Then he paused. ‘Oh sorry! Hermia! Hermia! I forgot the code word. Welcome to Washington DC!’
‘Um, thanks,’ said Tilly. ‘I’m Tilly, obviously.’
Orlando stepped back and beamed at them. ‘And … Oskar, right?’
‘Right,’ said Oskar.
‘So, how are you guys doing?’ Orlando said gently, clearly trying to tone down his natural exuberance – and, to her surprise and embarrassment, Tilly burst into tears. At the sight of Tilly’s tears, Oskar followed shortly afterwards. ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Orlando said, looking a little nervous. ‘Did something happen on the way?’
‘No.’ Tilly sniffed. ‘We’re fine. It’s just … the whole … being tricked into flying to America by your own mum to save bookwandering thing.’
‘It’s quite a lot to deal with,’ Oskar said, wiping away a tear.
‘You bet,’ Orlando said gently. ‘Well, I think you’re doing brilliantly by just getting here. And I know someone else who does too. Come meet Jorge – he’ll be getting stressed about parking in the wrong place for too long, I’m sure.’ He put a reassuring hand on their shoulders and guided them through the airport, to where a battered powder-blue station wagon was idling, a slender, nervous-looking man waiting in the driver’s seat.
‘Come on, Orlando!’ the man called out of the open window. ‘That security guard has been glaring at me ever since I parked up here.’
Orlando grinned, tossed their bags in the car and helped them up into the back seat. ‘This is Jorge,’ he said, gesturing to the driver, who was sweating slightly as he manoeuvred the car into a lane of traffic. He had light brown skin and dark curly hair and was wearing a smart button-down shirt.
‘Hi,’ said Jorge from the front seat, with a gentle accent that Tilly couldn’t quite place. ‘I promise I’ll be much more welcoming once we’re out of this godforsaken airport.’ He gesticulated at another driver and swore out of the window, which prompted a slightly sheepish smile from Orlando. But indeed, once they’d left the maze of roads around the airport, Jorge glanced back at them, a warm smile on his face.
‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Sorry you had to witness that. I do not enjoy driving this beast of a car in busy areas, but Orlando insisted on us buying it. How are you both doing? Did you manage to sleep at all on the plane?’
‘A little bit,’ said Oskar and Tilly nodded. Although she hadn’t slept much and sheer adrenalin had been keeping her alert until they landed.
‘So you know my mum from university?’ she said. ‘We didn’t get a lot of information before we left.’
‘Yep,’ Orlando said cheerfully, twisting round in his seat so he could look at them. ‘We both worked part time at a bookstore in New York – that’s how we each realised the other was a bookwanderer.’
‘So, you knew Mum when …’ Tilly tailed off, not sure how much they knew about who her father was.
‘Yeah, we knew her when she was visiting A Little Princess and fell in love with your father,’ Orlando said straightforwardly but kindly, showing that he knew Tilly was half fictional without making a fuss. ‘When Bea first moved back to London, we had no idea she was even pregnant, but we kept in touch for a bit until we stopped hearing from her. We thought she’d got new friends in London; of course, it didn’t even cross our minds that she was trapped in a book. But we can chat more about all of that kind of stuff later, if you want?’ Orlando said. ‘I have to admit we’re a little bit in the dark about the plan – Bea made it sound like everything was quite urgent.’
‘Yes,’ said Tilly, who was starting to struggle to keep her eyes open. ‘We need to go to the Library of Congress straight away. She told you about the bookbinding, right …?’
‘She sure did,’ Orlando said. ‘It sounds like a real mess. No wonder things have been off in the book world. I’m glad you guys have a plan to help.’
‘Something like that,’ Oskar said sleepily. Orlando eyed the two drowsy children in the back seat.
‘Okay, well, why don’t you two nap a little on the drive into town? We can drop your stuff off at the bookstore, which is close to the Library of Congress, and go from there.’
‘Sounds good,’ Tilly said, letting the rhythm of the car lull her to sleep.
‘Can we … get some … food … too?’ Oskar added, and it was not long before the two of them were fast asleep, heads resting against the car windows as they drove through Washington DC.
rlando gently shook them awake after about forty-five minutes.
‘Hey, sleepyheads,’ he said. ‘We’ve picked up some breakfast burritos for you. I thought you might like to see some of the sights as we get into the city and you can have a moment to wake up properly before we get to the store.’
He passed back two hot, foil-wrapped burritos full of spicy scrambled eggs, avocado and black beans and two glass bottles of fresh orange juice.
Tilly and Oskar ate and drank contentedly while gazing out of the windows at the cherry blossom trees that lined the road.
‘Once all this bookwandering stuff is cleared up, you’ll have to come back and stay – with your families – and do some proper exploring,’ Orlando said as he pointed out some of the famous sights.
They saw the gigantic Lincoln Memorial – a huge stone structure that looked like something out of a Greek myth, the tall, elegant Washington Monument sticking up into the sky as though it were trying to pierce the clouds and, looking up the hill from that tower, they could just about see the famous shape of the White House itself, where the American president lived.
Before too long, Jorge turned the car into a crisscross of streets lined with Chinese restaurants and coffee shops. They drove past a huge stadium right in the middle of the city and a tall, glass-fronted theatre before Jorge parked behind a large red-brick building, and he and Orlando helped get the luggage out of the boot.
‘Enough history for now,’ Orlando grinned. ‘Time for the important stuff – books.’
They walked round to the front. ‘For the full effect,’ Orlando said proudly as they looked up at a huge building with big windows, through which they could see a busy bookshop. A large sign over the door read ‘Shakespeare’s Sisters’ with a large quill illustration as a logo.
‘Why’s it called that?’ Oskar asked, staring up at the sign. ‘How many sisters did Shakespeare even have?’
‘Well, he had one sister who lived to be an adult,’ Orlando said. ‘But that’s just one of the reasons for the name. You’ll see when we go inside that it’s a pretty special building – it actually used to be a theatre, and we’ve tried to keep as much of the structure as it was – we still have the stage and everything. We’ve added a lot of bookshelves, of course. People come from all over to look at our Shakespeare collection.’
‘So … why is it named after his sisters then?’ Tilly asked.
‘I’m getting there.’ Orlando smiled. ‘I’m just giving you the full spiel as it’s your first time here! It’s because it’s not about Shakespeare’s real sisters; it’s about a made-up one called Judith.’