The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

Author:Lauren Oliver [Oliver, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 144472312X
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

THE QUEEN’S SPIES, AND THE WAY ACROSS THE CHASM

The air grew cold and thin, and Liza wrapped her arms around her waist and panted cold white clouds into the air. Higher up, she and Mirabella came across groups of birds massed among the rocks.

Birds, or bats; Liza could not decide. They were as ugly as bats—large, about the size of vultures, with webbed wings, hooded eyes, and long, sharp beaks. They were white and featherless. Looking at them gave Liza an uncomfortable, itchy feeling and reminded her of standing in the front of Mr. Toddle’s classroom, reciting her multiplication tables; she’d had the same feeling then of being scrutinized and evaluated.

The birds—or bats—followed Liza and Mirabella’s progress carefully. As they passed among the rocks, a few of the creatures lifted off from their perches, gliding into the darkness on silent wings.

“She knows we’re here now,” Mirabella said in an excited whisper, watching the enormous bird-things circling above them.

“Who’s she?” Liza asked.

“The queen of the spindlers,” Mirabella said, and Liza felt a zip of anxiety run up her spine. “The moribats keep watch for her. Spies, secret-spillers, and tattle-tellers—that’s what they are.”

“Shouldn’t we hide?” Liza asked.

The rat tutted at her. “No way to hide from the moribats. Nothing happens Below that the moribats don’t find out about eventually. It’s too late anyway; she knows we’re here, and she knows what we’re coming for, too.”

Liza did not at all like the way Mirabella pronounced the word she, as though it was something very large and very frightening.

Above them, the circling moribats gave a shrill cry. The noise was terrible and made a dagger of ice-cold fear drive through Liza’s center. The noise made her think of children abandoned in barren places without enough to eat; and open graves; and dark, bleak winter nights when through the thin air came the sounds of cars skidding and crashing on Route 47; and the squeak of a gurney’s wheels on a hospital floor. It made her think of everything that was sad and lonely and depressing in the world.

Liza struggled to ignore the shrill wailing from above. She tried to remember the words to a song she and Patrick had made up years ago, for bath time, called “The Splish-Splosh Song,” whose very first lyrics were “Drip and drop, slip and slop, watch the soap bubbles go pop, pop, pop.” It was a stupid song, but it had always made Patrick giggle and so it usually made Liza feel better. She could not think of the tune, however. The moribats were too loud.

“I hate them,” she burst out, and as if in response they fell silent and drifted away into the blackness. Instantly Liza felt better.

“You think they’re bad,” Mirabella said. “They’re a nice piece of day-old sirloin on the very top of a trash heap compared to the scawgs! They’re a fat wedge of only semi-moldy cheese! They’re a one-worm apple!”

“Please,” said Liza, who was starting to feel queasy. “I see your point.”

Mirabella sniffed as though she doubted it.

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