ARTEMIS FOWL by Eoin Colfer

Author:Eoin Colfer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141966649
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7: MULCH

TIME to introduce a new character to our otherworldly pageant. Well, not strictly speaking a new character. We have encountered him before, in the LEP booking line. On remand for numerous larcenies: Mulch Diggums, the kleptomaniac dwarf. A dubious individual, even by Artemis Fowl’s standards. As if this account didn’t already suffer from an overdose of amoral individuals.

Born to a typical dwarf cavern-dwelling family, Mulch had decided early that mining was not for him and resolved to put his talents to another use, namely digging and entering, generally entering Mud People’s property. Of course this meant forfeiting his magic. Dwellings were sacred. If you broke that rule, you had to be prepared to accept the consequences. Mulch didn’t mind. He didn’t care much for magic anyway. There had never been much use for it down the mines.

Things had gone pretty well for a few centuries, and he’d built up quite a lucrative above-ground memorabilia business. That was until he’d tried to sell the Jules Rimet Trophy to an undercover LEP operative. From then on his luck had turned, and he’d been arrested over twenty times to date. A total of 300 years in and out of prison.

Mulch had a prodigious appetite for tunnelling, and that, unfortunately, is a literal translation. For those unfamiliar with the mechanics of dwarf tunnelling, I shall endeavour to explain them as tastefully as possible. Like some members of the reptile family, dwarf males can unhinge their jaws, allowing them to ingest several kilos of earth a second. This material is processed by a super-efficient metabolism, stripped of any useful minerals and… ejected at the other end, as it were. Charming.

At present, Mulch was languishing in a stone-walled cell in LEP Central. At least, he was trying to project an image of a languishing, unperturbed kind of dwarf. Actually, he was quaking in his steel-toe-capped boots.

The goblin/dwarf turf war was flaring up at the moment and some bright spark LEP elf had seen fit to put him in a cell with a gang of psyched-up goblins. An oversight perhaps. More likely a spot of revenge for trying to pick his arresting officer’s pocket in the booking line.

‘So, dwarf,’ sneered the head-honcho goblin, a wart-faced fellow covered in tattoos. ‘How come you don’t chew your way outta here?’

Mulch rapped on the walls. ‘Solid rock.’

The goblin laughed. ‘So what? Can’t be any harder than your dwarf skull.’

His cronies laughed. So did Mulch. He thought it might be wise. Wrong.

‘You laughin’ at me, dwarf?’

Mulch stopped laughing.

‘With you,’ he corrected. ‘I’m laughing with you. That skull joke was pretty funny.’

The goblin advanced until his slimy nose was a centimetre from Mulch’s own. ‘You pay-tron-izin’ me, dwarf?’

Mulch swallowed, calculating. If he unhinged now, he could probably swallow the leader before the others reacted. Still, goblins were murder on the digestion. Very bony.

The goblin conjured up a fireball around his fist. ‘I asked you a question, stumpy.’

Mulch could feel every sweat gland on his body pop into instant overdrive. Dwarfs did not like fire.

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