Little People by Tom Holt Page B

wide belt, depending on how you define such things. She was stunningly lovely and she was holding an unfastened safety pin, which she was just about to stab into my forearm.
    â€˜About bloody time, too,’ she growled. ‘Jesus, you’re stupid. If you had two more brain cells, you’d have a pair.’
    I didn’t say anything: I was too busy gawping, while what was left of my mind was wondering why at least some of the world’s annual allowance of weirdness couldn’t happen to somebody else, just for once. For her part, she dumped the safety pin, and stood glowering at me with her arms folded, tiny blue eyes loaded with an infinity of contempt; Sergeant Major Barbie, or My Little Fascist Dictator.
    It looked like I’d just got myself a walking, talking, shouting, swearing, living doll.

CHAPTER FIVE
    â€˜ E xcuse me,’ I said diffidently, ‘but who the hell are you?’
    She looked up at me out of two forget-me-not-blue eyes and called me an arsehole. ‘How can you say that?’ she said. ‘After everything I’ve been through to get here—’
    â€˜Sorry,’ I interrupted, ‘but you’ve got to tell me this. Are you an elf?’
    She sighed. ‘No, I’m a chartered actuary. Dressing up in green miniskirts and being only six inches tall is just something I do in my spare time. Of course I’m an elf, you idiot. You should know that,’ she added bitterly, ‘better than anybody.’
    Oh God , I thought, another of those niggling little oblique references. Unfortunately, there were more important issues waiting to be addressed, so clearing up that particular mystery was going to have to wait. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘you’re an elf, thank you. So – what are you doing here, and why are you doing it?’
    For some reason that seemed to annoy her a lot. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘wonderful attitude. That’s really going to help, if you keep it up.’ She grabbed hold of a book, dragged it three inches across the desktop (remarkably strong, for her size; it must’ve been the equivalent of a full-sized human hauling a dead cow), and sat down on it as though it were a park bench. ‘Serves me right for imagining you’d be different,’ she went on. ‘But that’s me, hopelessly naive, as usual.’
    Before I could call her on that, I noticed a shadow falling across the desk, suggesting that someone was standing between me and the light, directly behind me. I froze; no time to do anything.
    â€˜Here,’ said a voice, ‘have you seen my German grammar?’
    Neil Fuller – his desk was two down from mine. In fact, the elf had just sat down on the book he was looking for.
    â€˜Sorry,’ I answered, keeping my eyes fixed on a crack in the plaster on the opposite wall, ‘no idea where it could have got to.’
    A tongue clicked, and a hand appeared at the extreme edge of my peripheral vision. ‘Are you blind or something?’ Neil said, and I closed my eyes, so as not to see what was going to happen next. ‘It’s right here. Look,’ he went on, ‘under your stupid nose.’
    I glanced down, to see a highly vexed female elf sprawling on the desktop where the book had been. But of course it wasn’t what I could see that mattered. ‘Oh,’ I mumbled, ‘ that book.’
    â€˜Idiot.’ Neil sighed and he walked away. I waited till the door swung shut behind him before looking back.
    â€˜He couldn’t see you,’ I said.
    â€˜What?’ The elf made a great show of rubbing a purportedly bruised elbow. ‘No, of course he couldn’t, you fool. He’s human.’
    I ignored that one, too. Sooner or later I was going to have to deal with this issue, whatever it turned out to be. Later, for choice. ‘So,’ I said, ‘is this anything to do with nobody else being able to read your writing?’
    She