and respect that woman …”
“You mean you love and respect that woman’s tuna,” said Squeak.
Maggie was under the impression that the Snowman belonged to her, because she fed him a can of tuna every day. She called him Here Kitty Kitty.
The Snowman ignored the mouse, pacing the countertop. “As much as I love and respect that woman, I cannot allow her into my shop. She is a walking disaster. She ate Mr Humperdinck’s best whatsit. She discharges magic; she changes things into butterflies. There is no limit to the damage she can do!”
Pete sighed. The Snowman was right. Unfortunately, Maggie had eaten the animal speech whatsit a few months before. Since then, she discharged magic when she touched things she loved – food, mainly – and changed it into butterflies. It was a bit like touching a door handle when you are charged with static electricity. “It’s not her fault, you know.”
“Please! You must help me to keep her out of the shop,” said the cat.
Pete nodded. “Sure, but I also need a favour.” He told the Snowman about the dictaphone.
The Snowman leaped onto the nearest shelf. Like all the other shelves in the shop, it was filled with the weirdest and most wonderful junk anyone could imagine, from all over the world. He jumped from shelf to shelf, searching for a dictaphone.
Suddenly the lights flickered and went out.
The cat stopped. He crouched and peered at the wall behind one of the shelves. His fur bristled. A soft growl escaped from his throat. “Pete, Squeak, do as I say,” he said urgently.
Pete froze. Squeak ran up his arm and hid inside his shirt.
The Snowman backed up a step. “Move to the door. Slowly.”
Pete started to move.
The cat howled, and then it was as if a hurricane hit the shop with a sudden, hellish fury.
Black shadows raced along the walls, ceiling and floor. Where they moved past shelves, things exploded and the shelves toppled over like dominoes.
Pete’s legs wouldn’t carry him to the door. He tried to dodge a shadow that sped towards him across the floor, but it fell across his body before he could move. It felt like an avalanche had hit him, a glacier that knocked the life out of him with deadly frost.
And then it was all over as suddenly as it had begun.
The door opened and Maggie came in. She switched on the lights. A battlefield of broken shelves and merchandise was revealed, ash drifting down and settling everywhere. For a moment she was too shocked to speak. Then she said, “Pete, are you okay?”
Pete could feel life slowly seeping back into his paralysed limbs. He groaned. “I think … I think something exploded.” He sat up.
Squeak moved somewhere in his shirt. At least the mouse was alive.
Maggie uttered a little cry. “Mr Presley!” She ran to the automaton, which lay pinned under a fallen shelf. She knelt down and put her forefinger on the wax throat. “There’s no pulse! We’ve got to do CPR!”
She hit the automaton in its cardboard chest with her fist. “Live!” she said under her breath as she bent over and put her red lips over the wax rock star mouth.
Eternity was poured into the briefest moment. Pete could sense the gentlest discharge, the smallest flux of magical energy pass from flesh to wax.
Sticks opened his eyes and blinked. Pete turned his head. The thauma-thing, the whatsit, still lay on the floor next to the counter.
And then the moment was over. The Snowman emerged from a cardboard box, spitting and cursing under his breath. When he saw Maggie, he cursed again, grabbed the whatsit and disappeared behind the counter.
Pete thought he could hear the faint whirring of the whatsit’s propeller.
Sticks sat up and extracted himself from under the shelf. He frowned at Maggie. “I thought I told you not to come into my shop. Now see what you have done!” he said in the Snowman’s voice.
Maggie’s face went white. She started to say something, but instead burst into tears and fled from the shop.
“Women!” exclaimed the Snowman as he removed the whatsit from his head.
Sticks froze again, but a faint flicker of life lingered in his glass eyes.
3
Sticks Goes Clubbing
Pete and Squeak fled from the shop for fear of the shadows returning. They found Freddy in his office, which was little more than a platform made of steel grating in the pipe shaft of the building where he lived with his family.
Pete was worried. “I really need my skateboard now. If monsters like that are around, I have to be able to move fast.”
Freddy aimed the lamp at his notebook. “This is what I have on Rose so far: her daily routine after work.” He poked at the first line of scribble on the dirty page.
16:00 Leaves her room at the school.
16:19 Boards a bus at the bus stop near the grocery.
“We could highjack the bus,” said Squeak from his perch on top of the ancient computer monitor.
Freddy ignored him.
16:39 Gets off at the 2nd Street stop.
16:46 Draws money at the ATM at the corner of Main and 2nd.
17:00 Happy hour at the Gravedigger’s Inn.
“The Gravedigger’s Inn! What sort of a place is that?” asked Pete.
“Some theme bar. Terrible décor. And don’t sit on those computer books, you’re ruining them.”
18:00 Wanders down 4th, killing time. Smokes a few cigarettes.
19:10 …
Squeak eyed Freddy’s schedule suspiciously. “She does nothing for more than an hour?”
“Happy hour at the Putrid Poulet only starts at 19:30,” explained Freddy. “That’s French for ‘chicken’.”
“I knew that,” said Pete.
19:10 Starts walking to the Putrid Poulet.
“And she stays there until?” asked Pete.
Freddy tapped his finger on his notebook. “Not so fast!”
19:19 Enters the bus station on 7th.
Squeak sighed. “I thought you said she went to get some chicken feed.”
“Has to answer the call of nature,” said Freddy. “The Digger’s brew. It’s our only opportunity to get the key off her neck.”
“The
