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FOR SOPHIE AND ARTHUR
CONN IGGULDEN
FOR ROB, MUM AND DAD
LIZZY DUNCAN
Contents
Dedication
CAST OF CHARACTERS
CHAPTER ONE - THE YEAR 1924, DURING THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE V
CHAPTER TWO - TEAM GRUNION
CHAPTER THREE - YOU CAN’T GO WRONG WITH A SWORDFIGHT
CHAPTER FOUR - YOU CAN’T DO IT WITHOUT A BALCONY
CHAPTER FIVE - MAGIC AND FALSE TEETH
CHAPTER SIX - APPARENTLY, THE SHOW MUST GO ON
CHAPTER ONE - THE AUTUMN OF 1924
CHAPTER TWO - WHEN SLIPPERS ARE NOT THE RIGHT CHOICE
CHAPTER THREE - MAKING WAVES
CHAPTER FOUR - THE PROBLEM WITH HEDGEROWS
CHAPTER FIVE - THE PROBLEM WITH A HAIR TRIGGER
CHAPTER SIX - WHY HANNIBAL CHOSE ELEPHANTS
CHAPTER ONE - THE WINTER OF 1924
CHAPTER TWO - WOLFENSTEIN PROVES HIS WORTH
CHAPTER THREE - WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
CHAPTER FOUR - THE IMPORTANCE OF HOT TEA AND TOAST
CHAPTER FIVE - A TIME TO BREAK THE RULES
CHAPTER SIX - WAITING IN THE DARKNESS
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Sparkler couldn’t help himself. The sun was a ball of pleasant gold, the clouds looked a bit like sheep with no legs and he was happy. The only cloud on his horizon, except of course for the ones that actually were on the horizon, (sheep, no legs) was his secret. A secret that made you happy was a difficult one to keep. He knew he had to tread carefully. Not everyone picked up after their dogs, you see.
This particular secret involved books and not the ones he had so carefully copied out before, either. A new thing had come to Chorleywood that summer. Tollins do not often take much notice of human affairs and Sparkler could have missed it if he hadn’t been out training a dragonfly to hunt beetles.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. A dragonfly is a bit like a hawk on a smaller scale – a Tollin scale. They are fast and agile and they can catch almost anything in the air. Sparkler’s dragonfly would sit on his sleeve if he fed it titbits, but he was beginning to think that its four wings and glittering body were a sort of beautiful covering for what was, in the end, a very dim insect indeed. The one he was training seemed more interested in nipping his ears than bringing savage destruction to edible prey.
It had been Sparkler’s idea to train the insects, but somehow, he just didn’t seem to have the knack for it. Half the dragonflies on Darvell’s Pond had been retrained for hunting, racing or even formation flying, while his just sulked and turned its back on him. He regretted naming it now, obviously. Grunion’s one was known as ‘Blue Thunder’ and brought its master all sorts of delicious things for the oven. Wing had one she called ‘Lightning’ and even her father had managed to train one he called the ‘Yellow Peril’.
Sparkler shook his head as he looked at young Wolfenstein. It wasn’t a great name, even with the hint of wolf in it. It certainly wasn’t a great name for a dragonfly that seemed to prefer being fed by hand and sleeping to any hunting at all.
He had come across his secret one bright morning as he had been trying to get Wolfenstein to respond to whistle signals. Sparkler had seen a heavy lorry arrive in a cloud of dust and he ducked down in the long grass to watch. Wolfenstein stuck his head up in the air and Sparkler had to sit on him to keep him still.
The lorry had stopped at the new Memorial Hall, its brakes squealing. Sparkler watched in fascination as a man smoking a pipe began to unload wooden boxes. It was too interesting to resist and Sparkler waited until the man went inside before nipping across and peering into a box. Books! Human books wrapped in twine! He had never seen so many before. In fact, he hadn’t known there were so many books in the world.
He and Wolfie were back across the road in the long grass before the man returned to finish unloading. There were now old ladies in the hall. Sparkler could see them through the window. He couldn’t see their legs, which gave them the look of ships drifting back and forth. He wondered if they had been in the boxes, with the books. In all honesty, that didn’t seem likely, but he was too excited to think straight.
Sparkler had avoided human books almost completely since the time he’d cured the High Tollin’s gout, but they still called to him. He’d seen them lurking on shelves in human houses, sometimes covered in dust and unloved. He’d wanted to take them home and
