by Eoin Colfer
Artemis Senior had no trouble meeting his son’s eyes. “Love trumps honor,” he said. “Now bump.”
“Please, Father…Dad.”
Father/Dad laughed. “Dad? It’s Dad now? You must be desperate, son. Bump. Or, so help me, you’re both going down in my bad book. And my bad book does not make for good reading.”
Myles let that atrocious metaphor pass and looked to Beckett, whose left hand was already in position to receive the bump.
“Whenever you’re ready, my boy,” said Artemis Senior, and Myles knew the battle was lost. They were being tied into their father’s conditions by a contract of their own devising. A wrist-bump promise.
Myles raised his hand slowly, searching his mind for some way to void the promise. Perhaps if the scars were not precisely aligned?
“Honor the bump, Myles,” warned Artemis Senior. “No crossing your fingers or some such nonsense. You said it yourself, the bump is sacred.”
Myles’s vision was blurred now, perhaps from the myopia, or perhaps from the intensity of his concentration, but it seemed to him that Beckett’s pink scar glowed, and he felt his own scar twitch in response, seeking the contact.
If we freeze this moment and examine the psychology, some might say that all this palaver seems a bit much for something that amounts to little more than a pinkie promise, but those people hugely underestimate the power of a connection between those born of the same pregnancy. Twins are often at a loss to describe this connection to singletons, but Myles Fowl, unsurprisingly, has tried. He hypothesized in an article for the Journal of Biological Sciences that regarding the emotional pull that exists between twins, we are permanently beyond each other’s event horizons, so to speak, and the mental fortitude necessary to escape that force could possibly have actual physical implications for the amygdala. While Beckett once wrote in rainbow pencil for his English teacher that Myles is like the other me, but boring.
Both boys were correct.
And the sacred wrist bump was a potent reminder to the Fowl Twins of their mental and physical bond. As babies in their double cradle, the twins often slept with their scars aligned, which supposedly reminded them of their time in the womb, and since those days they had used the wrist bump to seal every promise they had made to each other.
It was their thing.
Their gesture.
No one had ever forced it upon them until now.
Myles lifted his hand, and the closer it moved to Beckett’s wrist, the stronger the attraction grew until the scars synched and the twins felt a wave of contentment wash over them, smothering their anxiety somewhat.
Artemis Senior felt jealous of their zen calm. “I wish I had a mystical scar,” he said. “Better than yoga. Now promise you will do as I say.”
“We promise,” said Myles, a little too quickly.
Artemis Senior zipped his top up to his chin. “One last desperate roll of the dice, eh, son? Now do it properly. Say the magic words.”
“We will do as you say,” said the twins in unison. “Wrist-bump promise.”
Their father was satisfied. “And so it shall be.”
Myles lowered his hand, coming out of the shared mindset into the real world.
“And now I suppose we must seek out Mother in the main house and get busy with our chores.”
Myles said the word chores with the contempt he usually reserved for Einstein.
“Just you, Myles,” said Artemis Senior, and the angry slash in his brow softened. “Beckett has a job to do.”
A person didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what that job might be, but Myles was a genius and so he figured it out all the faster, and his heart ached for his brother.
TROLLS are usually and correctly thought of as humongous, shaggy fellows with quite the aggressive attitude and, indeed, the destructive capability to back this up, but Beckett’s friend Whistle Blower was one of a diminutive breed known as toy trolls and stood barely eight inches tall. This is not to say there was a proportional decrease in aggression—in fact, Whistle Blower was, if anything, more pugnacious than his gigantic counterparts, but as Beckett explained to Myles, much of the little chap’s bellicose attitude could be attributed to social anxiety. This was a statement that Myles appreciated, as he himself had but a single non-Fowl friend, plus he’d introduced the phrase social anxiety at one of his breakfast lectures and so was delighted to hear his twin apply it in a real-world situation, confirming his belief that Beckett could whip out the smarts when it suited him.
The point being that, as a part of this new best behavior routine, Beckett had been instructed to cut his tiny friend loose, as having a troll on the island quite clearly violated the fraternizing with fairies rule. All of which led to Beckett being dispatched to the Dalkey Island beach to break the news to Whistle Blower.
The troll was there before him, perched on his feeding rock and gnawing at a hank of something that had probably been alive until recently. From a distance, one might easily have mistaken the troll for an action figure from some fantasy series with his blue-gray fur, pronounced musculature, and squashed, pug-like features. Take heed when I urge you not to toss a pebble at the feet of any presumed action figure you may encounter in a remote area, just in case the figure is actually a toy troll that could easily dismember you and consume at least one of your limbs before you have the time to say Wait a minute, that’s not a—
Luckily for Beckett, he was the toy troll’s only human friend, because, as previously mentioned, Beckett was a trans-species polyglot and could converse with Whistle Blower, who had a uniquely sophisticated vocabulary for a troll. In the interests of clarity and expedience, the following conversation, though conducted through the medium of Trollish speech and gesture, will be documented in English.
Beckett sat down on the rock beside his troll friend. “What are you doing there, pal?”
“Eating untainted meat that I caught deep in the tunnels,” said Whistle Blower. “My diet is all organic, and I try to stay clear of polluted ground, so I have to go deep.”
Anyone eavesdropping on this grunted conversation would never have guessed that a troll’s vocabulary included the words organic or polluted, and usually it did not. But Beckett had, for once, taken on the role of lecturer and recently warned the troll about the effects of soil and water pollution on the mind.
Beckett sighed heavily.
“So, what’s up, Beck?” asked the troll. “I’m getting a weird vibe. Like you have bad news.”
“I do have bad news,” said the human boy. “The worst, actually.”
Whistle Blower froze, the hank of meat halfway to his mouth. “Don’t tell me Myles wants to hang out with us again. I have tusk-ache from trying to teach him my language the last time. The guy is a dope.”
The gesture for dope was a tug on the left ear, as apparently there had once been a bent-eared troll whose dopiness was legendary.
“That’s not the news,” said Beckett. And then he felt obliged to add, “And Myles is not a dope.”
“He is so a dope,” insisted Whistle Blower, combing his stiff mohawk with greasy fingers. “He can’t climb, he can’t dig, and he can’t fight. That all spells dope in the troll world.”
Myles would have been proud of his twin had he heard the next sentence. “There are multiple intelligences, Whistle, and Myles is the best at most of them.”
The toy troll grunted an If you say so and then asked, “What’s the bad news, then?”
Beckett tried to organize his sentences mentally for a moment. Usually he left the transmission of information to Myles, but he was on his own this time.
“The bad news is this,” he said, still not sure which words were going to come out. “The fairies know that you and I are meeting up. They’re watching us right now from up high, beyond the sky, with a magic spyglass.”
Whistle Blower raised both of his shaggy eyebrows. “Magic spyglass? I know what satellite surveillance is, buddy. I thought Myles bamboozled that.”
/> “He did,” said Beckett. “But then we exploded a jet, and Father met with the fairies, and now we are up the creek without a paddle.”
“Up the creek without a paddle?” asked Whistle Blower. “Do you mean we’re caught in a dwarf’s jet stream without a bandanna?”
“That sounds about right,” said Beckett. “Dad says you have a couple of days before the LEP come for you. He wasn’t even supposed to tell me that much.”
“They’re coming all this way for me?” asked Whistle Blower.
“Not just you,” said Beckett. “But you’re on the list.”
“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Whistle Blower. “Make a stand here? I can take out a dozen of those elves, no problem. You can cluster-punch the rest. We’ll teach them to mess with us, right?”
For a crazy moment Beckett considered this, and then he remembered the wrist-bump promise.
“No,” he said. “I can’t fight. You have to go.”
Whistle Blower hopped to his feet, balancing easily on the rock. “You’re breaking up the Regrettables?”
The Regrettables was the superhero team name Beckett had assigned them the previous year during the ACRONYM adventure.
“I can’t help it,” said Beckett miserably. “I promised.”
“But we’re brothers,” objected the troll.
“I wish we were,” said Beckett, holding out his forearm so the little troll could clamber onto it. “But we’re not, and I promised my real brother.”
They sat in miserable silence for a few moments, both slightly afraid of how Whistle Blower might react. After all, it was conceivable that he might lose control of himself in the manner of trolls and throw a massive, destructive tantrum. Whistle Blower knew that a year ago this would certainly have been the case, but hanging around Beckett had civilized him a little—pulled his tusks, as the other trolls might say. It seemed like ages since he had done any rampaging, and even longer since he had indulged in the ancient practice of dog wrangling.
As a side note, this would be the one and only time that anyone would spend time with Beckett and come out the other end more civilized.
Maybe I do need a little troll time, thought Whistle Blower, but he did not go on a scything spree. Instead, he offered the kernel of a plan to Beckett. “Myles might be a dope, but he likes problems. Stupid problems like this.”
Beckett cheered up immediately. “That’s right. Myles will find a way around this. He loves figuring things out.”
“Even if he can’t fight.”
“He fights with his brain,” countered Beckett.
Whistle Blower countered Beckett’s counter. “You can’t fight with a brain. I tried that with a sheep’s brain. It exploded on impact. Had zero effect.”
This was a convincing argument.
“Brains are squishy,” conceded Beckett. “But even so, Myles will crack this thing. We’ll be back together soon.”
Whistle Blower did his version of a thoughtful nod, which was an extended growl.
“Very well, human friend,” he said at last. “I will leave. When it is safe to return, heap the entrails of a hedgehog on my feeding stone and I will take that as a sign.”
Beckett was intrigued. “Why hedgehog entrails?”
Whistle Blower drew himself tall on Beckett’s forearm. “That is my troll name, Hedgehog Entrails. They are a delicacy for trolls.”
“That is possibly the coolest thing I will ever hear,” said Beckett sincerely. “But how about I just paint the rock red? Hedgehogs are hard to find on this island.”
“Very well. If you ever have need of me, paint my feeding stone red,” said Whistle Blower. “And now we must complete the parting ritual, as a sign of mutual respect.”
Beckett perked up. “Is the parting ritual our theme song? Are you finally going to sing it?”
Beckett had composed a theme song for the Regrettables but had never managed to convince Whistle Blower that it was anything but forced and idiotic. Nevertheless, Beckett was very proud of his composition, which went:
The Regrettables, the Regrettables,
We’re completely unforgettable,
We love our fruits and vegetables,
That’s cuz we’re Regrettables.
“No,” said Whistle Blower. “I would rather wear a sweater of stink worms than sing that song. This is the parting ritual.”
The toy troll jumped onto his feeding rock, turned his back to Beckett, and stood on one leg.
Beckett thought he should at least make an attempt to interpret the more-than-likely noble symbolism of this stance. “I see,” he said. “Showing me your back means you are leaving, but raising one foot means you are always ready to return. Is that right? I bet it is.”
“No, completely wrong,” said the troll. “When friends part, we allow our winds to mingle. The blend of particles unites us forever. It is very powerful troll magic.”
Beckett had thought his friend couldn’t possibly get any more awesome, but the parting ritual smashed the troll’s previous record.
“Are you saying that we fart at each other to seal the bond of our friendship?”
“That is what I’m saying,” confirmed Whistle Blower. “The mingling of the winds.”
Beckett felt his eyes tearing up, and they hadn’t even begun the ritual. “You are the best and coolest friend I will ever have.”
“I know,” said Whistle Blower. “And I appreciate your moderate fighting skills, so I vow never to eat you.”
“Thanks,” said Beckett. “I don’t want to get eaten.”
“Now turn your back,” ordered Whistle Blower. “I will say the sacred words and then we shall expel wind in each other’s general direction. And remember, do not turn around until the winds disperse.”
Beckett did as he was told and tried not to sniffle, as Whistle Blower was being all stoic about their parting. Whistle Blower sent a howl echoing over the flat, calm ocean, then recited the sacred verse:
“Warrior both loyal and true,
The gift of wind I give to you.
The particles inside my tum,
I blow your way from out my bum.”
Now that’s a poem, thought Beckett, and then he stopped thinking, as there issued forth from Whistle Blower’s person a sustained noise that should not have been possible from a colon of the troll’s dimensions. The closest auditory equivalent Beckett could think of was a trombone being played underwater, something he had actually tried. A dense cloud of rank air enveloped Beckett, and he knew that he would have to burn his clothing in the garden bonfire on the way back to the house and possibly exfoliate himself in the shower.
Well played, old friend, he thought. Only one thing left to do.
Beckett Fowl took a breath, stood on one leg, and farted through his tears.
Beckett maintained the pose for over a minute, and when he finally did turn, Whistle Blower was gone.
“This is so unfair!” the boy shouted at the universe, borrowing a touch of screaming melodrama from his brother. “Nothing worse can happen.”
Any fairy could have told him never to openly challenge the universe like that, because, even as he said the words, something worse was already happening, and if Beckett hadn’t been so worked up, he might have noticed a tingling in his scar.
LAZULI Heitz awoke in a room in which the bed alone was bigger than her Booshka apartment. Her head rested on what felt like a cloud and she was swathed in a blanket of sky and clothed in the shining folds of a silk jacket.
A notion drifted across her addled mind: This is a human bed. I died and went to the wrong heaven. Human heaven.
This notion was reinforced by the sight of a human woman of ethereal beauty dressed in sea-green satin seated at the end of the bed, which seemed very far away to Lazuli. The lady’s right leg made a triangle with her left knee and rested upon the sky-blue blanket, forming a horizon line.
The woman smiled and Lazuli discerned warmth in those features, but also strength and intel
ligence, and the pixel knew instinctively that this was not an angel to be toyed with.
Lazuli saw Myles in that face, and Beckett, too, and she realized that this was of course Angeline Fowl, a woman she had often surveilled from a distance but had never met in person until now.
Not heaven, then, she understood. Villa Éco.
Angeline Fowl spoke softly. “Don’t try to move, Specialist Heitz. You’re in Arty’s room. Though I have changed the comforter. My Arty prefers the reflective type of space blanket, which I personally don’t find very comforting. The pajamas belonged to three-year-old Beckett, but I don’t believe he ever wore them. You are, of course, completely safe here.”
The human’s voice was so soothing that Lazuli felt as though there might be a touch of the fairy mesmer layered in there.
Lazuli nodded and felt a tectonic grinding in her upper vertebrae. “What happened?” she asked, grimacing.
Angeline shifted closer, but Lazuli did not feel loomed over; she felt shielded. “I imagine you feel wretched, my dear, but I can assure you that nothing is fractured or ruptured. You were subjected to a severe rattling but should recover fully, especially considering that Captain—or I should say, Commodore—Short is en route to administer a shot of restorative magic that will have you back on your feet tout de suite.”
Lazuli closed her eyes momentarily, not to rest, but to digest the information contained in and implied by Angeline Fowl’s statement.
It would seem that the twins’ mother knows about the People. Furthermore, Angeline Fowl seems to be personally acquainted with Commodore Short and has been since she was a captain.
“But how did you find us?” Lazuli wondered. “And how did you contact the commodore?”
“Why don’t I tell you everything I know,” said the twins’ mother, “and then deal with any questions you may have?”
Lazuli nodded. It was a sensible solution that required her only to listen, though she would most certainly also watch carefully for trickery, as every fairy knew that human beings were, by quite a large margin, the most duplicitous species on the planet, with goblins in second place and dwarves a distant third. The sprite in the orphanage where Lazuli had been raised, who was no slouch in the sneaky department himself, was fond of recounting a fable called “Last Man Jack,” in which the only human left in the world died by stabbing himself in the back, as there was no one else alive to betray. And in spite of the fact that Lazuli had despised the administrator and his cruel, petty ways, that particular story with its gruesome final act had burned itself onto her young psyche and stayed there ever since like a soul brand. And so she watched Angeline Fowl closely, even though the twins’ mother seemed kind and Specialist Heitz’s natural instinct was to trust her.