Read Online Little People by Tom Holt - Free Book Online

that.’
    â€˜Well, do your best,’ he said. ‘But don’t strain yourself. I’d start with easy stuff, if I were you, like your name and address; then you can work your way up to remembering tricky things like playwright’s names and bits of useless advice. Well,’ he added, sniffing, ‘I think I’ll go in now. You coming, or are you going to rehearse some more?’
    As I followed him into the house, not daring to look round at where the elf had been, I did a quick mental tally of the score so far. Clearly Daddy George knew that I knew something, but the fact that he hadn’t said anything openly about it and had confined himself to menacing hints and similar melodrama implied that he didn’t know for sure what I’d found out. On balance, then, a solid six out of ten was probably on the generous side of fair.
    By dropping said hints, on the other hand, he’d tacitly admitted that there was something going on and that he was involved in it, and also that it was something at least vaguely disreputable (or else why hadn’t he come straight out with it and yelled at me?) Once you’d taken out all the performance art and general presentation, even though I was the one who’d been careless enough to let himself be crept up on, when the whistle went for full time I’d learned rather more new and interesting stuff than he had. Seven out of ten for me, then, and there was a case to be made for upping that to seven point five or eight. That, of course, would depend on what action Daddy George now felt obliged to take. If the result was that he panicked and had me killed to stop me telling his secret to the world, my executors would probably feel they had no choice but to scale down that seven into a six, maybe even to a five-five.
    Not that he’d go that far, of course.
    Would he?
    For some unaccountable reason I was as jumpy as a rat in a blender for the rest of the holiday. I was right off my food, didn’t sleep much, stayed well away from mechanical or electrical apparatus; on the other hand, I was noticeably less antisocial, to the point where I was never alone from dawn to bedtime if I could possibly avoid it, which wasn’t like me at all. When the holiday finally ground to a halt, I turned down an uncharacteristically considerate offer of a lift back to school from Daddy George, and made a point of not sitting in the seat on the train that he subsequently reserved for me. In fact, it was only once I was back in my study at school and I’d had a thorough snoop round for loose electrical connections, stray cobras and tarantulas and freshly loosened floorboards that I stopped twitching and managed to relax.
    Next day, after close of business, I went looking for Cru. I felt I probably owed her an apology for something or other, and if I didn’t she could book it in on account for the next time I screwed up. I found her down by the tennis courts, throwing bits of gravel at small, gullible birds who assumed they were biscuit crumbs.
    â€˜Hello,’ I said.
    â€˜Bastard,’ she replied.
    Well, in a way it was nice to have my intuition confirmed. ‘So,’ I said, ‘how was your Christmas, then?’
    â€˜Utterly horrible,’ she replied. ‘Go away and get eaten by rats.’
    I assumed a stationary orbit, so to speak, and waited while she scored one direct hit and four near misses. Her hand/eye co-ordination always was excellent. ‘Sorry you had a rotten holiday,’ I ventured. ‘Me too, actually.’
    â€˜Good. Serves you right.’
    I sensed that something wasn’t quite right between us. ‘Is something the matter?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yes. You. But nothing that couldn’t be solved by you sharing a bath with an electric fire. Goodbye.’
    I took a moderately deep breath. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ I said.
    This time she turned round and looked at me. ‘Yes,’ she