Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl - the time paradox

Holly lay huddled in the dark, swallowing and blinking to conquer the phobia. Her mother had been mortally injured in a metal box, and now she was inside one.

And it was thoughts of her mother that finally calmed Holly. She opened her eyes, and explored the confined space with her vision and fingertips. It didn’t take long to find the bubble light set into the steel wall. She snapped it on to find Artemis stretched out beside her and the sloping metal sheeting of a boot door curling down past his arm. Her own borrowed shoes rested on the shining curve of a wheel arch. They were inside a vehicle.

Artemis groaned, twitched and opened his eyes.

‘Sell the Phonetix shares,’ he blurted, then remembered Butler and the darts. ‘Holly. Holly?’

Holly patted his leg. ‘It’s OK, Artemis,’ she said in Gnommish, in case the car was bugged. ‘I’m here. Where else could I be?’

Artemis shifted on to his side, flicking back the dense black hair obscuring his features, and spoke in the fairy tongue.

‘We received the same dosage of tranquillizer, and yet you, the lighter person, are awake first. Magic?’

The side of Holly’s face was thrown into deep shadow by the bubble light. ‘Yes. Number One’s signature magic is powerful stuff.’

‘Powerful enough to get us out of here?’

Holly spent a minute exploring the boot’s surface, running her fingertips along each weld in the metal. Finally, she shook her head, silver wig sparkling. ‘Not a weak spot I can find. Even the air-conditioning vent is completely flush. No way out.’

‘Of course not,’ said Artemis. ‘We’re inside the Bentley. The boot is a steel box with a titanium lock.’ He breathed the cool air deeply. ‘How can this have happened? Everything is different. Butler was supposed to have deposited the cage in my study. Instead he creeps in through the bedroom and sedates us both. Now we don’t know where we are, or indeed where the lemur is. Do they have it already?’

Holly pressed one ear to the boot door. ‘I can tell you where we are.’

Outside, the sounds of snuffling and snoring animals drifted on the air. ‘We’re close to animals. A park I would guess, or a zoo.’

‘Rathdown Park,’ exclaimed Artemis. ‘And that fact tells us they do not, in fact, have the lemur. The schedule and situation have changed.’

Holly was thoughtful. ‘We are not in control of this situation any more, Artemis. Perhaps it’s time to admit defeat and return home when your younger self brings us back to the manor. Perhaps you can discover a cure in the future.’

Artemis had been expecting this suggestion. ‘I considered that. The lemur is still our best option and we are metres away from it. Just give me five minutes to get us out of here.’

Holly was understandably dubious. ‘Five minutes? Even the great Artemis Fowl might have trouble breaking out of a steel box in five minutes.’

Artemis closed his eyes, concentrating. Trying to ignore his cramped surroundings and the sheaves of hair brushing his cheeks, and the itch of bristles on his chin.

‘Face it, Artemis,’ said Holly impatiently. ‘We’re stuck. Even Mulch Diggums would probably struggle with a lock like that if he happened to stroll by.’

Artemis’s brow flickered, irritated by this interruption, but then a smile spread across his face, made eerie by the stark lighting.

‘Mulch Diggums strolling by,’ he whispered. ‘What are the chances of that?’

‘Zero,’ said Holly. ‘Absolutely none. I would bet my pension on it.’

At that moment something or someone tapped on the boot door, from the outside.

Holly rolled her eyes. ‘No. Not even you …’

Artemis’s smile was smug beyond belief. ‘Just how large is your pension?’

‘I do not believe it. I refuse to believe it. It is impossible.’

More taps on the door now, followed by a delicate scraping and a muted swear word.

‘What a guttural voice,’ said Artemis. ‘Very like a dwarf’s.’

‘It could be Butler,’ argued Holly, irritated by Artemis’s self-satisfied expression.

‘Swearing in Gnommish. Hardly.’

More metallic noises from the outside world.

Shhhnick. Chunk. Clackack.

And the boot’s lid swung upwards, revealing a slice of starry night with the glinting silhouette of a gigantic pylon behind it. A bedraggled head popped into the space, features smeared with mud and worse. This was a face that only a mother could love, and then perhaps only if her sight were failing. Dark, close-set eyes peered out from above a dense beard that shivered slightly like seaweed in a current. The creature’s teeth were large, square and not made any more appealing by the large insect wriggling between two molars.

It was, of course, Mulch Diggums.

The dwarf snagged the unfortunate insect with his tongue, then chewed it delicately.

‘Ground beetle,’ he said with relish. ‘Leistus montanus. Nice bouquet, solid earthy shell, then, once the carapace cracks, a veritable explosion of flavours on the palate.’

He swallowed the unfortunate creature, then funnelled a mighty burp though his flapping lips.

‘Never burp when you’re tunnelling,’ he advised Artemis and Holly, as casually as though they were sitting round a café table. ‘Dirt coming down, air coming up. Not a good idea.’

Holly knew Mulch well. This chit-chat was simply for distraction while he took a peek around.

‘And now, to business,’ said the dwarf finally, discarding the dead beard hair he had used to pick the lock. ‘I seem to have a human and an elf trapped in a car. So I ask myself, should I let ’em out?’

‘And what do you answer yourself?’ asked Artemis with barely contained impatience.

Mulch’s black pebble eyes danced in the moonlight. ‘So, the Mud Boy understands Gnommish. Interesting. Well, understand this, human. I let you out as soon as I get my money.’

Ah, thought Holly. There is money involved. Somehow these two have set up a deal.

Holly had endured her prison for long enough.

Mulch is not yet my friend, she thought, so there’s no need to be polite.

She drew a knee to her chin, tugging on it with both hands for an extra pound of elastic force.

Mulch realized what she was about to do. ‘Hey, elf. No-’

Which was as far as he got before his face was batted with the boot door. The dwarf tumbled backwards into the hole he had climbed out of, sending up an oof of wind and dirt.

Holly clambered over Artemis to the fresh air. She gulped down great gasps, chest out, face to the sky.

‘Sorry,’ she said, between breaths. ‘That space is tiny. I don’t like tiny.’

‘Claustrophobic?’ asked Artemis, rolling from the boot.

Holly nodded. ‘I used to be. I thought I had overcome it. Lately, though …’

There was a commotion in the dwarf hole. A blue riot of swearing and a scuffling in the earth.

Holly quickly recovered herself and leaped into the pit, tackling Mulch before he could unhinge his jaw and disappear.

‘He could be useful,’ she grunted, bundling the protesting dwarf up the incline. ‘And he has already seen us, so the damage has been done.’

‘That’s a pincer hold,’ exclaimed Mulch. ‘You’re LEP.’

He twisted round, snagging Holly’s wig with his beard hair. ‘I know you. Holly Short. Captain Holly Short. One of Julius Root’s pet Rottweilers.’

Suddenly the dwarf’s already creased brow wrinkled further in confusion.

‘But this is impossible.’

Before Artemis could instruct Holly not to ask, she went ahead and did it.

‘Why is it impossible, Mulch?’

Mulch did not reply, but his eyes betrayed him, glancing guiltily over his shoulder at a scuffed Tekfab backpack. Holly deftly spun the dwarf round, opening the bag’s main compartment.