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Before Meggie could answer that one, Elinor bent to pick up a piece of paper lying on the carpet beside her bed It was Meggie’s goodbye note She must have dropped it when she saw the book in Elinor’s arms

‘What on earth’s this?’ asked Elinor, when she had read it, frowning ‘You were planning to go and look for your father? Where, for heaven’s sake? You’re even ie pressed Inkheart close to her ‘Who else is going to look for hian to tre she could do about it

‘Well then, we’ll just have to go and look for hi annoyed ‘But first let’s give hiet back here only to find you’ve disappeared, gone looking for hiie shook her head Elinor’s carpet iht, that’s all settled, then,’ growled Elinor, offering Meggie a cotton handkerchief ‘Blow your nose and then we’ll have breakfast’

She wouldn’t let Meggie out of the house before she had eaten a roll and sed a glass of milk

‘Breakfast is theher own third slice of bread ‘And what’shi you Like the wicked step to the tip of Meggie’s tongue, but she sed it along with the last of her roll, and took the book outside

10

The Lion’s Den

Look (Grown-ups skip this paragraph) I’, I already said in the very first line hoas my favourite in all the world But there’s a lot of bad stuff coie sat on the bench behind the house Dustfinger’s burnt-out torches were still stuck in the ground beside it She didn’t usually hesitate so long before opening a book, but she was afraid of aiting for her inside this one That was a brand-new feeling She had never before been afraid of what a book would tell her Far froer to let it lead her into an undiscovered world, one she had never been to before, that she often started to read at the most unsuitable moments Both she and Mo often read at breakfast and, as a result, he had more than once taken her to school late And she used to read under the desk at school too, and late at night in bed until Mo pulled back the covers and threatened to take all the books out of her rooh sleep for once Of course he would never have done such a thing, and he knew she kneouldn’t, but for a few days after such a threat she would put her book under her pillow around nine in the evening and let it go on whispering to her in her dreaood father

She wouldn’t have put this book under her pillow, for fear of what it ie wasn’t sure that she wanted to enter the world waiting for her between the covers of a book All the bad things that had happened over the last three days seemed to have come out of this book, and perhaps they were only a faint reflection of what still awaited her inside it

All the sain Where else was she to look for Mo? Elinor was right; there was no point in si off at rando the printed letters in Inkheart But she had hardly opened it at the first page when she heard footsteps behind her

‘You’ll get sunstroke if you carry on sitting in the full sunlight,’ said a faer made her a bow Of course his face wore its usual s over her shoulder and looking at the open book on her lap ‘So it’s here after all You’ve got it’

Meggie was still looking uncoly at his scarred face How could he stand there acting as if nothing had happened? ‘Where’ve you been?’ she snapped ‘Didn’t they take you too? And where’s Mo? Where have they taken hier took his ti He exa like theh the day was so hot that perspiration stood out in glea little beads on his forehead ‘No, they didn’t take ain ‘But I saw theh the undergrowth, a couple of ti down that wretched slope, but I got to the gate just in tinised them at once Capricorn had sent his bestat his lips as if she could make the words come out of them faster ‘Do you knohere they’ve taken Mo?’ Her voice shook with ie, I think But I wanted to be sure,’ said Dustfinger, taking off his coat and draping it over the bench, ‘so I ran after them I know it sounds silly to run after a car,’ he added, when Meggie frowned in disbelief, ‘but I was so furious It had all been for nothing – ed to hitch a lift to the next village They’d filled up the fuel tank there, four one long So I … er … borrowed a o on after them Don’t look at me like that – you can set your mind at rest – I took the moped back later It wasn’t particularly fast, but luckily the roads are very, very winding here, and I eventually saw the my way round the bends above the your father to Capricorn’s headquarters Not to one of his hideouts further north, but straight to the lion’s den’

‘The lion’s den,’ Meggie repeated ‘Where is it?’

‘About three hundred kiloer sat down on the bench beside her and blinked as he peered at the sun ‘Not far fro on Meggie’s lap ‘Capricorn’s not going to be pleased when hisbook,’ he said ‘I only hope he doesn’t take his disappointment out on your father’

‘But Mo didn’t knoas the wrong book! Elinor swapped the tears! Meggie wiped her eyes on her sleeve Dustfinger wrinkled his brow, looking at her as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe her

‘She says she just wanted to look at it! She had it in her bedroom Mo knew the secret place where she’d hidden it, and because the book they took rapped in brown paper he never noticed it was the wrong one! And Capricorn’s men didn’t check either’

‘Of course not How could they?’ Dustfinger’s voice was full of scorn ‘They can’t read One book is much like any other to theiven anything they want’