The Prisoner #3 - A Day in the Life

THE PRISONER (BOOK #3) A DAY IN THE LIFE- a novel of eerie suspense by Jean Marie Stine, based on the exciting TV series starring Patrick McGoohan. "Number 6" had a chance to destroy the Village - if that was really possible...

Some mornings it was:

'Guten Morgen, Nummer Sechs.' Number 105 straightened from her rose bushes and fluttered roughened, pudgy fingers at him.

'Wie geht es Ihnen?’'

This interest seemed to please her, and she smiled, tucking a straying gray hair back beneath her scarf. ‘Gut, danke, und Ihnen?’

Beyond her yard, the street widened, winding down along the green, past the grocer's, to the sea.

The bell above the door rang sharply in the dim, musky interior.

Number 87 looked up from the morning paper. 'Ah, it's you, Number Six.’ His fat cheeks bowed in a smile. 'I’ve been expecting you. That order of picketed herring just came in.'

'I'd also like a half-dozen eggs, a five pound bag of flour, and some especially sharp cheddar.'

'Cheddar?’ Number 87 scratched dubiously behind his ear. 'Oh, yes. just the thing for you.’ He lifted the flap of the counter and came out around it, going to a group of wooden barrels in the shadow of one wall. He pushed back a cloth cover and produced a bit of rich golden cheese. 'Try this.'

‘Satisfactory. Quite satisfactory.'

'I thought you'd like it.' Number 87 nodded and smiled. 'How much?'

'A half-pound, I should think.'

'Want to make it a whole pound, just to be sure?'

'No. Definitely a half.'

'Right-o, Number Six.' He busied himself weighing cheese, counting eggs, and getting the flour from its shelf. 'Anything else for you today?' he said, doing the sum on a length of butcher's paper.

‘That will be one point one five credit units.'

'Charge it to my account.’

'And could you deliver this afternoon, about five?'

'Right-o.' He rolled it all together in the paper and tied the bundle with a string. 'I'll have Number Twenty-four bring it round. That is, if he ever gets here.’ Number 87 frowned, though his eyes remained merry and active. 'Not dependable, you know. That’s the way with youngsters these days.

‘Not dependable.’ He shook his head in emphasis.

‘Be seeing you.’

Number 87 sketched a salute. 'Be seeing you, Number Six.’

There was music playing on the speakers outside, and as the sun brightened, warming, people began to appear on the green and in the windy, graveled lanes between the houses.

‘Good day, Number Six.' Number 237 appeared from a side street, sweeping off his battered fisher's hat and waving. Then he hurried and caught up. ‘Where are you off totoday?'

‘A chess game with the Admiral.'

'Is that right. Never learned myself, you know.' His scrubbed, honest face furrowed. 'Not my sort of thing. More a hunting and fishing man, myself. Like to watch wrestling on TV. That sort of thing.' He was silent for a moment.

‘You know something, Number Six?'

'They're having a chess tournament in Village Hall next month, you really ought to enter.'

'It'd be fun. I enter the fishing contest, myself. Won two years running. Not last year though. That was Number 87. His first time, too. Going down to sign up now. Want to come with me and enter the chess tournament?'

'No thank you, Two Thirty-seven.'

'Well, this is where I turn off. Some other time, maybe.'

His hand swung in a hearty backslap, 'Be seeing you,’ and he was off along the lane toward the Civic Center.

Ting-a-ling-ling. The bell above the door rang. Inside it was cool, dark, sweet with the scent of tobacco.

'Bonjour, Number Six. How are you today.' The leathery old man continued rolling a cigar.

'Well enough, thank you, One Fifty-seven. And you?’

'Pretty well myself.' He set the cigar aside to dry. 'You’ll be wanting your specials, right?'

‘Just a moment.’ He got up and went through a curtain to the back.

'Number One Fifty-' The woman stopped. 'Oh! Hello, Number Six.' Her flowered dress swung against too full a figure. 'I didn't see you here.’ She looked around. 'Where's One Fifty-seven?'

Number 157 placed a box on the counter. 'Shall I wrap it?'

‘No. I'll take it.’

'There's the strangest thing going on outside.’

'They're making some kind of film.'

'I'll have to put in a new order soon.'

'Do you know anything about it, Number Six?'

'-and put this on my account. No, I don’t, Number Thirty-two.’

Her look was speculative and inviting.

'That’s too bad, Number Six. How about you, One Fifty-seven?'

'What’s this about a film?'

'There.' She pointed through the window. Four young men stood around a camera, and a fifth stood behind it, eye to the lens, face hidden, looking through it toward the shop.

'Qu'est-ce que c'est que cici? What are they doing to my store?'

One of the youths came through the door, stuffing a handkerchief into the hip pocket of his denim slacks. 'Hiya, pops. My mates and me’-he indicated the others around the camera -- 'are doing our term project in cinema. You remember, the course was announced last spring. And we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind if we took some shots of you at work?'

'Me? Working? Je ne compre- I mean: Why?'

Scanned in from an old paperback copy and not very carefully proofead.