Stoneheart by Charlie Fletcher

forbidding until you looked closer, when you saw something kinder in it. It was a face that wasn’t used to smiling—but wanted to.
    “He’s called George. George, this is Dictionary Johnson. Dictionary—George.”
    Dictionary spasmed suddenly, as if trying to jerk himself out of his coat in one fast movement. His neck twisted twice in a stuttering reflex, and he barked something that may have been a word but might have been mere noise.
    “Gah —pleasure of your acquaintance, sir.”
    Gunner prodded George in the back.
    “Oh. Pleased to meet you.”
    Dictionary looked at George, which made him feel uncomfortable.
    “I observe you are exercised, sir, exercised by some strong emotion.”
    “Yeah,” said George, “I’m confused.”
    “Confused—or scared, perhaps?”
    “Perhaps,” muttered George quietly, looking away from Edie.
    “When I was young and fearful, a wise woman gave me this advice, which I treasured and now pass on to you: just as hope enlarges happiness, so fear aggravates calamity.”
    “Ah,” said George, still trying to untangle the words into some kind of sense.
    “You make things worse by worrying about them,” explained Edie.
    He turned on her.
    “They can’t be much worse than things trying to kill me, can they?”
    “Of course they can. They can be much worse.”
    Before he could ask her what she meant—or even ask himself whether he wanted to ask her, in case she told him—Dictionary cleared his throat.
    “You would perhaps oblige me with an outline of the events that bring you to my humble plinth? I am starved of conversation, you understand, which is vexing, pinioned as I am here on this lonely outcrop as the life of the fair city swirls round and past me. There is no wit, no variation to divert me from the depressing spectacle of the gentlemen of the law strutting in and out of that magnificent theater of lies opposite.”
    He jabbed his book at the vast white stone jumble of pinnacles and arches across the road.
    “That’s the Law Courts,” said George.
    “Indeed.” Dictionary nodded. “And a fine excess of architecture it is for such a plain purpose as deciding right from wrong. It is my observation that on the outside, all the light exuberance of spires and turrets point upward to the heavens in order to distract one’s attention from the fact that inside, within the dark chambers of the law, all points downward, into the fell attorney’s pocket. ‘Tis like paint on a tart’s face, mere distraction. Why—”
    The Gunner interrupted.
    “The boy has a problem, Dictionary. Pardon me for breaking in, but it’s a serious one. We’ve come from asking the Sphinxes—”
    “The Sphinxes? Gah —then you’ll be none the wiser and twice as confused, no doubt. Only a jobberknowl would go to a sphinx for an answer—”
    “Jobberknowl?” George looked at Edie, who shrugged.
    Dictionary’s fingers flew through the pages of his book.
    “A blockhead.”
    “A thicko,” explained Edie helpfully.
    The Gunner prodded George in the back again. George cleared his throat.
    “The Sphinx sort of gave us a half-answer, and told me to go to the ‘dark shaveling.’Only, I don’t know what a shaveling is.”
    Dictionary’s fingers flew through the pages of his book, slowing down as he got nearer the word he was looking for. He stabbed it in satisfaction.
    “ ‘Shaveling: a monk.’ ”
    “So I’m looking for a dark monk?”
    “A monk or an abbot, a friar—”
    “A dark friar.”
    The air went a bit still. The children gazed up at the two statues, who were looking at each other with that look people exchange when they’re busy not saying something.
    “A dark friar who knows all about London.”
    Dictionary straightened and looked east, up Fleet Street.
    “A black friar, then.”
    The Gunner nodded slowly with a grimace.
    “The Black Friar. Should have known.”
    “What’s wrong with this Black Friar?” asked George, trying to watch the two statues at