January 11, 2018: jannock \ JAN-uh k \  adjective;

1. British, Australian Informal. Honest; fair; straightforward.

 

As she twisted the lockpick in the sturdy lock she had to admit, even among thieves, this wasn’t, as her very Australian great aunt would have said, jannock.

It was one of her great aunt’s favourite words, in fact, and one she rarely used when talking about Aubrey, so it stuck with her. Especially since her sister, Tabitha, was the epitome of jannock. Once she had joked, in front of her great aunt unfortunately, that Tabitha even had great “jannockers,” and she had been sure her great aunt was going to have a stroke the way she reacted.

“Giving you a bit of trouble?” Tim asked anxiously from his place at the corner, under the broken streetlight.

Aubrey grimaced. Now was not the time to be getting distracted, no matter how sour what she was doing was making her stomach. No matter how sure she was that her great aunt would just flat out keel over if she knew what Aubrey were up to now.

“Nope, got it,” Aubrey said as a satisfying click punctuated her success. She glanced over at Tim, who looked just about as triumphant as she felt, which was not very.

This was a definitely a terrible idea.

But if they were going to strike out on there own, this was the only way they were going to do it. She was tired of being Geoffrey Tennant’s “lock whisperer” when all it got her was a pat on the head and barely a tenth of any of the scores. He had actually literally patted her on the head once. Without irony. In front of other people.

It was starting to feel like a better idea again.

She gently turned the knob and pushed open the door to the antique shop.

Antique shop, antique lock, she snickered quietly to herself.

“Don’t giggle, Aub, it makes me nervous,” Tim said as he slid past her into the shop, chewing anxiously at a fingernail.

But everything made Tim nervous. She wasn’t sure why she had even brought him along. Only he was tired of being treated like a pet too (except for him it was even worse because at least Aubrey had magic fingers, all Tim had were a decent set of eyes), and Aubrey was too scared to try and break away from Geoffrey on her own.

And anyone else I had talked to would have turned me in to Geoffrey for a pat on the head.

Apparently everyone else was really quite happy with Geoffrey’s pats.

“Are you coming?” Tim hissed, sticking his head out of the shop to stare incredulously at her.

And he was right to — what was she doing out here? She nodded and followed him into the shop, closing the door gently behind her. As she let her eyes adjust to the darkness, she took a deep breath, trying to quiet her mind. Now was not the time to obsess over Geoffrey Tennant. Now was the time to act like the professional she knew she could be, to snatch the book out from under Geoffrey’s nose, and then make a break for it.

Geoffrey had told her about the book last week. He had actually been giddy about it. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but very few things made Geoffrey giddy. And the things that did made him cautious. So he was still making plans to scope out the little antique shop while Aubrey was formulating her plan to steal the book and disappear.

“Now, where’s the book?” she whispered quietly, half to herself, and half to Tim.

Tim shrugged and Aubrey reflected that maybe Geoffrey’s methods weren’t entirely overcautious — a quick trip to the store to find the book before tonight probably would have made things a little easier.

Too late now. Put it in the book for next time, Aubrey told herself, and began slinking around the shop.

“What’s it called again?” she whispered to Tim, who shot her another incredulous look in the dark. “What? I’m nervous too.”

Tim had been the one to dig a little deeper when Aubrey told him about Geoffrey’s glee and had managed to ferret out the name of the book. So really, she supposed, he did deserve to be here just as much as she did.

“It’s called Socrates on Wedlock,” Tim told her, “a rare Dickens thing or something.”

“Charles Dickens? I’ve never heard of a Charles Dickens story called Socrates on Wedlock,” Aubrey said, quirking an eyebrow at Tim. He hadn’t mentioned the author before.

“I guess that’s what makes it rare,” Tim hissed with an aggravated shrug, and returned to searching through the shop.

Aubrey grimaced. She was going to have to remember not to talk to Tim during these kinds of things if they were going to continue to be partners in crime. Being nervous made Tim an absolute dick. She cast a quick glare at his back to make herself feel better and then resumed looking through the shop herself.

Unfortunately, it was what she would have called a rather typical antique store in that things were piled high with no sense of rhyme or reason that she could guess, so finding the book might take a while. She glanced anxiously at her watch, knowing that every minute they spent in the shop was another minute closer to discovery when Tim made a strangled squeak from the other side of the store.

Aubrey stood up abruptly. “Tim? Are you okay?”

Tim poked his head around a haphazard stack of old rocking chairs and nodded emphatically, motioning her over frantically.

“What’s the matter?” Aubrey asked, making her way carefully through the shop. When made her way around the rocking chairs, her eyes widened and she knew exactly why Tim had made the noise. There, in the bookshelf in front of them was a copy of Socrates on Wedlock — clearly Tim had tried to pull it out, since it was sitting askew, at an impossible angle. Because Socrates on Wedlock wasn’t what they were here for. But whatever was behind the secret door they had opened when they moved the book, was.

“After you,” Tim said, motioning to the small door that had popped open next to the bookshelf.

“Such a gentleman,” Aubrey grunted sarcastically as she got down on her hands and knees and started crawling into the passage.

 

Note: Really? Jannock? I come back to jannock? I’m not sure how good a job I did incorporating it, but then, I’m not really sure what kind of criteria I’ve set up for myself beyond, you know, using the word. So in that case, good job, me! You even made a boob joke using the word of the day.

I am, however, eminently sad that I managed to miss “stardust” on Jan 8, “horsefeathers” on the 7th, and “denouement” yesterday, so I may have to go back and try to catch up. On the other hand, I did manage to avoid “boustrophedon” on the 6th, so we’ll have to see. 

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