The Infernals by John Connolly Read Free Book Online

lot,” he told them. “A good one and all.”
    “Eh, it wouldn’t involve being a dwarf, would it?” asked Angry.
    “Well, yes.”
    “What a shocker. You know, it’s not as if we wake up every morning and think, ‘Oh look, we’re dwarfs. Didn’t expect that. I thought I was taller.’ No, we’re just regular people who happen to be small. It doesn’t define us.”
    “What’s your point?” asked Mr. Merryweather wearily.
    “Our point is,” said Jolly, “that we’d like to do something where being a dwarf is just incidental. For example, why can’t I play Hamlet?”
    “Because you’re three foot eight inches tall, that’s why. You can’t play Hamlet. Piglet, maybe, but not Hamlet.” 14
    “Less of that,” said Jolly. “That’s what I’m talking about, see? That kind of attitude keeps us oppressed.”
    That, thought Mr. Merryweather, and the fact that you all drink too much, and can’t be bothered to learn lines, and would pick your own pockets just to pass the time.
    “Look, it’s just the way the world works,” said Mr. Merryweather. “It’s not me. I’m trying to do my best, but you don’t help matters with your behavior. We can’t even do
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
in panto this year because you fought withMrs. Doris Stott’s Magnificent Midgets, so we’re three little people down. Nobody wants to watch
Snow White and the Four Dwarfs.
It just doesn’t sound right.”
    “You could tell them it’s a budget production,” said Angry.
    “We could double up,” said Dozy.
    “You can barely single up,” said Mr. Merryweather.
    “Careful,” said Dozy.
    And after they’d bickered and argued for another half hour, he had eventually managed to tell them about the job, and they had reluctantly agreed to earn some money. Mr. Merryweather had climbed behind the wheel and thought, not for the first time, that he understood why people liked tossing dwarfs around, and wondered if he could convince someone to toss his dwarfs, preferably off a high cliff.
    They had arrived at Lollymore Castle, not far from the town of Biddlecombe, early that morning. It was cold and damp, and the dwarfs were already complaining before they even got out of the van. Still, they were given tea to warm them up, and then dressed in the costumes that had been specially made for them: little suits of armor, little coats of chain mail, lightweight helmets.
    Then they were handed swords and maces, and Mr. Merryweather had sprinted from the van to stop them from killing someone.
    “For crying out loud, don’t give them weapons,” he said, grabbing Jolly’s arm just in time to stop him from braining an assistant director with a mace. “They might, er, hurt themselves.”
    He patted Jolly on the head. “They’re only little fellas, you know.” He hugged Jolly in the manner of a friendly uncle embracing a much-loved nephew, and received a kick in the shin for his trouble.
    “Gerroff,” said Jolly. “And give me back my mace.”
    “Look, don’t hit anyone with it,” hissed Mr. Merryweather.
    “It’s a mace. It’s
for
hitting people with.”
    “But you’re only supposed to be pretending. It’s a video.”
    “Well, they want it to look real, don’t they?”
    “Not that real. Not
funeral
real.”
    Jolly conceded that Mr. Merryweather had a point, and the dwarfs went to inspect the castle as the director pointed out their “marks,” the places on the battlements where they were supposed to stand during filming.
    “What’s our motivation?” asked Angry. “Why are we here?”
    “What do you mean?” said the director. “You’re defending the castle.”
    “This castle?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is it ours?”
    “Of course it’s yours.”
    “I beg to differ. The steps are too big. I nearly did myself an injury climbing up those steps. Almost ruptured something, I did. If we’d built this castle, we’d have made the steps smaller. Can’t be ours. Makes no sense.”
    The director pinched the bridge