Read Online The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver - Free Book Online Page A

were with her. She remembered when, the summer before, he had found a large frog in the creek at the bottom of their street, and how they had tried to hand-feed it lettuce before Sarah Wilkins had walked by and sneered at them both for being freaks. Liza should have stood up to Sarah. The world is a freak , she should have said. Everything that happens in it is strange and beautiful .
    Liza felt a hot flash of fear and guilt. What if she didn’t make it to Patrick on time? Who would play Pinecone Bowling with her then? Who would tromp through the woods with her on summer days, and build snow forts with her in winter, and try to water-bomb Mr. Tenley’s snarling, drooling bulldog from the tree house?
    They reached the opposite shore quickly. Liza saw what looked like a ruined castle rising up from beyond the mist. Scattered lumer-lumpen pulsed dimly along its black stone ramparts. Liza’s throat squeezed up. She wished she could plunge her hand into the water, grab on to the frog, and instruct it to turn around. But all too soon it had waddled onto the shore.
    I am not afraid , Liza told herself. I am not afraid .
    â€œGet down,” commanded the nid that had stolen her broom, and thrust the bristles threateningly in Liza’s direction.
    â€œOnly if you stop sticking that thing in my face,” Liza said, surprised that she sounded very much in control of herself. The nid withdrew the bristles several inches from her nose, and Liza climbed, with some difficulty, out of the flower and maneuvered down to the ground with as much dignity as she could muster. Mirabella, looking somewhat green in the snout, slid down from her own flower and bumped onto the soggy ground next to her.
    As though in response to the nids’ arrival, the door to the castle groaned open, and Liza came face-to-face, or face-to-snout, with a large mole very much like the one that had been in charge of the orchestra. This one, however, was wearing a floppy, faded nightcap, which looked as though it had been fashioned from a used coffee filter. In fact, it most certainly was a used coffee filter; Liza caught a whiff of hazelnut as the nids prodded her forward. She bet he had gotten it at the troglod market.
    â€œCome along, come along,” the mole said, turning on one furry heel and leading the way into the dark palace. “We heard you coming from a mile away—could have woken a slothbart with your screaming! The court is already assembled. Had to wake up the judge, and I’ll have you know he was not pleased, not pleased in the slightest....”
    â€œThe judge is known to be very strict,” Mirabella whispered to Liza, and Liza’s stomach turned.
    The corridor opened up into a vast, semicircular amphitheater chiseled from dark stone. It looked like the baseball stadium at Fenway Park, but thousands and thousands of years old. Hundreds of tiers of blackened stone seats were arranged in a semi-circle, stretching endlessly upward, and Liza saw a smattering of sleepy-looking troglods and other creatures—including a skunk, still wearing a tattered bedsheet around its shoulders—which had apparently gathered to watch the trial.
    Beyond the open amphitheater, Liza saw a river, which swirled with strange colors, opals and blues and deep purples, and emitted a vivid blue light. The river, Liza thought, must also be causing the strange shadows that flickered and floated and flew all around her.
    â€œSit!” the nid with her broom commanded, pointing Liza toward a rickety wooden bench. She regretted having brought the broom with her at all. It was getting very tedious to be poked and prodded by the bristles, and she began to sympathize with Mirabella’s great fear of the things.
    Liza took a seat on the bench. Mirabella sat down beside her. They were sitting directly in front of a wooden podium; Liza guessed this was where the judge would sit, when he—or she, or it—arrived.
    Mirabella was very