Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones Read Free Book Online

sight.”
    He would, Polly thought, if he wasn’t there anyway. All the same, it was a relief to rush up the path to her own front door and burst breathlessly inside.
    Ivy met them in the hall, carrying a long, fat envelope. She handed it to Polly. She was still in her mood. “This came for you,” she said in her stony mood-voice. “What have you been up to now?”
    “Nothing, Mum!” Polly exclaimed, genuinely surprised. The envelope was addressed in Granny’s writing, to Miss Polly Whittacker. At the back, somewhat torn where Mum had slit the envelope open, Granny had written: Sorry, Polly. I opened this. It wasn’t a mistake. You never know with strange men . Inside was another envelope, fat and crackly, with a typed address to Polly at Granny’s house. It was slit open too. Polly looked at it, mystified, and then up at her mother. “Why did you open it as well?”
    Nina took a look at their faces and tiptoed away upstairs to Polly’s room.
    Ivy smoothed at her beautifully set hair. “It was from Granny,” she said in a stony voice. “It might – I thought – It could have been something to do with your father.” Two tears oozed from her eyes. She shook them away so angrily that some salty water splashed on Polly’s mouth. “Stop standing staring at me, can’t you!” she said. “Go upstairs and play!”
    There seemed nothing Polly could do but climb the stairs to her room. There, Nina was busily setting out a dolls’ tea party. Polly could taste salt still, but she pretended not to notice it and sat on her bed and opened her letter. It was typed, like the envelope, but not in an official way. Polly could see mistakes in it, all the way down the first page, some crossed out with the right word written above in ink, some crossed by typed slanting lines and sorry! typed before the right word.
    The paper it was typed on was a mad mixture, all different sizes. The first page was smooth and good and quite small. The next page was large and yellowish. There followed two pages of furry paper with blue lines on, which must have been torn out of a notebook, and the last pages had clumps of narrow lines, like telegraph wires, printed across them. Polly, after blinking a little, recognised these pages as music paper. At this stage, delicately and gently, almost holding her breath, Polly turned to the very last page. The end of the letter was halfway down it, followed by an extra bit labelled P.S . She read, With best wishes to my assistant trainee-hero, Thomas G. Lynn. The name was signed in ink, but quite easy to read.
    It really was from Mr Lynn, then. Polly felt her whole face move, as if there was a tight layer under her skin, from solemn to a great, beaming smile. Polly, in those days, was slow at reading. Long before she had finished the letter, Nina had given up even threatening. She played crossly on the floor by herself, and only looked up once or twice when Polly laughed out loud.
    Dear Polly,
    After I had to run away so abrbubtly – sorry! – suddendly, I had quite a while to sit on the train and think, and it seemed to me that we still had a lot of details to settle conconcerning our secret lives. Most of the things are question oin s-sorry! – I need to aks you. You know more about thseses things than I do. But one thing I could settle was our first avdenture – sorry! – vadntrue – sorry! – job with the giant. I think it happened like this. Of course if you think differntly, please say so, and I shall risk your annoyance by agreeing with you. Here goes.
    The first thing you must rememember is that Mr Thomas Piper is very strong. He may look exactly like me – not unlike and ostrich in gold – rimmed glasses – but he has muscles which I, in my false identity as a mere cellist, lack. Every morning he lifts mighty sin-sorry!-sun-blistered wooden shutters, two of them, from the windows of his shop and carries them away indoors. He follows this by carrying outside to the pavement such items