The Curse of Crooked Elbow (Armitage Hump Book 1) by David Codd

Author:David Codd [Codd, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2022-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

12.‘WEASEL.’

I was still chuckling to myself as I closed the door to the Heart-to-Hart Dating Agency.

And then I wasn’t. In the blink of an eye, the laughter had stuck in my throat and my smile had switched to a frown. There was a good reason for such a quick turnaround, however. And that reason was stood right in front of me.

‘Miss Coddle, what a pleasant surprise!’ remarked Benjamin Bottomley-Belch, my editor at The Passing Print school newspaper. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

‘Fancy indeed.’ I tried to keep on walking, but Benny seemed reluctant to let me pass. ‘What are you doing in Crooked Elbow?’ I asked instead.

‘What am I doing?’ Benny glanced over my shoulder at the building I had only just exited. ‘Not visiting a dating agency, that’s for sure. I didn’t think you were that desperate—’

‘I’m not,’ I said hastily. ‘I’ve been … erm … working.’

Benny snorted. ‘Something tells me you’ve got your priorities wrong, Miss Coddle. The only thing you should be working on is our challenge.’

‘Challenge?’ I screwed up my face. ‘What challenge?’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already,’ said Benny, rolling his eyes at me. ‘You promised you could get an interview with Armitage Hump. Or else …’

‘Armitage Hump?’ I peered over at the hearse. ‘Ah, yes, I remember now. There’s something I need to tell you—’

‘Silence!’ said Benny, raising his hand. ‘No more excuses.’

‘I’m not making excuses,’ I shot back.

‘A challenge is a challenge,’ Benny insisted. ‘If you’ve failed then so be it. And, unless I’m mistaken, you have almost certainly … oh!’

Benny was interrupted mid-sentence by a blaring car horn that refused to stop.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled awkwardly. ‘He’ll give up eventually if you just ignore him.’

Determined to get to the bottom of things, Benny looked around until he finally located the source of the disturbance. ‘It’s coming from that hearse,’ he pointed out. ‘There’s a man sat behind the wheel … shaking his fist at us. Do you know him?’

I began to nod. ‘Unfortunately so. It’s—’

‘He looks familiar,’ said Benny, talking over me. ‘I’ve seen his face before.’

‘That would make sense,’ I admitted. ‘It’s—’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Benny blurted out. ‘It can’t be … surely not … I think it is, you know … it’s—’

‘Armitage Hump,’ I said.

‘Armitage Hump,’ cried Benny a moment later. ‘He’s waving, Miss Coddle. Maybe he recognises me. And now he’s … coming over.’

I spun around in horror. It was true. Armitage had given up honking his horn, choosing instead to join us on the pavement.

‘Why are we still here?’ he grumbled. ‘It’s not safe. You never know when Miss Fart will pop up and try and take my head off again.’ Armitage stopped to give Benny a quick once over. ‘Who’s this, Mole?’ he asked, turning his nose up. ‘Your boyfriend?’

‘No,’ I snapped back at him.

‘Certainly not,’ spluttered Benny. ‘I have standards to uphold. To be the best you have to mix with the best. Talking of which, Mr Hump, what a pleasure it is to meet you.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Armitage raised an eyebrow.

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