![]() ![]() “I think that Goldilocks was a lot younger.” “Of course,” said Stanley, who was still staring at her hair, which seemed to glisten like gold when the dappled light caught it. “Then you must call me Stanley-I say, you’re not the Goldilocks, are you? We have so few celebrities down this way.” “I’m afraid not,” she replied good-naturedly, having been asked this question many times before. “Everyone else does.” Cripps returned her smile and offered her a glass of lemonade. “Call me Goldilocks,” she said with a smile, as she caught Stanley Cripps staring at her remarkably luxuriant hair. ![]() These were her most identifiable feature, one that in the past had made her the subject of a certain amount of teasing. She settled herself on the bench and tied up her long, blond, curly tresses. She nodded, and the sprightly pensioner invited her into the garden and guided her to a shady spot under an apple tree. Cripps.” “The gravity of the situation is too serious to remain unremarked forever,” he replied somberly. “It’s very good of you to talk to me, Mr. “Were you lost for long?” “Barely an hour,” she replied, shaking his outstretched hand. “Welcome to Obscurity, Miss Hatchett,” he intoned politely. A dapper septuagenarian bounded from the front garden to greet the only occupant, an attractive woman of slender build in her late twenties. The Austin Somerset that pulled up outside a pretty brick-and-thatch cottage on the edge of the village was not lost. Few people came this way, and if they did, they were invariably lost. In the isolated splendor of Obscurity, the residents enjoyed the season more as they had fewer people to share it with. Trees were a vibrant green and the spinneys rich with the sweet bouquet of honeysuckle and dog rose, the hedgerows creamy with cow parsley and alive with cyclamen. A period of good weather had followed on from rain, and the countryside was now enjoying a reinvigoration of color and scent. Indeed, the status of Obscurity was once thought so tenuous that some of the more philosophically inclined residents considered the possibility that since the village didn’t exist, they might not exist either, and hurriedly placed “existential question of being” on the parish council agenda, where it still resides, after much unresolved discussion, between “church roof fund” and “any other business.” It was late summer. Passed over for inclusion into almost every publication from The Domesday Book to Thirty Places Not Worth Visiting in Berkshire, the hamlet is also a cartographic omission, an honor it shares with the neighboring villages of Hiding and Cognito. The little village of Obscurity is remarkable only for its unremarkableness. The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition became hopelessly lost in 1928 and had to stop at the village shop to ask for directions. A bronze plaque was inscribed and affixed below another plaque that commemorated the only other event of note in living memory-the momentous occasion when Douglas Fairbanks Sr. ![]() Spotted by an eagle-eyed official and allocated in April 1987, the post-code allocation (RD73 93ZZ) was a matter of such import among the residents of this small village that a modest ceremony and street party were arranged. A Death in Obscurity Last known regional post-code allocation: Obscurity, Berkshire, Pop.: 35. “Put down the scissors and step away from the thumb.” For my mother Because the Forest will always be there… and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it. “DCI Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division,” announced Jack, holding up his ID. THE FOURTH BEAR By Jasper Fforde The second book in the Nursery Crime series Copyright © Jasper Fforde, 2006 What does a missing scientist with a terrifying discovery in subatomic physics, a secret weapon of devastating power, a reclusive industrialist known only as the Quangle-Wangle and Colonel Danvers of the National Security all have in common? How could the bear's porridge be at such disparate temperature when they were poured at the same time? Was Goldy's death in the nearby 1st World War Themepark of SommeWorld a freak accident? And is it merely chance that the Gingerbreadman pops up at awkward moments? But there's more. She had been about to break a story involving unexplained explosions in Herefordshire, Pasadena and the Nullabor Plain The last witness to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood. That is, until a chance encounter during the Armitage Shanks literary awards at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club lead Jack and Mary on the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldilocks' Hatchett, star reporter for the Daily Mole. He and Mary Mary have been reassigned due to falling levels of nursery crime, and the NCD is once more in jeopardy. Synopsis: The Gingerbreadman: Psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit is loose in the streets of Reading. ![]()
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