Read Online Little People by Tom Holt - Free Book Online Page B

you’re doing, suddenly you’ll find you’re the next best thing to invisible and inaudible.
    (Of course, I’d learned this particular survival maxim back when I was seven and desperately trying to find an uninterrupted fifteen minutes to finish reading my Secret Seven adventure. In our house, for some reason, sitting in a chair reading a book is and always has been interpreted as a cry for help, an expression of loneliness and depression one step removed from the empty aspirin bottle or the teetering walk along the window ledge. Just open a book at random – doesn’t even matter if it’s the right way up or not – and before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’, or even ‘Piss off, I’m trying to read’, you’re surrounded by bouncy, cheerful people asking you how your day’s been, and would it help to talk about it?)
    So I parked myself on a bench on the westerly side of the dining hall, with my notebook open on my knee, some book picked out at random on the other side of me, and a pencil stuck behind my ear, as if I was locked in some particularly arduous and potentially contagious piece of homework. It should’ve worked; but I hadn’t been there more than a minute when a shadow fell across my page, and I heard a voice above me saying, ‘What’re you reading, then?’
    As a precaution, I’d made a point of noting the title of the book selected at random. ‘ Moby Dick ,’ I told him. ‘Got to get it done by tomorrow, or I’m history. And geography and possibly physics too.’
    â€˜Oh. Right.’ The shadow (which belonged to an exceptionally annoying youth called Ben Thaxton) stayed where it was, right across my page. ‘Funny word, that,’ the voice went on.
    I tried not to be too obvious about taking a deep, calming breath. ‘What word, Ben?’
    â€˜Moby,’ he replied. ‘Looked it up once, couldn’t find it. Not in the dictionary.’
    â€˜It’s short for Möbius,’ I replied, not looking up. ‘I know,’ I went on, ‘Möbius Dick, it does conjure up a profoundly disturbing mental image. Still, that’s writers for you. Perverts, the lot of ’em. Now, since you’re here, perhaps you could help me out with this bit. It says here—’
    Thaxton shrugged, gave me a funny look and moved on. I counted up to ten under my breath, just in case he decided to come back, and then opened the diary.
    To start with, I’d decided, I’d draw up a grid with ‘sightings’ all down the left-hand side of the page, and—
    I stopped, and blinked. On the first blank page in the diary, dead centre of the sheet of paper – useful addresses of some such – there was some writing. It said –
    HELP
    â€“ in teeny-weeny little letters, traced in some kind of brownish ink.
    Odd , I thought. I held the book a few inches from my nose, just in case I’d misinterpreted it or missed something else that might explain it, but there was nothing more that I could see. I had no idea human beings could write that small.
    Looking at it was putting me off, spoiling my concentration, so I turned the page, found myself looking at a list of decimal conversions (you know – how many scruples to the kilo and how much is one metre in perches) and flicked on through in search of blank stuff I could write on. There was a nice white patch like a croquet lawn in ‘Personal Details’. I picked up my pencil to begin writing, and—
    HELP
    â€“ exactly the same as on the addresses page; even the same distinctive and rather unappealing shade of rusty-brown ink.
    I studied it at nose’s length, just to be sure, making a point of looking out for stray hairs, spots and discolorations. Nothing – not even a wispy fine spray of brown where the nib had dragged on something. What on earth could it mean? Had my uncle Trevor, or possibly even T. J. Bardshaw