Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Author:Salman Rushdie [Rushdie, Salman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780140157376
Amazon: 0140366504
Publisher: Puffin Books
Published: 1991-11-02T08:00:00+00:00

‘For Batcheat and the Ocean!’

The Guppee forces were ready to depart. The Pages had climbed into the long Barge-Birds waiting for them in the Lagoon; Floating Gardeners and Plentimaw Fishes were likewise at the ready; Water Genies astride their various flying machines stroked their whiskers impatiently. Rashid Khalifa climbed aboard Butt the Hoopoe behind Iff and Haroun. Mali, Goopy and Bagha were by their side. Haroun introduced them to his father; then, with a great cry, they were off.

‘How stupid we were not to dress more sensibly!’ Rashid lamented. ‘In these nightshirts, we’ll freeze solid in a few hours.’

‘Fortunately,’ said the Water Genie, ‘I brought along a supply of Laminations. Say please and thank you nicely and I might let you have some.’

‘Please and thank you nicely,’ Haroun said quickly.

Laminations turned out to be thin, transparent garments as shiny as dragonfly wings. Haroun and Rashid pulled long shirts of this material over their nightshirts, and drew on long leggings, too. To their amazement the Laminations stuck so tightly to their nightshirts and legs that they seemed to have vanished altogether. All Haroun could make out was a faint gleamy sheen on his clothes and skin that hadn’t been there before.

‘You won’t feel the cold now,’ Iff promised.

They had left the Lagoon, and Gup City was diminishing behind them; Butt the Hoopoe kept pace with the other speeding mechanical birds, and sprays of water were all around. ‘How life does change,’ Haroun marvelled. ‘Only last week, I was a boy who had never seen snow in my entire life, and now here I am, heading into an ice-wilderness on which the sun never shines, wearing nothing but my nightclothes and with some strange transparent stuff as my only protection from the cold. It’s a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.’

‘Ridiculous,’ said Butt the Hoopoe, having read Haroun’s mind. ‘A case of out of the fridge into the freezer, you mean.’

‘That’s unbelievable,’ cried Rashid Khalifa. ‘It spoke without moving its beak.’

~ ~ ~

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