Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms by Lissa Evans

Author:Lissa Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
Published: 2012-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Cycling with a scrapbook under his arm wasn’t easy, and halfway home, as Stuart rounded a corner, the book slid out from under his elbow, spinning ahead of him along the road, pages fluttering. A newspaper clipping detached itself from the last page, and Stuart got off his bike and chased the slip of paper along the sidewalk.

As he grabbed it and shoved it back into the book, he realized that he could hear running footsteps behind him and he turned and saw a chunky man in green trousers tearing around the corner at full speed, arms pumping like a sprinter. A second later the man saw Stuart, stopped dead, spun on his heel, and darted back out of view again.

Stuart stood staring. He’d recognized the man. It was Clifford, the trainee magician. Overhead, a white dove flew in a lazy loop and settled on top of a lamppost.

Jeannie’s ordered him to follow me, thought Stuart. She’s hoping that I’ll lead the way to the workshop.

He got back on his bike again and pedaled off very slowly. He took the next left, cycled halfway along the road, then shoved his bike under a parked car and crouched behind it. Sure enough, thirty seconds later, pounding footsteps approached. They thundered straight past and around the next corner. Grinning, Stuart got his bike out again and rode home in the other direction.

He felt full of purpose and energy, and as soon as he’d hidden the scrapbook in his room and had eaten a bag of potato chips, a ham sandwich, four pickled onions, a lump of cheese, two more pickled onions, and another bag of potato chips, he was ready to set out again.

“Whither your current destination?” asked his father.

“The library. Mom said they’d phoned me yesterday about a book.”

“Oh, splendid. Do you mind if I accompany you?”

They walked there together, and Stuart waited until his father was transfixed by volume three of The History of European Lexicography before he set off for the information desk.

“Aha!” said the same man as before, his glasses still dangling on a chain around his neck. “It’s our local history scholar. Stay there just a moment.”

He disappeared into a back room, and Stuart waited impatiently, drumming his fingers on the desktop.

“And here we are,” said the man, reappearing. “We’ve re-inserted the missing photograph. Do not forget the gloves.”

Stuart took the little book over to a table and eased the white gloves onto his fingers. He opened Modern Beeton: A Photographic Record and spotted a little paragraph that he hadn’t noticed before, tucked away in tiny print at the bottom of the title page:

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