Read Online Granny by Anthony Horowitz - Free Book Online

bizarre as well as so revolting was the old ladies themselves. Their combined ages must have added up to well over four hundred. Joe had once seen a few minutes of a video called Revenge of the Killer Zombies. It had given him nightmares for a week. Well, this was far, far worse.
    Granny One was a small, shriveled woman, no more than four feet high. Her head barely came over the edge of the table and she was blinking at the cards in her hand with small pink eyes. She seemed to be finding it difficult to balance on her chair—perhaps because of the enormous amount of jewelry she was wearing and the bulging handbag she was clutching to her chest. This granny’s hands were everywhere at once: holding her cards (and trying to stop her neighbor from seeing them), guarding her bag, tilting her whiskey glass toward her lips, and poking her nose and ears. Look quickly, and you might think she had four arms. Her name was Granny Anne.
    Granny Two was wearing what looked like a pair of curtains—but they were curtains you would open at your peril. For this granny was immensely fat. She was so fat that she seemed to have partially melted into her chair. She was obviously a careful poker player, as she was keeping her cards close to her chin—or rather, chins, for she had three of them. The third of these was crowned with a wispy beard. Granny Two was sucking a hot dog. She couldn’t eat it, as, for extra comfort, she had removed her false teeth and placed them in front of her on the table. Her name was Granny Smith.
    The first things Joe noticed about Granny Three were her quite horrible eyes. She was wearing a heavy pair of spectacles that, over the years, had stretched her ears and sunk into her nose. In fact her entire face was lopsided, and she hadn’t helped it by putting on too much lipstick—at the same time missing her lips. Her eyeballs, magnified by what looked like inch-thick glass, were a milky shade of white with one a little higher than the other. Granny Three was smoking, eating, drinking, and talking all at the same time. And all the time she was watching. Her eyes, darting about in her drooping sockets, missed nothing. She answered to the name of Granny Adams.
    Granny Four, shoveling enormous handfuls of popcorn into her mouth, was a vulture. She had the same long neck, bald head, and cruel eyes. And she was wearing a flowing green cloak mounted with feathers, which added to the illusion. This was the granny who was smoking the cigar. She was using it to point with, and as Joe watched, the glowing tip caught Granny Smith on the chin. Granny Smith cried out and fell backward, two aces tumbling out of her jacket. Granny Adams threw a glass of beer at her and screamed with laughter while Granny Anne pounded the table and chewed gum. This last granny was called Granny Lee.
    Dominating the table was Granny herself, looking almost royal in a billowing dress with flouncy neck and sleeves. She was sitting with her arms and legs apart and a scowl on her face. Suddenly she threw her cards down.
    â€œA full house. Kings high. Beat that!” she announced.
    â€œI’ve got a pair of twos,” Granny Anne exclaimed in a quavering voice.
    Granny Smith grabbed them and tore them up. “You lose, Anne. Two twos aren’t worth anything.”
    â€œWell, I’ve got another two in my shirt,” Anne exclaimed.
    â€œCheat! Cheat! Cheat!” Granny Adams screeched with laughter. “I haven’t got anything,” she added, and threw her cards in a shower over her head.
    â€œWell, I’ve got a royal flush,” the vulture granny snapped. “Ace, king, queen, jack, ten.” She spread the cards on the table.
    â€œHow did you do that?” Granny scrabbled at the cards, examining them as if they were forgeries. Her face had gone dark red. “You’ve been cheating as well, haven’t you, Lee?”
    â€œOf course I’ve been cheating,” Granny Lee