Mister Monday by Garth Nix Read Free Book Online Page B

Surely nothing could happen now?
    But as he stepped out of the car at the front entrance and his mother drove away, he saw five bowler-hatted, black-suited men suddenly rise like lifted string puppets between the cars in the teachers’ parking lot, off to his right. They saw him too and began to move through the ranks of cars towards him. They walked in strange straight lines, changing direction in sudden right angles to avoid students and teachers who obviously couldn’t see them.
    More of the dog-faces appeared to the left. Arthur saw them issue out of the ground, as dark vapors that in a second solidified into dog-faced, bowler-hatted, black-suited men.
    Dog-faces to the left. Dog-faces to the right. But there were none straight ahead. Arthur ran a few steps, his breath caught, and he knew he couldn’t run and risk another asthma attack. He slowed down, his eyes darting across at the two groups of approaching dog-faces, his mind rapidly calculating their speed and direction.
    If he walked quickly up the main promenade and the steps, he would still get inside before the dog-faced men caught up with him.
    He did walk quickly, ducking around loitering groups of students. For the first time, he was grateful nobody knew him at this school, so no one said, “Wait up, Arthur!” or tried to stop him to talk, which would have happened for sure at his old school.
    He made it to the steps. The dog-faces were gaining on him, were only ten or fifteen yards behind, and the steps ahead were crowded, mainly with older students. Arthur couldn’t push through them, so he had to zig and zag and weave his way through, calling out, “Sorry!” and “Excuse me!” as he went.
    He was almost at the main doors and what he hoped would be safety beyond when someone grabbed his backpack and brought him to an abrupt halt.
    For an instant, Arthur thought the dog-faces had gotten him. Then he heard words that reassured him, despite the threatening tone.
    “You knock the man, you pay the price!”
    The boy who held Arthur’s bag was much bigger, but not really mean-looking. It was hard to look ultra-tough in a school uniform. He even had his tie done up properly. Arthur picked him instantly as a would-be tough guy, not the real thing.
    “I’m going to throw!” he said, holding his hand over his mouth and blowing out his cheeks.
    The not-so-tough guy let go of Arthur so quickly that they both staggered apart. Because Arthur was expecting it, he recovered first. He jumped up the next three steps at one go, only a few yards ahead of a swarm of bowler-hatted dog-faces. They were everywhere, like a flock of ravens descending on a piece of meat. Students and teachers got out of their way without realizing why they were doing so, many of them looking puzzled as they suddenly stopped or stepped sideways or jumped aside, as if they didn’t know what they were doing.
    For a second, Arthur thought he wouldn’t make it. The dog-faces were at his heels and he could hear them panting and snorting. He could even smell their breath, just as Leaf had said. It stank of rotten meat, worse than an alley full of garbage at the back of a restaurant. The smell and the sound of their slathering lent him extra speed. He lunged up the last few steps, collided with the swing doors, and fell through.
    He was up again in an instant, ready to run, his breath already shortening, lungs tightening. Fear gripped him, fear that the dog-faces would come through the doors and that he would have an asthma attack and be powerless to resist them.
    But the dog-faces didn’t come through the school’s main entrance. Instead they clustered at the doors, pressing their flat faces against the glass panels. They really did look like a cross between bloodhounds and men, Arthur saw, with their little piggy eyes, pushed-in faces, droopy cheeks, and lolling tongues that smeared the windows. Kind of like Winston Churchill on a very bad day. Strangely, they had all taken their bowler hats