Bartimaeus: The Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online Page A

central London and very proud of this responsibility. He supervised the Leathers section: a broad, low-ceilinged hall, dimly lit by orange lights and filled with expensive bags and briefcases made from cured animal skin. The leather goods were luxury items, which meant that the vast majority of customers were magicians.
    Kitty had visited the shop once or twice, and the darkly overpowering smell of the processed leather always made her head spin.
    “Stay out of the magicians’way,” her father said. “They’re very important people, and they don’t like anyone getting under their feet, even pretty little girls like you.”
    “How do I know who’s a magician?” Kitty asked. She was seven at the time, and wasn’t sure.
    “They’re always well dressed, their faces are stern and wise, and sometimes they have fine walking sticks. They wear expensive scents, but sometimes you can still catch hints of their magic: strange incenses, odd chemicals…. But if you smell that, the chances are you’ll be too close! Stay out of their way.”
    Kitty had promised faithfully. She scampered to far corners whenever customers entered the Leather hall and watched them with wide, curious eyes. Her father’s tips did not help much. Everyone visiting the store seemed well dressed, many carried sticks, and the stench of leather masked any unusual scents. But she soon began to pick out the magicians by other clues: a certain hardness in the visitors’eyes, their air of cool command and, above all, a sudden stiffening in her father’s manner. He always seemed awkward when talking with them, his suit newly wrinkled with anxiety, his tie nervously askew. He gave little bobs and bows of agreement as they spoke. These signs were very subtle, but they were enough for Kitty, and they disconcerted and even distressed her, though she hardly knew the reason why.
    Kitty’s mother worked as a receptionist at Palmer’s Quill Bureau, a long-established firm hidden among the many bookbinders and parchment makers of South London. The Bureau provided special quill pens for the magicians to use in their conjurations. Quills were messy, slow, and difficult to write with, and fewer magicians than ever bothered to use them. The staff of Palmer’s used ballpoints instead.
    The job allowed Kitty’s mother glimpses of the magicians themselves, since occasionally one would visit the Bureau to inspect a new consignment of pens. She found their proximity thrilling.
    “She was so glamorous,” she would say. “Her clothes were the finest red-gold taffeta—I’m sure they came from Byzantium itself! And she was so imperious, too! When she snapped her fingers, everyone jumped like crickets to do her bidding.”
    “Sounds rather rude to me,” Kitty said.
    “You’re so very young, love,” her mother said. “No, she was a great woman.”
    One day, when Kitty was ten years old, she came home from school to find her mother sitting tearfully in the kitchen.
    “Mum! What’s the matter?”
    “It’s nothing. Well, what am I saying?—I am hurt a little. Kitty, I am afraid … I am afraid that I have been made redundant. Oh dear, what are we going to tell your father?”
    Kitty sat her mother down, made her a pot of tea, and brought her a biscuit. Over much snuffling, sipping, and sighing, the truth came out. Old Mr. Palmer had retired. His firm had been acquired by a trio of magicians, who disliked having ordinary commoners on their staff; they had brought in new personnel and sacked half the original employees, including Kitty’s mother.
    “But they can’t do that,” Kitty had protested.
    “Of course they can. It’s their right. They protect the country, make us the greatest nation in the world; they have many privileges”—her mother dabbed at her eyes and took another slurp of tea—“but even so, it is a little hurtful, after so many years….”
    Hurtful or not, that was the last day that Kitty’s mother worked at Palmer’s. A few weeks