Read Online The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer - Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t, if we had “minutes” in Limbo. Oh, how I wish I were on Earth with the last warlock. Then there would be two of us, and I would find out what really happened when Leon Abbot came calling.
    “And armed with this knowledge, we can return when the time spell fades, and retake the Old Country.”
    “When?” cried the imps. “When?”
    “Soon,” replied Abbot.“Soon. And there will be humans enough for us all. They will be crushed like the grass beneath our boots. We will tear their heads off like dandelion flowers.”
    Oh, please, thought N o 1. Enough plant similes.
    It was quite possible that N o 1 was the only creature on Hybras who had ever even thought the human word simile . Saying it aloud would have certainly earned him a thrashing. If the other imps knew that his human vocabulary also included words like grooming and decoration , they would string him up for sure. Ironically he had learned these words from Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow , which was supposed to be a school text.
    “Tear their heads off,” shouted one imp, and it quickly became a chant, taken up by everyone in the room.
    “Yes, tear their heads off,” said N o 1, trying it out, but there was no feeling in his voice.
    What’s my motivation? he wondered. I’ve never even met a human.
    The imps climbed onto their benches, bobbing in primal rhythm.
    “Tear their heads off! Tear their heads off!”
    Abbot and Rawley urged them on, flexing their claws and howling. A sickly sweet smell clogged the air. Warp muck. Someone was entering the warp spasm phase. The excitement was bringing on the change.
    N o 1 felt nothing. Not so much as a twinge. He tried his best, squeezing his eyelids together, letting the pressure build in his head, thinking bloody thoughts. But his true feelings shattered the false visions of bloodlust and carnage.
    It’s no use, he thought. I am not that kind of demon.
    N o 1 stopped chanting and sat, head in hands. No point in pretending; another change cycle was passing him by.
    Not so the other imps. Abbot’s theatrics had opened a natural well of testosterone, bloodlust, and bodily fluid.
    One by one, they succumbed to the warp spasm. Green gunge flowed from their pores, slowly at first, then in bubbling gushes. They all went under, every one of them. It must be some kind of record, so many imps warping simultaneously. Of course Abbot would take the credit.
    The sight of the fluid brought on fresh rounds of howling. And the more the imps howled, the faster the gunge spurted. N o 1 had heard it said that humans took several years to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Imps did it in a few hours. And a change like that is going to hurt.
    The howls of exultation changed to grunts of pain as bones stretched and horns curled, the gunge-coated limbs already lengthening. The smell was sweet enough to make N o 1 gag.
    Imps toppled to the floor all around. They thrashed for a few seconds, then their own fluids mummified them. They were cocooned like enormous green bugs, strapped tight by the hardening gunge. The schoolroom was suddenly silent, except for the crack of drying nutrient fluid and a rustle of flames from the stone fireplace.
    Abbot beamed, a toothy smile that seemed to split his head in half.
    “A good morning’s work, wouldn’t you say, Rawley? I got them all warping.”
    Rawley grunted his agreement, then noticed N o 1. “Except the Runt.”
    “Well, of course not,” began Abbot, then caught himself. “Yes. Absolutely, except the Runt.”
    N o 1’s forehead burned under Rawley and Abbot’s scrutiny.
    “I want to warp,” he said, looking at his fingers. “I really do. But it’s the hating thing. I just can’t manage it. And all that slime. Even the thought of that stuff all over me makes me feel a bit nauseous.”
    “A bit what?” said Rawley suspiciously.
    N o 1 realized that he needed to dumb it down for his teacher.
    “Sick. A bit sick.”
    “Oh.” Rawley shook his