Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl - the time paradox

‘Myles, don’t call your brother a simpleton.’

‘’ S OK, Artemis. He likes it. You’re a simple-toon, aren’t you, Beckett?’

‘Beckett simple-toon,’ agreed the small boy happily.

Artemis rubbed his hands together. ‘Right, brothers. Onwards. Imagine yourself seated at a café table in Montmartre.’

‘In Paris,’ said Myles, smugly straightening the cravat he had borrowed from his father.

‘Yes, Paris. And, try as you will, you cannot attract the waiter’s attention. What do you do?’

The infants stared at him blankly, and Artemis began to wonder if he wasn’t pitching his lesson a little high. He was relieved, if a little surprised, to see a spark of comprehension in Beckett’s eyes.

‘Um… tell Butler to jump-jump-jump on his head?’

Myles was impressed. ‘I agree with simple-toon.’

‘No!’ said Artemis. ‘You simply raise one finger and say clearly, “Ici, garçon. ”’

‘Itchy what?’

‘What? No, Beckett, not itchy.’ Artemis sighed. This was impossible. Impossible. And he hadn’t even introduced the flashcards yet or his new modified laser pointer, which could either highlight a word or burn through several steel plates, depending on the setting.

‘Let’s try it together. Raise one finger and say, “Ici, garçon.” All together now …’

The little boys did as they were told, eager to please their deranged brother.

‘Ici, garçon,’ they chorused, pudgy fingers raised. And then from the corner of his mouth Myles whispered to his twin, ‘Artemis simple-toon.’

Artemis raised his hands. ‘I surrender. You win — no more lessons. Why don’t we paint some pictures?’

‘Excellent,’ said Myles. ‘I shall paint my jar of mould.’

Beckett was suspicious. ‘I won’t learn?’

‘No,’ said Artemis, fondly ruffling his brother’s hair and immediately regretting it. ‘You won’t learn a thing.’

‘Good. Beckett happy now. See.’ The boy pointed to himself once more, specifically to the broad smile on his face.

The three brothers were stretched on the floor, up to their elbows in poster paint, when their father entered the room. He looked tired from his nursing duties, but otherwise fit and strong, moving like a lifelong athlete in spite of his bio-hybrid artificial leg. The leg used lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics and implantable sensors to allow Artemis Senior’s brain signals to move it. Occasionally, at the end of the day, he would use a microwaveable gel pouch to ease his stiffness, but otherwise he behaved as if the new leg were his own.

Artemis climbed to his knees, smudged and dripping.

‘I abandoned French vocabulary and have joined the twins in play.’ He grinned, wiping his hands. ‘It’s quite liberating, actually. We are finger-painting instead. I did try to sneak in a little lecture on Cubism, but received a splattering for my troubles.’

Artemis noticed then that his father was more than simply tired. He was anxious.

He stepped away from the twins, walking with Artemis Senior to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase.

‘What is the matter? Is Mother’s influenza worsening?’

Artemis’s father rested one hand on the rolling ladder, lifting his weight from the artificial limb. His expression was strange, and one that Artemis could not recall ever seeing.

He realized his father was more than anxious. Artemis Fowl Senior was afraid.

‘Father?’

Artemis Senior gripped the ladder’s rung with such force that the wood creaked. He opened his mouth to speak but then seemed to change his mind.

Now Artemis himself grew worried. ‘Father, you must tell me.’

‘Of course,’ said his father with a start, as if just remembering where he was. ‘I must tell you …’

Then a tear fell from his eye, dripping on to his shirt, deepening the blue.

‘I remember when I first saw your mother,’ he said. ‘I was in London, at a private party in the Ivy. A room full of scoundrels and I was the biggest one in the bunch. She changed me, Arty. Broke my heart, then put it together again. Angeline saved my life. Now …’

Artemis felt weak with nerves. His blood pounded in his ears like the Atlantic surf.

‘Is Mother dying, Father? Is this what you are trying to tell me?’

The idea seemed ludicrous. Impossible.

His father blinked, as if waking from a dream.

‘Not if the Fowl men have something to say about it, eh, son? It’s time for you to earn that reputation of yours.’ Artemis Senior’s eyes were bright with desperation. ‘Whatever we have to do, son. Whatever it takes.’

Artemis felt panic welling up inside him.

Whatever we have to do?

Be calm, he told himself. You have the power to fix this.

Artemis did not yet have all the facts, but nonetheless he was reasonably confident that whatever was wrong with his mother could be healed with a burst of fairy magic. And he was the only human on Earth with that magic running through his system.

‘Father,’ he said gently, ‘has the doctor left?’

For a moment the question seemed to puzzle Artemis Senior, then he remembered.

‘Left? No. He is in the lobby. I thought you might talk to him. Just in case there’s a question I have missed …’

Artemis was only mildly surprised to find Doctor Hans Schalke, Europe’s leading expert on rare diseases, in the lobby and not the usual family practitioner. Naturally, his father would have sent for Schalke when Angeline Fowl’s condition began to deteriorate. Schalke waited below the filigreed Fowl crest, a hard-skinned Gladstone bag standing sentry by his ankles like a giant beetle. He was belting a grey raincoat across his waist and speaking to his assistant in sharp tones.

Everything about the doctor was sharp, from the arrowhead of his widow’s peak, to the razor edges of his cheekbones and nose. Twin ovals of cut glass magnified Schalke’s blue eyes and his mouth slashed downwards from left to right, barely moving as he talked.

‘All of the symptoms,’ he said, his accent muted German. ‘On all of the databases, you understand?’

His assistant, a petite young lady in an expensively cut grey suit, nodded several times, tapping the instructions on to the screen of her smartphone.

‘Universities too?’ she asked.

‘All,’ said Schalke, accompanying the word with an impatient nod. ‘Did I not say all? Do you not understand my accent? Is it because I am from Germany coming?’

‘Sorry, Doctor,’ said the assistant contritely. ‘All, of course.’

Artemis approached Doctor Schalke, hand outstretched. The doctor did not return the gesture.

‘Contamination, Master Fowl,’ he said, without a trace of apology or sympathy. ‘We have not determined whether your mother’s condition is contagious.’

Artemis curled his fingers into his palm, sliding the hand behind his back. The doctor was right, of course.

‘We have never met, Doctor. Would you be so good as to describe my mother’s symptoms?’

The doctor huffed, irritated. ‘Very well, young man, but I am not accustomed to dealing with children, so there will be no sugar coating.’

Artemis swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

Sugar coating.

‘Your mother’s condition is possibly unique,’ said Schalke, banishing his assistant to her work with a shake of his fingers. ‘From what I can tell, her organs seem to be failing.’

‘Which organs?’

‘All of them,’ said Schalke. ‘I need to bring equipment here from my laboratory at Trinity College. Obviously your mother cannot be moved. My assistant, Imogen, Miss Book, will monitor her until my return. Miss Book is not only my publicist, but an excellent nurse too. A useful combination, wouldn’t you say?’