Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud Page A

Carlyle, the
perfect
agent, whom you’ve heard
so
much about. And Lucy”—Lockwood gave me his biggest smile—“let me introduce you to Holly Munro. Our new
assistant.”



I t didn’t help that Lockwood was entirely unapologetic when I cornered him in the office. Ms. Munro had left to catch the afternoon bus home.
George, more than usually eager to stretch his legs, had accompanied her in case she got lost on the way to the stop, which was all of six doors down the street.
    “What the hell happened?” I demanded. “I was only away three days!”
    Lockwood was sorting through the papers on his desk. I noticed they had all been neatly paper-clipped, and organized with brightly colored labels. He didn’t look up at me. “I thought
you’d be happy. You’re the one who suggested we get in a supporting member of staff, rather than a full-blown agent.”
    I stared at him, amazed. “So it was
my
idea to hire this girl? Please!”
    “I told you we needed help. I told you we were going to find someone.”
    “Sure, and you waited until I was out of town to do it.”
    “Not at all! That’s just a coincidence. Of course I didn’t plan to get someone while you were away. The most I thought was that we could maybe arrange a few interviews, and I
only had time to think of
that
because it’s been so quiet these last few days.” His eyes darted briefly up; he tried an appealing smile. “Obviously that’s on
account of you, Luce—we couldn’t investigate new cases with you gone. Your contributions are just too vital.”
    “Oh, spare me. And she just jumped out of nowhere, did she?”
    “Well, there’s a funny story about that. I didn’t even need to advertise. I bumped into a couple of Rotwell agents, and they gave me Holly’s name. She’d been let go
by their agency only last week. I got her in, and she seemed just the ticket, so…”
    “So it’s ‘Holly’ already,” I said, interrupting him. “I seem to remember I was ‘Ms. Carlyle’ for months after I joined.”
    Lockwood had been more or less addressing his own neck so far. Now he finally looked me in the eye. “Well, that’s because of you. I’ve become a bit less formal this past year.
I’m just trying to help her settle in.”
    I nodded. “I saw that. If you and George had been settling her in any closer, you’d have snagged your noses on her earrings.” A thought occurred to me. “Did you test her
with the skull?”
    “What?”
    “Did you show her the skull? You know, like you did in
my
first interview? And all those other objects you made me assess? You gave me a really hard time.”
    Lockwood took a careful breath. He tapped long nervous fingers on the desktop. “Actually, we didn’t. But the point is, she’s not going to be a front-line operative, is she?
She’s an administrative assistant. Her job is simply to man the fort here. I asked her a few questions, of course I did, but she showed me her résumé, and that was
enough.”
    “Really? It must have been a nice one.”
    “It was very presentable.”
    “So what can she do, then?”
    “Well, she was at Rotwell for years, working pretty high up—for one of Steve Rotwell’s deputies, I think—so she’s clearly well qualified as a personal assistant.
She has some psychic Talent, too. Not as much as us, obviously—but, in a pinch, in an emergency only, she could possibly help us in the field. Also, she seems to know a lot of important
people, which might be useful to us one day.” He cleared his throat and deposited himself back on his battered leather seat. The usual cloud of dust did not rise up. “All in all, Luce,
I think we’re very lucky to get her.”
    “She’s cleaned your chair,” I observed.
    “You make it sound like that’s bad. Yes, one of Holly’s main roles will be to keep the place tidy and well organized. In fact, the first thing she did on Monday was roll up her
sleeves, put on an apron, and do the whole housemaid bit. George and I