excerpt
…a bomp-bam-boo!—dah doo ron ron!—daz-mac-vout-orooni!
rama-lama-ding-dong! hey-shu-wah-she-hey-bap-shu-wah! And behold . . .”
He beat out a drum roll on the coffee table. He pulled back the rug. The pyramid
collapsed around the bear.
He picked up the floppy bear and stabbed it again and again with the
play-dagger. “You bastard . . . you’re supposed to become invisible. How dare
you trick me like that!” He tore at the bear’s head, and wisps of stuffing drifted
across the dusty air. “It’s always left to me to bring you back to life, you little
furry bugger . . . Pumping up Teddy, that’s all I ever do . . .”
He’d got the cycle pump and inserted the airtube into the bear’s neck. “But
it’s no good, is it . . . You can never bring Mini Yo Bear back to life, pump as
hard as you like.”
He threw the bear over our heads. It thumped softly on the carpet. He was
in tears, shaking his fist, shaking all over. “It’s your fault, people. You made me
do it to Baby Ricky Bear. It was only a stunt. He was going to be all right, part
of the act . . .” His face was glistening, a slack plastic joke mask, crinkles of wet
polythene. I couldn’t believe it. Fierce Wolfbane melting like a fruitcake in the
rain. It made me queasy.
Wolfbane pulled bits of himself together, produced a knife from his sleeve.
He held it at arm’s length, horizontally. His wet bloodshot eyes focussed on
the tip. “Now listen, people, I got a trained mind. I practised for days. I got a
special affinity with metal. Just one look and I can make this blade fly across the
room . . .”
Jago bustled in with full back-up, syringes loaded. Wolfbane started howling
and punching the air.
They shouldered him out through the mumblers, who were turning back to
their draughts boards or knitting. Tanya was crying because she’d missed the
beginning of Princess She-Ra.
Wolfbane, you communal abcess, you have worn me out, I rattle the glass
bars of my cage in sheer exhaustion. Your showmanship has outgrossed me.
Me, Nicolas Beardsley, the Elven-King of Oakhill, Lore-Maker, successful
businessman, caring parent, arbiter of taste, star of BBC TV’s Lifeskills Show.
Within hours, Wolfbane, you’ve upstaged me . . . But you’ll learn from me
one of these days, I’ll learn you like I’ll learn Lucas, we’ll all be learned friends
together in the High Courts of the Demon King.
Afterthoughts just won’t stop. If the sky weren’t howling and pissing, the
mushroom shaped shadow of the Tree would stretch as far as the garden wall,
with its neat little spikes. Spiritual elites like us need to be protected …
Libros Libertad 