Read Online I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley - Free Book Online
Authors: Alan Bradley
Ads: Link
vicar instead. As it happens, he’s driving over to Doddingsley in the morning to pick up some extra holly for the church decorations. He’s kindly offered to meet Colonel de Luce and Miss Felicity at the railway station there and bring them to Buckshaw.”
“
The holly and the ivy
,” I caroled loudly, not caring that I was a little off-key.
“When they are both full grown
,
Of all the poisons that are in the wood
,
The holly wears the crown.”
Probably, I thought, because it contained theobromine, the bitter alkaloid that is also to be found in coffee, tea, and cocoa, and was first synthesized by the immortal German chemist Hermann Emil Fischer from human waste. The theobromine in the berries and leaves of the holly was just one of the cyanogenic glycosides, which, when chewed, release hydrogen cyanide. In what quantities, I had yet to determine, but just the thought of such a delicious experiment made the hairs on my forearms stand up in pleasure!
“You’re thinking of the ilicin,” Dogger said.
“Yes, I’m thinking of the ilicin. It’s an alkaloid in the holly leaves, and it causes diarrhea.”
“So I believe I have read somewhere,” Dogger said.
I could use the same batch of holly I’d dragged home to make the birdlime!
“
You’d better watch out …
” I sang, as I skipped upstairs with more than just the capture of Father Christmas in mind.
Wet, heavy flakes were falling straight down towards the earth, no two alike as they plummeted past the lighted window of my laboratory—yet all of them members of the same family.
In the case of snowflakes, the family’s name is H 2 O, known to the uninitiated as water.
Like all matter, water can exist in three states: At normal temperatures it’s a liquid. Heated to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes a gas; cooled below 32 degrees, it crystallizes and becomes ice.
Of the three, ice was my favorite state: Water, when frozen, was classified as a mineral—a mineral whose crystalline form, in an iceberg, for instance, was capable of mimicking a diamond as big as the
Queen Elizabeth
.
But add a bit of heat and
poof!
—you’re a liquid again, able to run easily, with only the assistance of gravity, into the most secret of places. Just thinking of some of the subterranean spots in which water has been makes my stomach tickle!
Then, raise the temperature enough, and
Ali-kazam!
you’re a gas—and suddenly you can fly.
If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is!
Hyponitric acid, for instance, is absolutely fascinating: At –4 degrees Fahrenheit, it takes the form of colorless prismatic crystals; warm it up to just 7 degrees and it becomes a clear liquid. At 30 degrees the liquid turns yellow and then orange, until at 82 degrees, it boils and becomes a brownish-red vapor: all within a range of no more than 86 degrees!
Stupendous, when you stop to think about it.
But getting back to my old friend water, the thing of it is this: No matter how hot or how cold, no matter its state, its form, its qualities, or its color, each molecule of water still consists of no more than a single oxygen atom bonded to two sister atoms of hydrogen. It takes all three of them to make a blinding blizzard—or a thunderstorm, for that matter … or a puffy white cloud in a summer sky.
O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
Later, in bed, I turned out the light and listened for a while to the distant sounds of people moving about, making last-minute preparations for the morning. Somewhere in the west wing they would still be adjusting their spotlights; somewhere Phyllis Wyvern would be boning up on her script.
But at last, after what seemed like a very long time, the day’s work was done and, with a last few reluctant creaks and groans, Buckshaw slept in the silence of the falling snow.
SIX
I AWAKENED TO THE sound of shoveling. Crikers! I must have overslept!
Leaping out from under the eiderdown, I struggled into my clothing before my flesh could
“
The holly and the ivy
,” I caroled loudly, not caring that I was a little off-key.
“When they are both full grown
,
Of all the poisons that are in the wood
,
The holly wears the crown.”
Probably, I thought, because it contained theobromine, the bitter alkaloid that is also to be found in coffee, tea, and cocoa, and was first synthesized by the immortal German chemist Hermann Emil Fischer from human waste. The theobromine in the berries and leaves of the holly was just one of the cyanogenic glycosides, which, when chewed, release hydrogen cyanide. In what quantities, I had yet to determine, but just the thought of such a delicious experiment made the hairs on my forearms stand up in pleasure!
“You’re thinking of the ilicin,” Dogger said.
“Yes, I’m thinking of the ilicin. It’s an alkaloid in the holly leaves, and it causes diarrhea.”
“So I believe I have read somewhere,” Dogger said.
I could use the same batch of holly I’d dragged home to make the birdlime!
“
You’d better watch out …
” I sang, as I skipped upstairs with more than just the capture of Father Christmas in mind.
Wet, heavy flakes were falling straight down towards the earth, no two alike as they plummeted past the lighted window of my laboratory—yet all of them members of the same family.
In the case of snowflakes, the family’s name is H 2 O, known to the uninitiated as water.
Like all matter, water can exist in three states: At normal temperatures it’s a liquid. Heated to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes a gas; cooled below 32 degrees, it crystallizes and becomes ice.
Of the three, ice was my favorite state: Water, when frozen, was classified as a mineral—a mineral whose crystalline form, in an iceberg, for instance, was capable of mimicking a diamond as big as the
Queen Elizabeth
.
But add a bit of heat and
poof!
—you’re a liquid again, able to run easily, with only the assistance of gravity, into the most secret of places. Just thinking of some of the subterranean spots in which water has been makes my stomach tickle!
Then, raise the temperature enough, and
Ali-kazam!
you’re a gas—and suddenly you can fly.
If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is!
Hyponitric acid, for instance, is absolutely fascinating: At –4 degrees Fahrenheit, it takes the form of colorless prismatic crystals; warm it up to just 7 degrees and it becomes a clear liquid. At 30 degrees the liquid turns yellow and then orange, until at 82 degrees, it boils and becomes a brownish-red vapor: all within a range of no more than 86 degrees!
Stupendous, when you stop to think about it.
But getting back to my old friend water, the thing of it is this: No matter how hot or how cold, no matter its state, its form, its qualities, or its color, each molecule of water still consists of no more than a single oxygen atom bonded to two sister atoms of hydrogen. It takes all three of them to make a blinding blizzard—or a thunderstorm, for that matter … or a puffy white cloud in a summer sky.
O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
Later, in bed, I turned out the light and listened for a while to the distant sounds of people moving about, making last-minute preparations for the morning. Somewhere in the west wing they would still be adjusting their spotlights; somewhere Phyllis Wyvern would be boning up on her script.
But at last, after what seemed like a very long time, the day’s work was done and, with a last few reluctant creaks and groans, Buckshaw slept in the silence of the falling snow.
SIX
I AWAKENED TO THE sound of shoveling. Crikers! I must have overslept!
Leaping out from under the eiderdown, I struggled into my clothing before my flesh could
Similar Books
