The Infernals by John Connolly Read Free Book Online Page B

hand our lovely castle over to this lot?” said Angry. “It’d be like surrendering it to powder puffs.”
    “No,” said Jolly softly. “No, there’s such a thing as pride, as dignity. We can’t have this. We just can’t.”
    “What are they saying?” Twinkle asked the director nervously. “They look frighteningy.”
    “I want to go home,” said Starlight. “I don’t like the little men.”
    “The ground feels funny, and it smells like poo,” said Gemini.
    “And I’m Phil,” said Phil.
    The director was already backing away. He didn’t care for the look in the elves’ eyes. He didn’t care for it at all.
    Hey, he thought, they’re not elves. They’re dwarfs. They’re not Mr. Merryweather’s Elves, they’re Mr. Merryweather’s—
    Dwarfs!
    He was already running, four terrified boy band members at his heels, as the first rocks began to rain down on them, for Mr. Merryweather’s Elves were intent upon defending Lollymore Castle even if they had to take it apart brick by brick to do so.

In Which Samuel Is Reunited with Boswell, and We Learn Why One Should Not Trust a Mirror
     
    A S SUCH TALES WILL do, the story of how Samuel Johnson had managed to ask a letter box on a date had made its way around the entire school by the time the bell rang to send everyone home.
    “Hey, Johnson!” Lionel Hashim shouted at him as he made his way to the school gates. “I hear there’s a very good-looking traffic light over on Shelley Road. You could ask it to go to the cinema with you. Don’t try to kiss it, though. It might go red!”
    Funny, thought Samuel. Really funny. His bag, and his heart, felt very heavy.
    Outside the gates, Samuel’s pet dachshund, Boswell, was waiting. Boswell had the worried air of one who suspects thatbad news is imminent, and its arrival has only been delayed by the fact that it’s looking for some more bad news to keep it company. A series of frown lines creased Boswell’s brow, and at regular intervals he would give a sigh. He was a familiar sight around the town of Biddlecombe, but particularly at the school, for Boswell was Samuel Johnson’s faithful companion, and was always present to greet his master when the bell struck four.
    Boswell had always been a somewhat sensitive, contemplative dog. 15 Even as a puppy, he would regard his ball warily, as though waiting for it to sprout legs and run off with another dog. He displayed a fondness for the sadder types of classical music, and had been known to howl along to Mozart’s Requiem in a plaintive manner.
    But recent events had given Boswell good cause to think that the world was an even stranger and more worrying place than he had previously thought. After all, he had witnessed monsters emerging from holes in space, and had even been injured byone as he attempted to save his master from its clutches. One of his legs had been broken, and ever since he had walked with a slight limp. Being a dog, although a very clever one, Boswell wasn’t entirely clear about the nature of what had occurred during the invasion. All he knew was that it had been very bad, and he didn’t want it to happen again. Most of all, he didn’t want anything to happen to Samuel, whom he loved very much, and so each morning, regardless of the weather, Boswell would trot along beside his beloved master as Samuel walked to school, and would be waiting for him when he emerged from school at the end of the day. A flap in the front door of the house meant that he could come and go as he pleased. Boswell’s duty was to protect Samuel, and he intended to fulfill it to the best of a small dog’s ability.
    That day Boswell detected a change in Samuel’s usually sunny disposition. While some dogs might have made an effort to cheer up their master under such circumstances, perhaps by chasing their tail or showing them something that smelled funny, Boswell was the kind of dog that shared his master’s mood. If Samuel was happy, then Boswell was content. If