My Name is Markham

Book : A Chronicles of St. Mary's Short Story

by Jodi Taylor

Genres: Time Travel; General Fiction

Synopsis

A Chronicles of St Mary's short story that is sure to entertain. If you love Jasper Fforde or Ben Aaronovitch, you won't be able to resist Jodi Taylor. Like a smaller and much scruffier Greta Garbo - finally - Markham speaks! It's Christmas and time for the first (and almost certainly last) St Mary's Annual Children's Christmas Party - attendance compulsory, by order of Dr Bairstow. Discovered practising his illegal reindeer dance and poo-dropping routine, our hero, along with fellow disaster-magnets Peterson and Maxwell, is despatched to Anglo-Saxon England to discover the truth about Alfred and the cakes. In his own words, our hero reveals Major Guthrie's six-point guide to a successful assignment and the Security Section's true opinion of the History Department. And of historians in general. And of one historian in particular. And, just to be clear, it is time travel, for God's sake. Forget all that pretentious 'investigating major historical events in contemporary time' rubbish. This is history without the capital 'H'. Because this is the way the Security Section rolls! Readers love Jodi Taylor: 'Once in a while, I discover an author who changes everything... Jodi Taylor and her protagonista Madeleine "Max" Maxwell have seduced me' 'A great mix of British proper-ness and humour with a large dollop of historical fun ' ' Addictive. I wish St Mary's was real and I was a part of it' 'Jodi Taylor has an imagination that gets me completely hooked ' 'A tour de force'

Release date: January 1, 2019

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 48

Sample

My name is Markham and I am a recovering security guard.

Maxwell told me to write this report. Actually, what happened was that I visited her in her office after our last assignment and she took exception to me criticising a phrase or two of her report, and the next thing I knew her scratchpad flew across the room and hit me squarely on the back of the head and she said if I thought I could do it any better then I should write the bloody thing myself.

So I have.

It was, believe it or not, the day of The First St Mary’s Annual Children’s Christmas Party. We were doing it for charity. Well, actually we were doing it because Dr Bairstow had told us to. I don’t know who’d told him to do it. We were all contributing something.

Professor Rapson, Head of R&D,had put together a recipe for artificial snow, which had set fire to his workbench, and the smell of burning rubber was enough to blow your socks off. Dr Bairstow had forbidden any further research in this area.

In the kitchens, Mrs Mack was up to her armpits in jelly and sausages and cupcakes. Not all in the same mixing bowl, obviously.

Mrs Enderby from Wardrobe was making costumes for us all. I was supposed to be one of Santa’s Little Helpers, but Evans and I were going to be a reindeer. We’d manufactured a costume out of old blankets. We had a battery-driven nose and I had a couple of handfuls of black olives to drop behind us for authentic reindeer poo. Kids love that sort of thing. We were expecting to be the hit of the afternoon.

Dieter, the biggest man in the place, was to be Father Christmas. He could be heard ho ho ho-ing around the building and getting on everyone’s nerves.

Hunter was dressing as Tinkerbell. I’m not sure what Tinkerbell has to do with Christmas, but you don’t argue with her. Not unless you want a really, really clean colon.

And if you think that’s terrifying, try Miss North as a particularly frosty Ice Queen. She’d offended Mrs Enderby by hiring a magnificent costume especially for the day.

Bashford, Sykes and Atherton,on behalf of the History Department, were the world’s most mismatched elves.

Max was Anna, and Kalinda Black was Elsa. Kalinda Black is tall and blonde and just the sort of person who wouldn’t be too careful where she hurls her icicles. I don’t know what she does to anyone else, but she frightens the living daylights out of me. I couldn’t believe they were going to let her near small children. She’s usually at Thirsk, either fighting our corner for funding or apologising for us, depending on what sort of a week we’ve had, but she’d come back for The Party. St Mary’s was gathering its chicks for Christmas.

Dr Foster was going as herself. No one argued with that.

The centrepiece of our efforts, however, was the ever-resourceful Miss Lingoss. Thanks to the best efforts of the Technical Section, her towering red and gold mohican was festooned with flashing fairy lights. She looked sensational.

There would be games, prizes, a dinosaur holo, and tons of party food.

Mr Strong, our caretaker,was making a sleigh for Santa to arrive on.

The whole building was strung with fairy lights, tinsel, and streamers, and we had a giant Christmas tree in the Hall.

We were going to be a sensation and maybe this time, for all the right reasons.

Oh no, we weren’t. As you were with the reindeer. Evans and me, practising in what we thought was a deserted part of the building, were caught rehearsing our reindeer dance and working on our poo-dropping technique –by Dr Bairstow of all people. I mean, how did he even get up all those stairs? You watch him limping his way slowly around the building with all the speed of a striking snail, and one nanosecond later, he’s two floors up and giving you a nasty look from the doorway.

We explained, but it was useless. I even showed him t. . .