Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online Page A

now. Anyway, look around. We’re not really coping, are
we?”
    George yawned. “What makes you say that?” He gave an almighty stretch and knocked over the pile of ironing, which collapsed on my head. Like a giant amoeba undulating purposefully
across a petri dish, a pair of George’s briefs flopped slowly past my nose.
    “Case in point,” Lockwood said as I shook myself free. “One of you should have sorted all that. But you haven’t had time.”
    “Or
you
could always iron them, of course,” George said.
    “Me? I’m even busier than you.”
    This was the way it always went now. We were working so hard at night, we had no energy for doing stuff during the day. So we no longer got around to inessential things, such as keeping the
place tidy or sorting the laundry. All of 35 Portland Row was suffering. The kitchen looked like a salt-bomb had gone off in it. Even the skull in the jar, no stranger to vile surroundings, had
made indignant comments about the environment we lived in.
    “If we had another agent,” Lockwood said, “we could properly take turns. One of us could rest at home each night and do odd jobs during the day. I’ve been considering
this for a while. It’s the only answer, I think.”
    George and I were silent. The idea of a new colleague didn’t much appeal to me. In fact, it gave me a twisty sort of feeling in my belly. Overstretched as we definitely were, I
liked
the way we operated. As we had at Lavender Lodge, we backed each other up when necessary, and we got things done.
    “Are you sure?” I said at last. “Where would they sleep?”
    “Not on the floor,” George said. “They’d probably get some disease.”
    “Well, they’re not sharing the attic with me.”
    “They wouldn’t have to
sleep
here, you idiots,” Lockwood growled. “Since when has living under the same roof been a requirement for the job? They could turn up
for work in the morning, like ninety-nine percent of other people do.”
    “Maybe it’s not a full agent that we need,” I suggested. “Maybe we just need an assistant. Someone to tidy up after us. In all the important stuff, surely, we’re
doing fine.”
    “I agree with Lucy.” George returned to his comic. “We’ve got a good setup here. We shouldn’t mess it up.”
    “Well, I’ll think about it,” Lockwood said.
    The truth was, of course, that Lockwood was far too busy to think about it at all, and so nothing was ever likely to happen. Which suited me just fine. I’d been at the
company eighteen months so far. Yes, we were overworked; yes, we lived in partial squalor. Yes, we risked our lives almost every night. Yet I was very happy.
    Why? Three reasons: my colleagues, my new self-knowledge, and because of an opened door.
    Of all the agencies in London, Lockwood & Co. was unique. Not just because it was the smallest (total number of agents: three), but because it was owned and run by someone who was
himself
young. Other agencies employed hundreds of child operatives—they had to, of course, because only children could detect ghosts—but these companies were firmly controlled
by adults who never got closer to a haunted house than shouting distance across the street. Lockwood, however, was a leader who fought ghosts himself—his skills with the rapier were second to
none—and I knew I was lucky to work at his side. Lucky in a
lot
of ways. Not only was he independent, but he was an inspiring companion, managing to be both coolly unflappable and
recklessly audacious at the same time. And his air of mystery only added to his allure.
    Lockwood seldom spoke of his emotions, desires, or the influences that drove him, and in the first year of living at Portland Row, I had learned almost nothing about his past. His absent parents
were an enigma, even though their possessions hung on every wall. How he’d come to own the house, with enough money to start his own agency, I likewise didn’t have a clue. To begin
with, this didn’t