Novel - Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer Page B

“Here, take this; there’s no call credit, but you can send texts. The number is withheld so nobody can call you back.”
    The door closed slowly against a buffer of air, and I was alone in a dark room in the house of someone I wasn’t sure I could trust. I felt a sudden welling of panic in my stomach. What had I done? I was a fugitive hiding in the lion’s den.
    I lay on the bed and all my aches and pains came rushing back. The dregs of prescribed painkillers were still swilling around my system, but only enough to make me sleepy. I held the phone’s screen close to my face like a candle, and with numb fingers I typed out a short message.
    HZL, IMOK. TELL M+DNO 2 WORRY. HOME SOON. MST FIND ARSNST. LUV U ALL. FLETCHR.
    I sent the message to Hazel’s phone, then switched off. What had happened to me? This was not the way detective stories were supposed to go. I was supposed to be in my office, bent over my desk, examining the evidence. That’s how Bernstein described it in the manual. But the manual wasn’t the real world. This was the real world here and now, and I had dropped myself directly into the deep end without ever pausing to test the waters.
    I threw the phone across the room then closed my eyes against the darkness. I kept them tightly closed for a long time, until eventually I fell into a deep sleep haunted by dreams of raging fires and broken bones.
    I woke sometime later to see sunlight glowing through my eyelids, highlighting the veins. The warmth felt good, so I lay there savoring the sensation. Peace at last. A quiet moment in which to plan my investigation.
    Something tugged on my toe. I looked down. A small, filthy child was slipping off my shoes. The boy was a miniature version of Red, with fiery hair and a wiry frame. It was Herod before his weekly wash and brushup.
    “What are you doing?” I croaked.
    Herod glared back undaunted. “You’re dying. What would you want shoes for?”
    “I am not dying, go away!”
    Herod straightened to his full height, the crown of his head barely cleared the mattress.
    “You go away. This is my house. Buttercups, my eye.”
    I wrestled my shoe from his grasp. “I will go away, far away. Bet on it. And next time you stash your booty, watch where you step.”
    I sat up slowly, and was surprised to find my head remained relatively pain free. Now that I could see the room’s decor, I decided that the headaches would probably come back if I stayed here much longer. The bedcover appeared to have been cobbled together from a thousand other bedspreads, every one of them luminous. The walls were that particular bright green generally associated with the Caribbean, and the curtains seemed to be fashioned from some type of metallic foil.
    In the light of a new day, my escape seemed utterly ridiculous. The police would have listened to reason. After all, I was a respectable student from a respectable family. Not anymore, I argued with myself. I had abandoned my studies and my family. And all to solve a mystery. Now there was no way back into my cozy life, except by solving that mystery.
    “I thought you were leaving,” said Herod, chewing absently on a wart on his knuckle.
    “Don’t worry. I’ll be gone soon enough. I just need to talk to Red. Where is he?”
    The boy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “In the kitchen. They’re waiting for you. The three of them.”
    This piece of news filled my stomach with acid bubbles. The Sharkey clan was waiting for me, and probably not with hot chocolate and croissants.
    Herod left the room and I followed, deeper into the house. With every step, my own world seemed further away. The walls were old-house high, covered with ancient thick wallpaper that was coming loose at the top, curling over us like a rain-forest canopy.
    We turned off the dark passageway through a rectangular doorway of light, into a stone-flagged kitchen. The Sharkeys were gathered around a huge pine table digging into heaped plates of sausage and bacon.