Poison Pen (10 page)

To our astonishment, the librarian straightened her cardigan and planted her feet squarely apart. Lowering her hips and sticking out her bum, she raised her hands in a martial-arts pose.

She looked so unthreatening, so completely undeadly, that Trevor laughed out loud. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Try me,” said Sue through gritted teeth.

Trevor took a step closer. “You know I’m going to have to kill you, too, don’t you? This will be the greatest library tragedy since Alexandria burnt.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

Buried under the book mountain, neither Graham nor I could lift a finger. And while I admired Sue’s courage, I couldn’t help feeling that a middle-aged librarian didn’t stand much chance against a young man who’d already killed three people.

I was wrong.

Trevor took a second step forward. Big mistake. With a piercing, warlike cry, Sue stepped sideways. Her left leg flicked up at Trevor’s throat and the pointed toe of her shoe connected hard against his Adam’s apple. Turning purple, Trevor clutched at his throat and gave a creaky wheeze. Sue followed up her advantage, chopping two sharp blows across his stomach with her hands. When he doubled up, she kicked him in the rear. He fell to the floor in a ball, coughing and choking.

While Trevor lay there, unable to get to his feet, Sue buzzed down to reception and asked them to phone the police. She then stood over him until Inspector Humphries arrived, giving him a swift kick every now and then when he attempted to move. In fact, I suspect she put in a few extra ones. I couldn’t see much from where I was trapped, but I could hear the occasional muffled thud, followed by an “Ooof!” from Trevor, and Sue snapping, “Just look at what you’ve done. This is a library! That’s no way to treat books, is it?”

There’s not much to add, really. After Trevor had been arrested, it took a while for Sue to free us from the book pile. She was a little distressed when she discovered that we’d bled over some of the volumes, but she managed not to lose her temper over it. Graham and I were left with a few cuts and a lot of bruises but no lasting damage.

Trevor was put away for a very long time – he’d committed three murders in cold blood, so he received three consecutive life sentences. Viola and Tim were both charged with assault and the attempted murder of Esmerelda, but seeing as they hadn’t actually succeeded they got off more lightly. It was just as well for them that Tim had spilt his coffee.

Sue Woodward, meanwhile, became a school celebrity. For the first few weeks after Trevor’s arrest, the library was packed every lunchtime with people wanting to see her cool karate moves. It was only later on, when all the fuss had died down, that Graham and I managed to have a chat with her.

“Have you been to martial arts classes?” Graham finally managed to ask one quiet lunchtime.

“No,” said Sue.

“Then how…?”

“I read a lot,” she said with a shrug. “It’s surprising how much you can learn from books.”

Tanya Landman is the author of many books for children, including
Waking Merlin
and
Merlin’s Apprentice, The World’s Bellybutton
and
The Kraken Snores,
and three stories featuring the characters Flotsam and Jetsam. Of
Poison Pen
, the seventh title in her popular murder mystery series, Tanya says, “When the first Poppy Fields book was published I was sent off on a promotional tour and had great fun devising murder plots from the eye-poppingly gruesome suggestions from the audience. It occurred to me later that a book festival – with envious undercurrents and hidden tensions – would be a perfect setting for another mystery.”

Tanya is also the author of two novels for teenagers:
Apache
, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Booktrust Teenage Fiction Prize, and
The Goldsmith’s Daughter
, which was nominated for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Since 1992, Tanya has also been part of Storybox Theatre. She lives with her family in Devon.

You can find out more about Tanya Landman
and her books by visiting her website at
www.tanyalandman.com