Twelve-year-old Carmen has a secret: she can talk to her cat Grim. But the powerful Brotherhood has banned pets, and the penalty is death.
Ward is the most wanted boy in the world. The only thing standing between him and the hangman's noose is maste...
Jaggles removed the stem of his baccus from his mouth and blew a smoke ring into the air. He watched it float away and dissipate before answering. "Still got that bag of feathers? You know them things carry the plague."
"I've only had Ludwig five years. You're confusing him with Igor."
Jaggles replied with a look of disdain. He planted both hands on both knees, got up from the Smoking Chair with a long squealing fart, and loped off towards the shack. The old man walked beside him. Ward followed at a distance, like a dog.
Inside the shack Jaggles turned on Ward. "Get in the bloody kitchen and put the bloody kettle on."
Ward slunk away.
The room smelled of salt and fish and furs, cluttered with furniture, its roof hung with old ropes and buoys and cobwebs, the mantelpiece a jumble of rickshaw and tallow candles and whale oil lamps and abalone shells and peculiar rocks found about the island. From the kitchen Ward could hear the conversation over the hiss and splutter of the kettle and the red roar of the pot-bellied stove in the corner.
"You bloody well took your time getting here," Jaggles said, by way of introduction.
"It was in nobody's interest for me to come earlier," the old man replied.
"It was in my interest. He's a liability." Jaggles was proud to know this word, and used it as often as he could.
"I imagine he's been rather more helpful than not."
"You have a bloody active imagination then."
"In that case I'm sure he'll be a bargain."
Jaggles laughed. "You sail all the way out here but'll go back empty-handed if the price is too steep? That happens and I'll eat my frying-pan." This was a common declaration of Jaggles. Ward had never understood why the frying pan above all other cookware was threatened so.
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There's a small crippled boy who wants you to vote on this chapter.
I know, because I crippled him myself to inspire you.
