Printer's Devil (9780316167826) by Bajoria Paul

Author:Bajoria, Paul [BAJORIA, PAUL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316089104
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2009-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

9

HIS LORDSHIP

Just as I was telling myself the noise I’d made falling through the wall must surely bring the man from Calcutta back up the stairs to investigate, I felt something wet in my face. In a surge of panic I thought it must be the snake again; but there was something too affectionate, too altogether familiar, about the sensation.

“Lash?” I whispered in astonishment.

He responded to his name by intensifying his licking, his whiskers tickling my face so much I eventually had to push him away in spite of my relief. Pulling myself into a sitting position, I suddenly realized where I was. I was in my own room above Cramplock’s shop. I’d fallen through the wall from the house next door into the cupboard of my own bedroom!

Things began to make sense. As I wrapped my arms around Lash’s neck, I realized exactly how the snake had been able to get in and out of my room the previous night. The bricks of the dividing wall between my room and the hiding place next door were obviously so loose, the man from Calcutta must just have been able to lift one out and let the snake slide through. At any time of the day or night, he could send it into my room, or come sneaking in himself, just by moving a few bricks! Holding onto Lash’s neck to steady myself, I got to my feet and began to brush the dust off myself.

Somehow I had to tell Mr. Cramplock about the wall, so he could get it cemented up as a matter of urgency. Otherwise, I realized with a shiver of fear, I was in real danger of being killed while I lay asleep.

There was no sound in the house, and the place was in darkness — Cramplock had obviously gone home — but there were bricks everywhere, and I’d have to put them back, or the man from Calcutta would immediately discover the hole when he returned.

When I’d finished it looked a bit lopsided, but at least there were no gaping holes, and I told myself it would have to do. It had been a long day, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to lie down. But questions were still darting around my tired head like fireflies. Where might the man from Calcutta have been going with his snake? Wherever he was by now, I was sure he was up to no good.

Lash had disappeared out of the room and I whistled to summon him up from the printing shop downstairs, where he was no doubt sniffing around doing his

nightly checks, satisfying himself before bedtime that everything was where it should be, and smelled as it should smell. With a scrabble of feet on the steps he was back, and, as I bent to make a fuss of him, I saw he had something in his mouth.

“Where did you get that?” I asked him.

It was a piece of paper. At first he hung onto it, treating it as a game as I tried to free it from his jaws.

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