Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier

Author:Jonathan Auxier
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP (CANADA)
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SIMON and the MISSING ONES

Peter awoke to the smell of flour. Not the boring perennials that wise men are constantly badgering us to stop and smell, but the white powdery stuff meant for baking and booby traps. Whoever it was that kidnapped him had tied an old flour sack over his head. Peter breathed the dusty air and immediately began sneezing. This led to a gust of flour shooting straight up his nose that made him sneeze all the more. With each sternutation came a sharp pain in back of his head, which was still sore from his ambush outside the Eating Hall. It felt like his fall had reopened the gash in his crown—his temple was pounding something fierce, and he could feel blood trickling down into one ear.

The boy tried moving, only to discover that his entire body had been wrapped from top to bottom in a giant chain. To ensure he didn’t wriggle free, a collection of old manacles had been clamped pell-mell to his limbs. From what he could feel, Peter had about ten locks on each arm, fifteen on each leg, and two big ones clenched tightly around his neck. He could tell that the locks were each rusted over, which would not make escaping from them any easier.

Through the flour sack, Peter could hear muffled footsteps and voices approaching. He let his head fall limp—it was probably smart to feign unconsciousness until he could figure out who, exactly, was holding him captive. Silently digging his left pinkie into the keyhole of an ankle bracelet, the master thief did his best to make out what the voices were saying.

“What have you done to him?” a young voice pressed. “We agreed never to use those chains.”

“S-s-sorry, Your Majesty! We tried to tie him up like you wanted, but he just kept slipping out of the ropes!” This second voice sounded husky, as if the speaker were fighting back tears. Peter was fairly sure they were both girls.

“Scrape,” the first girl chided. “I thought you said he was unconscious when you brought him down?”

“He was unconscious!” a boy voice responded. “But every time we cinched a knot, he’d just twitch his arm and the whole thing’d come undone. Like escaping came natural as breathing to him. It was creepy.” They had caught Peter performing the Drowsy Dodger. The Drowsy Dodger was an old trick some passing sea-gypsies had taught him years earlier; it involves training your fingers to untie knots in your sleep. Because practicing requires unconsciousness, the skill is notoriously difficult to master. Peter grinned underneath his hood—apparently, he was pretty good at it.

The one named Scrape went on. “We finally had to give up and just use our old shackles. I know we weren’t supposed to, Your Majesty, but we didn’t have nothing else!”

Peter found himself puzzled by the conversation. His captors all sounded very young and a little bit frightened. Stranger still, one of the girls was being called “Your Majesty.”

“You gotta believe us, Your Majesty!” the tearful girl said.

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