Kill Fish Jones by Caro King Read Free Book Online Page B

boy got bored and went in some time between 10.45 and 11.30. If he stayed out until the later time, his mother called to him from thewindow. There wasn’t a lot of variation, apart from the time the kid got bored.
    Flipping his ears, Grimshaw pulled off his backpack. Then he fished out an old school ruler and a battered copy of
How to Be a Dutiful Housewife
by Eliza Minchin and set to work. He had taken Mrs Minchin from the bookshelf of his first ever Sufferer to use as a prompt. The way it worked was this. First he held up the book and dropped it so that it fell open at random. Then he picked up the ruler and placed it anywhere on the page. Next, he looked along the line made by the ruler and wrote down the first words that caught his eye. Then he did it all again.
    After a few goes he had written down a string of haphazard phrases. They said:
    â€¦ silver, knives for example …
    â€¦ always chop the vegetables into small pieces …
    â€¦ look for materials that …
    â€¦ the stone should be scraped free of …
    Then he closed his actual eyes, opened his inner eye and looked again. This time he saw:
    Falling knives chop into small pieces. Look at the stone.
    He grinned, showing a row of small, yellowish stumpy teeth. He returned the book and his ruler to his backpack, stuffed his notebook into his pocket, then went to look for the stone as suggested by Eliza Minchin.
    He found it very quickly, and when he found it he changed its position by one centimetre to the north andthree to the west. It took experimentation to get the right place, moving it a little, checking the most likely futures, moving it a little more, checking again and so on, but eventually he found the right spot.
    Then he went back to the rhododendrons.

    Fish couldn’t believe it when the curse demon fiddled with the oversized watch on its wrist and disappeared. Especially as it vanished right about the time that Jon was telling them about the cottage on the moors.
    â€˜Nothing for miles but empty heath. If you can get lost anywhere, then it’s in Crow’s Cottage! Time itself would pass you by in that place. My parents liked to go there when they felt life was rushing by too fast. When my father died he left the place to me, but what with one thing and another, Emily …’ he paused for a moment, his face twisting briefly, ‘… and I haven’t been up there for a couple of years.’
    â€˜And you think we might be safe there?’
    â€˜If you can be safe anywhere. It’s been deserted for a while so it will be in a state, but we can clean it up and stay there for as long as we need to.’
    Susan glanced at Fish, who nodded. ‘It’s worth a try, Jon,’ she said. ‘Besides, what have we got to lose? If what you say is true, then every moment that passes, our lives are in danger here. We might be under this horrible threat wherever we go, but then again, we might outrun it.’
    â€˜We can take Reg’s van,’ said Marsha. ‘Load it up with as much food, clothing and bedding as we can and off we go. Won’t take long. We can be on the road by this afternoon.’ She clasped her hands together and her cheeks looked flushed with determination. ‘Don’t worry, dears, we’ll manage somehow.’
    Susan smiled. ‘I have to say, Marsha, you are coping with this far better than I would have thought.’
    Marsha shrugged and sent a glance at Fish, the memory of his stern glance yesterday afternoon suddenly fresh in her mind. ‘I think I finally woke up, Susan. This is really happening. I’ve lost my beloved Reg, and the only family I have left in the world, the people I care about, are in danger. If living in a fallen-down cottage at the end of the world will save us, then my best china, my chandeliers and my upholstery can go hang!’
    Jon smiled at her, the first real smile Fish had seen from him. ‘That’s the spirit! Now,