Cornelia Funke - Inkheart

Mo passed her so closely she could have touched him, but he didn't notice her. "Meggie, don't look at me like that!" he sometimes told her. "You're reading my thoughts again." Now he looked anxious – as if he wasn't quite sure he was doing the right thing. Meggie counted slowly to three before following her father, but a couple of times Mo stopped so suddenly Meggie almost ran into him. He didn't return to the kitchen but went straight to the library. Without looking back once, he opened the door with the Venetian printer's mark on it and closed it quietly behind him.

So, there stood Meggie among all the silent books, wondering whether to follow him and ask him to show her the book. Would he be very angry? She was just about to summon up all her courage and go after him when she heard footsteps – rapid, firm footsteps, quick and impatient. That could only be Elinor. Now what?

Meggie opened the nearest door and slipped through it. A four-poster bed, a dresser, silver-framed photographs, a pile of books on the bedside table, a catalog lying open on the rug, its pages full of pictures of old books. She was in Elinor's bedroom. Heart thudding, she listened for noises outside; she could hear Elinor's energetic footsteps and then the sound of the library door closing for the second time. Cautiously, she slipped out into the corridor again. She was still standing outside the library, undecided, when she felt a hand suddenly laid on her shoulder from behind. Another hand stifled her cry of alarm.

"It's only me!" breathed Dustfinger into her ear. "Keep quiet or we're both in trouble, understand?"

Meggie nodded and Dustfinger slowly took his hand away from her mouth. "Your father's going to give the old witch that book, right?" he whispered. "Has he taken it out of the van? Tell me. He did have it with him, didn't he?"

Meggie pushed him away. "I don't know!" she snapped. "Anyway, what business is it of yours?"

"What business is it of mine?" Dustfinger laughed quietly. "Well, perhaps I'll tell you sometime. But just now all I want to know is whether you've seen it."

Meggie shook her head. She didn't know why she was lying to Dustfinger. Perhaps because he had pressed his hand over her mouth a little too hard.

"Meggie, listen to me!" Dustfinger looked at her intently. His scars were like pale lines that someone had drawn on his cheeks: two slightly curved marks on the left cheek, a third and longer line on the right cheek running from ear to nostril. "Capricorn will kill your father if he doesn't get that book!" hissed Dustfinger. "Kill him, do you understand? Didn't I tell you what he's like? He wants the book, and he always gets what he wants. It's ridiculous to believe it will be safe from him here. "

"Mo doesn't think so!"

Dustfinger straightened up and stared at the library door. "Yes, I know," he murmured. "That's the trouble. And so," he said, putting both hands on Meggie's shoulders and propelling her toward the closed door, "so now you're going to go in there, the picture of innocence, and find out what the pair of them are planning to do with that book. OK?"

Meggie was about to protest, but before she knew it Dustfinger had opened the door and pushed her into the library.

They had unwrapped the book. Meggie saw the brown paper lying on a chair. Neither of them noticed that she had come in; Elinor was bending over one of the reading desks with Mo beside her. They both had their backs to the door.

"Amazing. I thought there wasn't a single copy left," Elinor was saying. "There are strange stories about this book going around. A secondhand dealer from whom I buy quite often told me that three copies were stolen from him a few years ago. All on the same day, too. And I've heard much the same story from two other booksellers. "

"Really? Yes, very strange," said Mo, but Meggie knew his voice well enough to know that he was only pretending to be surprised. "Well, anyway, even if this wasn't a rare book it means a lot to me, and I'd like to be sure it's in safe hands for a while. Just till I come back for it. "

"All books are in safe hands with me," replied Elinor, sounding cross. "You know that. They're my children, my inky children, and I look after them well. I keep the sunlight away from their pages, I dust them and protect them from hungry bookworms and grubby human fingers. This one shall have a place of honor, and no one will see it until you want it back. I don't really welcome visitors to my library. They just leave fingerprints and stray hairs in my poor books. Anyway, as you know, I have a very expensive burglar alarm system. "

"Yes, that's extremely reassuring!" Mo's voice sounded relieved. "Thank you, Elinor! I really am most grateful. And if anyone comes knocking at your door in the near future asking about the book, please will you make out you've never heard of it, all right?"

"Of course. I'd do anything for a good bookbinder, and anyway you're my niece's husband. I really do miss her sometimes, you know. I expect you feel the same. Your daughter seems to be getting along all right without her, though. "

"She hardly remembers her mother," said Mo quietly.

"Well, that's a blessing, wouldn't you say? Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do. But for them we probably wouldn't know anything for very long. It would all be forgotten: the Trojan War, Columbus, Marco Polo, Shakespeare, all the amazing kings and gods of the past… " Elinor turned around – and froze.

"Did I fail to hear you knock?" she asked, staring so angrily that Meggie had to summon up all her courage not to turn around and slip quickly back out into the hallway.

"How long have you been there, Meggie?" asked Mo.

Meggie stuck her chin out. "She can see it, but you hide it away from me!" she said. Attack, she knew, is the best form of defense. "You never hid any book from me before! What's so special about this one? Will I go blind if I read it? Will it bite my fingers off? What terrible secrets are there in it that I shouldn't know?"

"I have my reasons for not showing it to you," replied Mo. He looked very pale. Without another word he went over and tried to lead her to the door, but Meggie tore herself away.

"Pigheaded, isn't she?" remarked Elinor. "It almost makes me like her! Her mother was just the same, I remember. Come here. " She stepped aside and beckoned Meggie over. "Look, you can see there's nothing very exciting about this book, at least not to you. But see for yourself. We're always most likely to believe the evidence of our own eyes. Or doesn't your father agree?" She cast Mo an inquiring glance.

Mo hesitated, then resigned himself and nodded.

The book was lying open on the reading desk. It didn't seem particularly old. Meggie knew what really old books looked like. She had seen books in Mo's workshop with their pages spotted like leopard skin and almost as yellow. She remembered one with a binding that had been attacked by woodworms. The traces of their jaws had looked like tiny bullet holes, and Mo had gotten out his book block, carefully fixed the pages back together, then, as he put it, gave them a new dress. Such a dress could be made of leather or linen, it might be plain, or Mo might imprint a pattern on it with his tiny decorative stamps.