Cornelia Funke - Inkheart

This book was bound in linen, silvery green like willow leaves. The edges of the pages were slightly roughened, and the paper was still so pale that every letter stood out clear and black. A narrow red bookmark lay between the open pages. The right-hand page had an illustration on it, showing women in magnificent dresses, a fire-eater, acrobats, and a man who looked like a king. Meggie turned the pages. There weren't many illustrations, but the first letter of each chapter was itself a little decorative picture. Animals sat on some of these initial letters, plants twined around others, one F burned bright as fire. The flames looked so real that Meggie touched them with one finger to make sure they weren't hot. The next chapter began with an N. An animal with a furry tail sat perched in the angle between the second and third strokes of the letter. No one saw him slip out of town, read Meggie, but before she could get any further with the story Elinor closed the book in her face.

"I think that'll do," she said, tucking it under her arm. "Your father's asked me to put this book somewhere safe for him, and so l will. "

Mo took Meggie's hand again, and this time she followed him. "Please forget that book, Meggie!" he whispered. "It's an unlucky story. I'll get you a hundred others. "

Meggie just nodded. Before Mo closed the door behind them, she caught a last glance of Elinor standing there looking at the book lovingly, the way Mo sometimes looked at her when he put her to bed in the evening.

Then the door was closed.

"Where will she put it?" asked Meggie as she followed Mo down the corridor.

"Oh, she has some very good hiding places for such things," replied Mo evasively. "But they're secret, as hiding places should be. Suppose I show you your room now?" He was trying to sound carefree, and not succeeding particularly well. "It's like a room in an expensive hotel. No, much better."

"Sounds good," murmured Meggie, looking around, but there was no sign of Dustfinger. Where had he gone? She had to ask him something. At once. That was all she could think of while Mo was showing her the room and telling her that everything was all right now; he just had to do his bookbinding work, then they'd go home. Meggie nodded and pretended to be listening, but her mind was full of the question she wanted to ask Dustfinger. It burned on her lips so fiercely she was surprised Mo didn't see it there.

When Mo left her to go and get their bags from the camper van Meggie went into the kitchen, but Dustfinger wasn't there either. She even looked for him in Elinor's bedroom, but however many doors in the huge house she opened there was no sign of him. Finally, she was too tired to go on searching. Mo had gone to bed long ago, and Elinor had disappeared into her own bedroom. So Meggie went to her room and lay down on the big bed. She felt very lost in it, like a dwarf, as if she had shrunk. Like Alice in Wonderland, she thought, patting the floral sheets. Otherwise she liked the room. It was full of books and pictures, and there was even a fireplace, although it looked as if no one had used it for at least a hundred years. Meggie swung her legs out of bed again and went over to the window. Outside, night had fallen long ago, and when she pushed the window shutters open a cool breeze blew on her face. The only thing she could make out in the dark was the gravel forecourt in front of the house. A lamp cast pale light over the gray and white pebbles. Mo's striped van stood beside Elinor's gray car like a zebra lost in a horse's stable. Meggie thought of the house they had left in such a hurry, and her room there, and school, where her desk would have been empty today. She wasn't sure whether she felt homesick or not.

She left the shutters open when she went back to bed. Mo had put her book box beside her. Wearily, she took out a book and tried to make herself a nice nest in its familiar words, but it was no good. Again and again the thought of that other book blurred the words, again and again Meggie saw the big initial letters before her large, colorful letters surrounded by figures whose story she didn't know because the book hadn't had time to tell it to her.

l must find Dustfinger, she thought sleepily. He must be here somewhere. But then the book slipped from her fingers and she fell asleep.

The sun woke her the next morning. The air was still cool from the night before, but the sky was cloudless, and when Meggie leaned out of the window she could see the lake gleaming in the distance beyond the branches of the trees. The room Elinor had given her was on the first floor. Mo was sleeping only two doors farther along, but Dustfinger had to make do with an attic room. Meggie had seen it when she was looking for him yesterday. It held nothing but a narrow bed surrounded by crates of books towering up to the rafters.

Mo was already sitting at the table with Elinor when

Meggie came down to the kitchen for breakfast, but Dustfinger wasn't there. "Oh, he's had breakfast already," said Elinor sharply, when Meggie asked about him," Along with some animal like a Pomeranian dog. It was sitting on the table and it spat at me when I came into the kitchen. I wasn't expecting anything like that. I made it clear to your peculiar friend that flies are the only animals I'll allow anywhere near my kitchen table, and so he took the furry creature outside."

"What do you want him for?" asked Mo.

"Oh, nothing special. I – I just wanted to ask him something," said Meggie. She hastily ate half a slice of bread, drank some of the horribly bitter cocoa Elinor had made, and went out.

She found Dustfinger behind the house, standing on a lawn of short, rather rough grass where a solitary deck chair stood next to a plaster angel. There was no sign of Gwin. A few birds were quarreling among the red flowers of the rhododendron, and there stood Dustfinger looking lost to the world, and juggling. Meggie tried to count the colored balls – four, six, eight. He plucked them out of the air so swiftly that it made her dizzy to watch him. He stood on one leg to catch them, casually, as if he didn't even have to look. Only when he spotted Meggie did a ball escape his fingers and roll at her feet. Meggie picked it up and threw it back.

"Where did you learn to do that?" she asked. "It looked – well, wonderful. "

Dustfinger made her a mocking bow. There was that strange smile of his again. "It's how I earn my living," he said. "With the juggling and a few other things. "

"How can you earn a living that way?"

"At markets and fairs. At children's birthday parties. Did you ever go to one of those fairs where people pretend they're still living in medieval times?"

Meggie nodded. Yes, she had once been to a fair like that with Mo. There had been wonderful things there, so strange that they might have come from another world, not just another time. Mo had bought her a box decorated with brightly colored stones and a little fish made of shiny green-and-gold metal, with its mouth wide open and a jingle in its hollow body that rang like a little bell when you shook it. The air had smelled of freshly baked bread, smoke, and damp clothes, and Meggie had watched a smith making a sword and had hidden behind Mo's back from a woman in a witch's costume.

Dustfinger picked up his juggling balls and put them back in his bag, which was standing open on the grass behind him. Meggie went over to it and looked inside. She saw some bottles, some white cotton wool, and a carton of milk, but before she could see anymore Dustfinger closed the bag.

"Sorry, trade secrets," he said. "Your father's given the book to this Elinor, hasn't he?"

Meggie shrugged her shoulders.

"It's all right, you can tell me. I know anyway. I was listening. He's mad to leave it here, but what can I do?" Dustfinger sat down on the deck chair. His backpack was on the grass next to him, with a bushy tail spilling out of it.