Page 64 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘Yes!’ said Jamie, then thought for a second. ‘For never was a story of more woe,’he quoted, ‘than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’
Mirren grinned. The embroidered pantaloons, the dagger round his waist, the floppy hat . . . ‘It’s Romeo!!!’
‘YES!’
They practically hopped up and down in glee.
‘And?’ said Theo.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Jamie.
‘Yeah,’ said Mirren. ‘Oh, no, hang on, I don’t get it at all. Why is there a locket with Romeo on it?’
‘The one thing this isn’t,’ said Theo, ‘is obvious.’
‘So it’s Romeo. FromRomeo and Juliet,’ said Jamie.
‘Romeo and a lemur?’
‘Exactly. Romeo Lemur.’
‘Who the fuck is Romeo Lemur?’ said Esme.
‘No. It’s not a name. Romeo is R. Lemur is L. In the phonetic alphabet.’
Theo scrunched up his nose. ‘Lemur isn’t L in the phonetic alphabet. It’s lima.’ He saw Mirren’s surprised face. ‘I’m good in a pub quiz. Shut up.’
‘It’s limathese days,’ said Jamie, refusing to be put off. ‘It used to be lemur, then they changed it because more people recognised it.’
‘They should probably change Zulu now,’ said Theo, musing.
‘Okay, let’s not get into this,’ said Mirren, staring at the tiny picture. ‘Do you really think that’s what it means? But then what do the numbers mean.’
‘Well, it’s possible . . . Look, this is a reach,’ said Jamie.
‘YOU THINK?’ said Esme.
‘I think if you started with Romeo at the entrance of the maze – and went one right, two left, one right, three left . . . ’
They all stared.
‘I haven’t been in that stupid thing in years,’ said Esme.
‘Well, that’s not quite true,’ said Jamie. ‘Because someone used to go and smoke dope in it every school holidays.’
Esme didn’t deign to give this an answer, but Mirren, looking at her, could see she was working it out in her head, mentally tracing her steps.
Something occurred to her. Even now, she still instinctively went to her pocket for her phone, before remembering.
‘Jamie!’ she said. ‘The poem. How does it go?’
Jamie took out the copy he was keeping in his back pocket and traced down the lines.
‘The ancient routes stand fast,’ he read.
‘Oh, yeah, those roots are ancient,’ said Esme. ‘They’ve been growing it for hundreds of years.’
‘No, not roots, r-o-u.’ Jamie paused. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, it could be. I mean, it could be roots . . . ’
