The Manifesto on How to be Interesting (24 page)

“I'm not a huge fan,” Logan said. “I don't like thinking about what would happen if we got stuck.”

“We'd suffocate slowly?”

“Exactly.”

“No we wouldn't.”

“Well, maybe we wouldn't die. But I would definitely have some kind of mental breakdown.”

Bree elbowed him playfully. “Oh, because bunking off work and taking a student up to London isn't having some kind of mental breakdown?”

Lead balloon.

His face went blank.

“Come on, I was joking.”

“Not funny, Bree,” he muttered towards his shoes more than to her face.

“Well, I know that now.”

The silence lasted two whole stops.

“So which stop are we getting off at?” Bree asked eventually.

He didn't answer at first. She felt a little guilty, but mostly a bit pissed off. Why couldn't they joke about the fact that what they were doing was totally forbidden? It was too weird pretending it was normal.

“The next one.”

She looked at the Tube map along the top of the carriage. “King's Cross St Pancras?”

“That's the one.”

“Are you taking me to Paris?” Her face lit up.

“Er…no.”

“Oh…of course not…right.”

They rode on in another fuggy silence. Bree was a bit annoyed, but she couldn't quite put her manicured finger on why.

Well, okay, she could…

He hadn't declared his undying love for her the moment they'd got on the train. He hadn't entwined his fingers with hers, stared into her eyes and said, “Bree. Let's run away and grow old together in a caravan, writing poetry and reading it to each other by a roaring fire.”

They got off at their station and rode up the escalators together, avoiding being whacked in the ankles by tourists wielding wheelie suitcases, and emerged into bright winter sunlight.

“Where now?”

Logan looked about to get his bearings and sidestepped to a map. “Er…right, I think.”

It was a quick walk past bustling traffic before Logan stopped and said, “We're here.”

She looked up at the imposing red modern building.

“Where are we?”

“You don't know?”

She shook her head.

“It's the British Library.”

All her annoyance dissipated.

“Seriously? This place?” She took in the wide paved courtyard of red and cream squares and the crimson bricks of the building. Everything looked neat, tidy and, most oddly of all, new.

“What? What's wrong?”

She turned on the spot, just gazing at it. “No. I'm fine. It's just, well, not what I thought it would look like at all.”

“You've never been here?”

“Never.”

He looked proud of himself. “What were you expecting it to look like?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. More like Hogwarts. It's so…modern.”

“They moved it from the old British Museum Reading Room, so it used to look more like Hogwarts. It's got a copy of every single UK book published, you know?”

This fact made Bree very excited. “Really? Every single one?”

It looked even more swanky and un-library-ish on the inside. Security guards checked their bags and Bree practically floated up the giant marble steps.

“I can't think of a happier place for a book to live,” she said, to no one in particular.

Logan laughed. “So you're over it not looking like Hogwarts?”

She half-nodded. Everyone around them looked like the sort of person Bree could be friends with. They each had their head in a book, or several. They weren't wearing stupid fashionable clothes, but rather comfy stuff for a day of study. And the quiet thing was taken seriously.

“Maybe one day my book will be in here,” she murmured.

“Are you working on a new book?” Logan – she would never get bored of knowing that was his name – looked at her with a mixture of admiration and anxiety.

She grinned to herself. “I'm working on something. I'm not sure what it is yet.”

“It's great that you've kept on writing, Bree.”

“Well, there are no more girls chucking themselves off piers, you'll be relieved to know.”

She could see him struggling not to laugh.

“That's…a shame.” His non-smile got bigger.

“Hey!” She smacked his arm. “That was an amazing piece of prose!”

“It was quite an accomplishment…to make one suicide attempt last for 110,000 words.”

He burst out laughing and she flew into a mock rage and chased him up the giant staircase, much to the displeasure of everyone around them. Out of breath, she jokingly punched him again in his (rock hard) stomach and they sank onto a bench.

“So what is there to do here?” she asked, looking up at the high ceiling.

He scratched his head and looked uncomfortable. “Well, you have to apply to get into the reading room to see all the actual books.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What sort of whacko library is this? You can't just walk in?”

“Nope.”

“So can we apply to get in?”

He looked even more uncomfortable. “Well. You have to be over eighteen.”

Bree nodded slowly. “Riiiight.”

“There's something I brought you here to show you though.”

“Is it age appropriate?”

It was supposed to be a joke but it didn't sound like one. Their age gap, and all the reasons they shouldn't be there, hung around like cheap perfume.

“Come on, it's this way.”

He led her back down the stairs, past a giant glass column filled with proper antique books. She pointed to the towering shelves, encased in glass.

“See, that's what I thought the British Library would look like.”

“It does pack a bit more of a visual punch than a computer database, doesn't it?”

“So where are we going?”

“It's just at the bottom of the stairs.”

He led her through a dark doorway and they emerged into a deep purple light. The air was cool in that museumy way that immediately demands good behaviour. Everyone pored over backlit glass cases.

“What is this place?” Bree whispered.

The tranquillity of the room calmed Logan's face. He took her hand and squeezed it.

“It's the Treasures of the British Library. I thought if anything was to cheer you up, this would be the place.”

Bree squeezed his hand back. Hard. Then dropped it to go discover the treasure.

It was like a literary equivalent of pornography. Everything she saw made her happy. There were original printed works of Shakespeare, an important ancient document called the Magna Carta, which she pretended to know about to impress Logan, and handwritten song lyrics penned by John Lennon himself. She spent an age in front of each exhibit, her breath steaming up the glass as she lost herself in the history. She imagined all the different people who'd held these artefacts before, what their lives were like, what had been happening to them.

Logan trailed after her, smiling. “You enjoying yourself?”

She nodded. “Yes. Loads.”

“I've saved the best till last.” He held out his hand. She took it tentatively and he guided her past more exhibits before stopping in front of a central glass case. “It's Jane Austen's writing desk,” he said, stepping back to give her a better look. “And her teenage diary as well.”

He may as well have said:
Here is everything. I am perfect for you.

“No way.” Bree pressed her entire face against the glass. “How did they even get this?”

“Family donation.”

“You mean Jane Austen has descendants that breathe the very same air as us?”

“Yeah, I suppose so…but she never had kids obviously, so I wonder how it passed down the line. Maybe it was…”

Bree had stopped listening. She and the desk were having a moment. She smushed her forehead against the glass to get as close as possible.

Jane Austen wrote at this very desk.

Jane Austen.

Bree's ultimate idol in the universe.

She took in the dark wood, the little nooks and crannies where Jane may have stored ink, or parchment, or whatever she used back then. Her very own skilled fingers had touched it. If there wasn't glass separating them, Bree could have touched the very same spots.

The diary was displayed next to the desk, sprawled open at a random page. Her handwriting. Jane Austen's actual handwriting was there – right in front of her. Bree closed her eyes briefly and imagined how that page had once been blank. How it had been just moseying about in the nineteenth century waiting to be doodled on, or ripped out for someone to jot down a phone number…not that they had phone numbers in those days. Yet, one day, Jane Austen had sat down and filled that page with her thoughts and feelings, and history was made. Neither Jane nor the page had known that – in a couple of hundreds of years' time – Bree would be looking at that very entry. She thought of her own faithful laptop computer. Would some mixed-up girl, someday, hundreds of years in the future, smush their face into a museum exhibit to look at Bree's stuff? She could only wish.

She sighed and Logan looked at her.

“You okay? I think I lost you for a moment there.”

“I'm so okay. God, though, it was so much more romantic back then, wasn't it?”

He looked confused. “What? Falling in love? I don't think Jane had a very romantic life.”

Bree shook her head. “No. Not falling in love. Writing. Writing's much more romantic when it's pen and ink and paper. It's…” She searched for the word. “More timeless. And worthwhile.” She gestured towards the desk. “Think about it. There are so many words gushing out into the universe these days. All digitally. All in Comic Sans or Times New Roman. Silly websites. Stupid news stories digitally uploaded to a 24-hour-channel. Where's all this writing going? Who's keeping a note of it all? Who's in charge of deciding what's worthwhile and what isn't? But back then…” She closed her eyes again and pictured her idea of the olden days, which, funnily enough, looked a lot like the BBC version of
Pride and Prejudice.
“Back then, if someone wanted to write something they had to buy paper. Buy it! And ink. And a pen. And they couldn't waste too many sheets cos it was expensive. So when people wrote, they wrote because it was worthwhile…not just because they had some half-baked idea and they wanted to pointlessly prove their existence by sharing it on some bloody social networking site.”

She stopped herself and was about to get embarrassed and defensive when she caught how Logan was looking at her.

He was really looking at her.

His face was transfixed, like she was some kind of magical ranting fairy who'd bewitched him with her whingeing. His smile was lazy. All his hair had fallen into his eyes and he'd not bothered to scrape it back. She felt naked.

“What?” she said, all self-conscious.

He still didn't answer.

“What is it?”

He half-shook his head. “It's nothing.”

“Tell me,” she insisted.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again.

“It's just sometimes I forget you're only seventeen. And, well…” He stared at her again. “I really need to remind myself sometimes before…” He trailed off.

Her heart warmed up like it'd been shoved into a microwave, and the heat spread down to her stomach. “Before what?”

Logan took a step towards her boldly, like he'd made a decision.

“Before I kiss you again.”

He leaned his head in and Bree moved to meet him, enjoying that sweet anticipatory relief that comes just before a delicious kiss. Every centimetre of her skin tingled.

But the kiss didn't arrive.

She was expecting his warm lips and instead got an angry elbow jolt. She looked behind her.

“Hey.”

An angry old lady wielding an overpriced gift shop copy of
Sense and Sensibility
pushed past and evilled her. “Sorry. I'm just trying to get closer to Jane's desk,” the woman barked at them, clearly not sorry at all.

They'd been standing in front of it all this time. Bree shook herself back to reality to see that their romantic encounter had created a disgruntled queue behind them. They both went red. Logan coughed and stepped away.

“Erm, yeah, sorry, we didn't mean to hog the exhibit.”

It was like reality had grown a humongous hand and was tapping Bree on the shoulder with it.

He was married. He was her teacher. It was wrong. So very wrong.

Even Jane Austen must have thought so. If she'd agreed with it all, her spirit would've no doubt let them snog each other senseless in front of her writing desk. But she obviously didn't approve if she'd sent a narky OAP in to break things up.

They stood, both determinedly looking at the carpet, as the line of people trickled past them, taking their own turns with Jane's desk.

“So, what next?” Mr Fellows asked, all formal.

“I'm not sure, sir.” She deliberately emphasized the “sir”, though she wasn't sure why. “It's you who planned this trip.”

He looked at his watch. “Well, er, it's still quite early, but we can head back home if you like. My…umm…wife won't be expecting me back until seven though.”

The word “wife” hit her like a bullet. She supposed it was just that – a verbal bullet. Payback for the “sir”. She couldn't leave it like this though, not after it had been going so brilliantly. She racked her brain for something to do. Something unkissy. She remembered something.

“I know somewhere we can go. I don't think it's too far away.”

He looked dubious – somehow their mutual trust had vanished. It felt awful.

“Really? Where?”

“It's free.”

“What is it?”

“You'll find out when we get there.” Her attempt to make things jokey again instantly face-planted, but she persevered nonetheless. “You'll like it, honestly.”