scott_sanford (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scott_sanford) wrote2025-04-01 12:01 am
scott_sanford) wrote2025-04-01 12:01 am
Entry tags:
Her Number's Up
Happy April Fools’ Day.
This wasn’t originally meant to be an April Fools’ Day story, but the timing is right and it does involve a silly prank by a Jenny Everywhere…
(It wasn’t necessarily meant to be written at all, but someone wanted to read the story.)
Laura Drake discovers
Her Number’s Up
by Scott Sanford; 1 April 2025
Laura Drake was looking forward to seeing where Jenny Cornelius lived. It had taken a while but Cornelius had finally invited her over. Not that she didn’t already know where the girl lived – she was an intelligent and resourceful modern woman, after all, and her job had some perks – but being invited over was something else.
It wasn’t far and she knew where she was going, just down the Northern Line and then off at Tottenham Court, an easier trip than when she went to work, then along Oxford and a turn before the Marks & Spencer.
This put her into the streets that had been wide enough after the Great Fire but most of Soho was from the 19th century; offhand she didn’t see any Luftwaffe enabled modern edifices, unlike the mass of construction on Hampstead near her flat. A right put her onto yet another one-lane street of flats and small quirky shops, the kind of place that central London was so well supplied. She would have passed by the entrance to the mews without noticing it, and surely many people did, but she’d been tipped off and knew to look. She nearly missed it anyway.
The narrow brick-lined passage opened up into a surprisingly spacious yard, still of ruggedly industrial brick but with more open space than one found often in central London. Most of the buildings had wide wooden doors at ground level, originally for the stables, and she could see how anyone daft enough to own a car in London would care to find someplace with a garage.
Straight ahead of her was a building with the wooden ground floor frontage painted a rich blue the colour of a police call box; large numbers proclaimed it 5 & 6, so Number Three must be right here.
A glance around told her she was standing in front of the more modestly labeled Number Two, which put Three next door in the corner. She strode forward, past one of the garages, and found herself facing a door above which was a clear and unmistakable 4.
Four was in a corner and Five and Six were right at her elbow, so Three must be back the way she came. She backtracked and found that the door with the small 2 was where she left it. Just in case she kept going and in a few paces was looking at a windowless door marked 1. She frowned.
A non-integer address would not have raised eyebrows – certainly not where she worked – but there was a straightforward order to the natural numbers. Start playing silly buggers with that and someone like her would have to write memos about it. And a larger number like 548 might go missing without instant notice but three would be spotted right off.
The sane answer was that was unmarked or she was just missing it. Could it just be behind the folding wooden garage doors? It certainly could, she decided. There was room for two bays between the numbered doors, and either could hide the elusive Number Three.
Thoughtfully she considered the situation, looking at the door of Number Two and the door of Number Four, and another thing caught her eye. The face of the building carried the claim 3 & 4 in a vertical stack.
At last she looked up.
Above the garage there was a perfectly normal house front, with windows and a door. Its gable had a protruding beam with a pulley, for winching furniture up to the first floor; the front door was wide and inviting. What it did not have were stairs up to the door.
The numbers implied that Number Three was indeed the door on the first floor, ten feet off the ground.
Laura marveled a moment, finding the whimsical implausibility both inconvenient and completely appropriate for the woman.
“Bloody hell, Cornelius...”
The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.
Read other Jenny Everywhere stories
This wasn’t originally meant to be an April Fools’ Day story, but the timing is right and it does involve a silly prank by a Jenny Everywhere…
(It wasn’t necessarily meant to be written at all, but someone wanted to read the story.)
Her Number’s Up
by Scott Sanford; 1 April 2025
Laura Drake was looking forward to seeing where Jenny Cornelius lived. It had taken a while but Cornelius had finally invited her over. Not that she didn’t already know where the girl lived – she was an intelligent and resourceful modern woman, after all, and her job had some perks – but being invited over was something else.
It wasn’t far and she knew where she was going, just down the Northern Line and then off at Tottenham Court, an easier trip than when she went to work, then along Oxford and a turn before the Marks & Spencer.
This put her into the streets that had been wide enough after the Great Fire but most of Soho was from the 19th century; offhand she didn’t see any Luftwaffe enabled modern edifices, unlike the mass of construction on Hampstead near her flat. A right put her onto yet another one-lane street of flats and small quirky shops, the kind of place that central London was so well supplied. She would have passed by the entrance to the mews without noticing it, and surely many people did, but she’d been tipped off and knew to look. She nearly missed it anyway.
The narrow brick-lined passage opened up into a surprisingly spacious yard, still of ruggedly industrial brick but with more open space than one found often in central London. Most of the buildings had wide wooden doors at ground level, originally for the stables, and she could see how anyone daft enough to own a car in London would care to find someplace with a garage.
Straight ahead of her was a building with the wooden ground floor frontage painted a rich blue the colour of a police call box; large numbers proclaimed it 5 & 6, so Number Three must be right here.
A glance around told her she was standing in front of the more modestly labeled Number Two, which put Three next door in the corner. She strode forward, past one of the garages, and found herself facing a door above which was a clear and unmistakable 4.
Four was in a corner and Five and Six were right at her elbow, so Three must be back the way she came. She backtracked and found that the door with the small 2 was where she left it. Just in case she kept going and in a few paces was looking at a windowless door marked 1. She frowned.
A non-integer address would not have raised eyebrows – certainly not where she worked – but there was a straightforward order to the natural numbers. Start playing silly buggers with that and someone like her would have to write memos about it. And a larger number like 548 might go missing without instant notice but three would be spotted right off.
The sane answer was that was unmarked or she was just missing it. Could it just be behind the folding wooden garage doors? It certainly could, she decided. There was room for two bays between the numbered doors, and either could hide the elusive Number Three.
Thoughtfully she considered the situation, looking at the door of Number Two and the door of Number Four, and another thing caught her eye. The face of the building carried the claim 3 & 4 in a vertical stack.
At last she looked up.
Above the garage there was a perfectly normal house front, with windows and a door. Its gable had a protruding beam with a pulley, for winching furniture up to the first floor; the front door was wide and inviting. What it did not have were stairs up to the door.
The numbers implied that Number Three was indeed the door on the first floor, ten feet off the ground.
Laura marveled a moment, finding the whimsical implausibility both inconvenient and completely appropriate for the woman.
“Bloody hell, Cornelius...”
The character of Laura Drake was created by Jeanne Morningstar and is available for use by anyone.