Little People by Tom Holt

Author:Tom Holt [HOLT, TOM]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction / Fantasy - Contemporary, Fiction / Satire, Fiction / Humorous, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2012-09-03T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I closed my eyes. ‘Fuck,’ I said.

‘Well,’ Melissa replied, ‘all right. But first, shouldn’t we—?’

I sighed. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not like that, I meant - oh, forget it. And would you mind getting off me? My leg hurts.’

‘Oh.’

‘In fact,’ I went on, ‘I think it’s probably broken. Ouch,’ I added, just to drive the point home.

‘Sorry,’ Melissa said.

‘No use saying you’re sorry, is it?’ I snapped. ‘Get off me, for crying out loud.’

She seemed to shoot upwards, like a Harrier off the deck of a ship. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Your leg, I mean. It’ll fix itself.’

‘Will it? Well, that’s something, I suppose—’ A nasty thought struck me. ‘How long will it take?’

‘Oh, no more than a month, if it’s a clean break. And—’

‘And you’ll fast-forward me through it, so I won’t have to endure all that lying around in traction eating grapes? No, thank you very much. From now on, my time’s my own. You got that?’

She frowned. ‘You want to spend a month in hospital? Actually live through it, I mean? But it’s so boring—’

‘Yes!’ I shouted. ‘And no, I don’t enjoy being bored. In fact, I have an abnormally low boredom threshold, I can’t even sit still during the weather forecast. But I will not have you pointy-eared freaks snipping out great big chunks of my life. It’s not right, and I won’t stand for it. Understood?’

She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I hate to have to say this, but you won’t be in any fit state to stand for anything until your leg’s healed. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather edit it out? I mean, it’s not as if there’s anything useful you can do, lying on your back with one leg in the air.’

Unfortunately, she was right. I hate it when people are right at me like that; it’s like having a cat that insists on fetching in dead mice and laying them at your feet, like loyal subjects bringing tribute to the Sultan. ‘Oh, all right then,’ I said. ‘But this is the last time, understood? I’ve got to get back there as quickly as possible, before she changes her mind.’

‘She?’

(And I could remember the whole thing; days and weeks of staring at the ceiling, nothing to do but see how many times out of ten I could hit the lampshade with a precision-spat grape pip. If I’d had to go through all that – with the irascible, short-temper, pain-in-thebum personality I appeared to be stuck with on this side of the line – I’d have gone stir-crazy in a week. Somehow, though, acknowledging that Melissa had been absolutely right didn’t make me feel any better-disposed to her at all.)

‘She,’ I repeated. ‘Cruella. The girl I’m in love with. The wonderful girl who waited for me for ten years, even though everybody told her I was dead. The angel in human shape who now thinks I’ve pissed off over here for good, thanks to you and your ridiculous magic circles. Right,’ I added, ‘I’m off.

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