broken it!’

‘If you’ve broken your ankle then I’m the Virgin Mary,’ said Ted.

Israel stood up. ‘I can’t walk!’ he cried.

‘I tell you, if you was a horse I’d shoot you. Now stop your blethering and open this door before I lose the head and batter the thing in on top of you.’

Israel hopped down the bus and, after some fiddling with catches and locks, managed to open up the side door.

Ted entered.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘At last. Smell that.’ It was not the smell of a library – books, sweat, frustrated desire, cheap but hard-wearing carpets. It was more the smell of a backalley garage – the smell of warm corroding metal and oil. ‘That’s beautiful, sure,’ said Ted, sweeping his arm in an expansive, welcoming kind of gesture. ‘Welcome home.’

Maybe in her day the mobile library had been beautiful: maybe in her day she’d have been like home. These days, however, she was no longer a vehicle any sane person could possibly be proud of, unless you were Ted, or a dedicated mobile library fancier, or a scrap-metal merchant, and she wouldn’t have been a home unless you were someone with absolutely no alternative living arrangements; also, crucially, and possibly fatally for a mobile library, there were no shelves.

‘There are no shelves,’ said Israel, astonished, still rubbing his head, and staring at the bare grey metal walls inside the van.

‘No.’

‘None at all.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Ted.

‘Well, I don’t want to sound all nit-picky, but shelves are pretty much essential for a library.’

‘True.’

‘Essential.’

‘You could stack books on the floor,’ said Ted.

‘Yes. We could. But generally, we librarians prefer shelves. It’s, you know, neater.’

‘All right. Don’t be getting smart with me now.’

‘Right. Sorry. But there are no shelves. And no books, as far as I can see. So…the books?’

‘The books?’

‘The library books?’

‘Ach, the books are fine, sure. You don’t want to worry about the books. They’ll be in the library.’

‘This is the library.’

‘Not this library. The old library.’

‘The one that’s shut?’