Читать книгу Sun Thief - Jamie Buxton - Страница 10

No time to think about that now. Here comes my mother, swooping down on me, her head pecking the air like a chicken.

‘Time for you to stop daydreaming and fetch your little sister. Can’t you see how late it is? What are you thinking?’

She glances at the Quiet Gentleman out of the corner of her eye and simpers: ‘What is it with the young of today? They’re like chalk and cheese, him and my daughter. She’s as good as gold, but he’s –’ and her voice takes on an all too familiar rasp ‘– he’s like a moonstruck cow. A burden ever since we took him in. Go, child. And be back before sunset or there’ll be a clip round the ear waiting for you.’

She points up at the sun, which is where it always is at this time of day, and nips my earlobe between her finger and thumb. What I’m thinking is that I was told to fetch my sister from her aunt’s house tomorrow morning, but someone’s changed their mind and forgot to let me know.

‘But it’s too late,’ I protest. ‘I’ll never be able to get there and back in time.’

‘Then hurry! And don’t go taking any short cuts through you know where.’

‘But . . .’

‘GO!’

Imi, Imi, Imi. My little sister. My parents’ daughter, their real child, as they never stop reminding me. I’m big enough to admit that Imi’s great, even if she is my kid sister. But sometimes, sometimes, I think that if she wasn’t so perfect, I might seem a little less bad.

I scrape the mud off my potter’s wheel, prop it against the wall and leave.

The aunt doesn’t live far away, just the other side of the pyramids, but between our home and hers is you know where – a place that scares the loincloth off me.

It’s like a town, this place. It has streets. It has squares. It has houses, and the rich stay in the big ones and the poor stay in the small ones. But there’s one VERY BIG difference between this town and the one I live in: everyone in it is dead.

I know, I know. Dying is not really dying. This life is a preparation for the next one which is far, far better and you go there surrounded by all your favourite possessions and pets and food and drink and blah blah blah . . .

But here’s the catch. To keep your spirit alive, your relatives have to say your name and bring food to your tomb, and just to check, your spirit flies back from the underworld like a bird every evening. The houses of the dead sometimes even have a little perch above the front door for the soul to rest on.

But what happens to souls that have been forgotten, whose relatives don’t turn up with biscuits and milk? I’ll tell you. They become wandering ghouls. Not just hungry ghosts but hungry, angry ghosts.

Now, because I actually have eyes in my head and a tiny little bit of reasoning power, I know for A FACT that grieving relatives have pretty much given up visiting these houses of the dead. Result? An AWFUL LOT of whispering ghouls and MORE and MORE every day.

Here I am, walking past the wall that surrounds the City of the Dead. Now I’m passing its main gate and I look in – and wish I hadn’t. The houses of the dead are spilling darkness. It fills the streets and alleyways and in the darkness are the ghouls.

My friends, it’s a good place to avoid.