Lily and the Night Creatures by Nick Lake

Author:Nick Lake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

It was a tiny thing…

But, no, it didn’t matter, it didn’t help—because Lily was going to sneeze.

Desperately, she tried to push it down inside her, hold the explosion at bay, but it was no good, it was coming, it was coming—

The father-thing’s fingers stopped, as if they knew, as if they sensed the coming cataclysm.

And then she felt a clawed hand over her mouth, or a paw, whatever it was called on a mole, pinching the skin between her lip and her nose, and suddenly, miraculously, the sneeze eased its grip—and then was gone.

The hand disappeared, the towels settled, and the door shushed closed again. Darkness washed over Lily and Mole.

“Has he gone?” said Mole quietly.

Lily didn’t dare answer.

The footsteps receded. He was leaving the room.

She was safe. She had stayed hidden.

She let out her breath, then sucked air in greedily. Beautiful, beautiful, dusty, smelly air. Amazing.

And then she heard the footsteps return, and the door opened, and the hand swept the dresses aside, the shirts, the skirts, and her dad crouched down, face appearing suddenly, like when you walk along a street at night and the moon appears in an instant from behind a house you’re passing. He smiled sickly at her.

“Got you,” he said. “I knew you were there all along. Just messing with you. Hide-and-seek. Fun! I’m sure your real dad pretended for years that he didn’t know where you were. But parents always know. It’s their job to keep you safe, after all.” He paused. “Not mine, though.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.