Ellie Quin Book 2: The World According to Ellie Quin by Alex Scarrow Read Free Book Online Page B

burning steadily on a low table in front of a hooded figure, which sat on a pile of scattered cushions on the floor.
    ‘Uh…hello.
Kazan
, is it?’ whispered Jez, a little self-consciously. ‘We’ve come to have our fortunes told.’
    The hooded figure stirred slightly, then after a moment of stillness, an arm emerged from within the voluminous robes and gestured to some cushions in front of the table. Ellie caught a glimpse of the boojam’s skin. By the candle-light it looked pale, densely textured and contoured with wrinkles, like very old suede or leather. The arm ended with an odd hand; two equally long and thick digits splayed like a ‘Y’.
    ‘You coming in, and sitting here,’ Kazan said, his voice rustled like dry leaves caught by a breeze. To Ellie, the asthmatic rustling and whispering behind the words reminded her of restless and hungry tubweeds stirring impatiently.
    ‘Thank you,’ she replied, taking a seat on the floor in front of the low table. Jez sat down beside her.
    ‘For three creds you’d think they could afford chairs,’ Jez muttered. Ellie shushed her.
    Kazam’s hood twitched oddly and they both heard a sniffing sound coming from within the darkened folds. All of a sudden, a pale tentacle-like shape emerged from the hood, from where Ellie assumed the creature’s face must be. The pale tentacle arced upwards and towards both girls like a strange headless cobra rearing up in readiness to strike at them. Ellie pulled back nervously and grabbed her friend’s hand.
    ‘Hey, relax,’ said Jez calmly, ‘it’s all part of the show.’
    The tentacle probed the air then, after a moment of hesitation, it drifted towards Jez, holding a position several inches in front of her face; two bulbous glands surrounded by wrinkles of loose skin, a small moist hole between the glands that puckered and flexed. It wafted gently to and fro as it delicately sampled the air around her.
    Jez giggled. ‘It looks like a man’s dingy-thingy.’
    ‘Uh?’
    ‘You know, a guy-handle? A meat joystick.’
    ‘Eww.’ Ellie wrinkled her face in disgust. ‘They look like that?’
    ‘Seriously?’ Jez looked at her. ‘You’ve never got this close to a-’
    ‘You am wanting future, tell?’ The dry whispering voice came from beneath the hood. Impatient.
    ‘Oh, sorry. Yes, we do!’ Jez replied. ‘My friend, Ellie here, and I….well we have a plan. We want to-’
    Ellie grasped Jez’s arm. ‘See if he can guess what our plan is first,’ she whispered.
    Jez paused for a moment. ‘Good idea,’ she replied quietly. ‘Okay, see…we’ve got something we both want to do, Mr Kazan. Can you guess what it is?’
    Kazan’s body wobbled under his cloak and they heard what sounded like laughter. ‘What goal you am wish to do?’
    Both girls nodded, ‘yes.’
    ‘Like me, of course…am wishing leave planet,’ he replied. ‘Too tired of here, am wishing to go.’
    Ellie looked at Jez and squeezed her hand with excitement. ‘Wow. He guessed! That’s incredible!’
    ‘Aw freg. That’s a pretty easy guess, Ellie.’ Jez replied quietly, as the boojam’s trunk-like nose continued to hover inches away from her face. ‘That was too easy.’
    Kazam’s form wobbled again. ‘Yes. Is far too easy. Planet sucks.’
    The girls looked at each other and giggled.
    ‘Now, you want I to read future path you am taking?’
    Both of them nodded. ‘Yeah,’ they chorused enthusiastically.
    The boojam inhaled deeply, his body expanding under the cloak as they heard the air whistling into twin slits at the end of his trunk.
    ‘Ahhhhh,’ Kazan exhaled after a moment and the air he had sucked in blew back out of the trunk into Jez’s face. She grimaced at the rancid smell coming back at her. ‘You lady, sense you strong…strong as many. You am lived long time here, now time comes soon when you am planning to leave.’
    The mirth on Jez’s face began to vanish with the mysterious, hypnotic rustling of his voice. She was