Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer

Author:Eoin Colfer [Colfer, Eoin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-10T13:33:44+00:00

Below Fowl Manor and a Little to the Left

Nobody, human or fairy, had been declared dead more times than Mulch Diggums, and it was a record he was inordinately proud of. In Mulch’s eyes, being declared dead by the LEP was just a less embarrassing way for them to admit that he had escaped for the umpteenth time. In the Sozzled Parrot fugitives’ bar, LEP death certificates were printed up and tacked to the Wall of Heroes.

Mulch had fond memories of the very first time he had faked his own death to throw police officers off his trail.

My gods, could that really be over two hundred years ago now? Time flies faster than wind through a bum flap, as Grandmother used to say, bless her.

He’d been on a job with his cousin Nord, on Haven’s moneyed mountain, when the homeowner had come home unexpectedly from the convention in Atlantis where he was supposed to be living it up on taxpayers’ gold for two more days.

I hate it when they come home early, thought Mulch. Why do people do that when there’s a very good chance they will find burglars in their living rooms?

Anyway, the homeowner happened to be ex–law enforcement and the registered owner of a buzz baton, which he had used on the dwarf cousins with great gusto. Nord managed to escape into their tunnel, but Mulch had been forced to clutch his heart, faking a cardiac, and then crash through a window, playing dead all the way down to the river below.

Corpsing was the hard part, remembered Mulch. There is nothing more unnatural than keeping your arms slack when they want to be pinwheeling.

LEP had interviewed the ex–law enforcement homeowner, who had emphatically claimed: Yeah, I killed him. It was an accident, of course. I only meant to maim that dwarf, then kick him senseless; but you can put that sucker down as dead. Nobody can corpse for three stories.

And so Mulch Diggums was declared deceased for the first time. There would be twelve more official occasions on which people mistakenly thought Mulch had flown the final coop; and he was, unbeknownst to himself, tunneling toward an unofficial one at this very moment.

His instructions were simple enough. Dig a parallel tunnel to the one he had recently collapsed, sneak into the crashed Cupid, and then steal any weapons that were in the locker. Dig, sneak, and steal. Three of Mulch’s four favorite verbs.

I do not know why I am doing this, Mulch thought as he tunneled. I should be heading down to the crust to find myself a nice crevice. They say that Opal’s death wave will only kill humans, but why take such irresponsible chances with the great gift of life?

Mulch knew that this reasoning was a crock of troll patties, but he found he could dig better if he was annoyed, even if he was the object of his own annoyance. And so the dwarf fumed silently as he churned up through the earth toward the shuttle wreck.

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