Page 65 (1/2)

A stagehand walked onto the stage lugging a suitcase He set the case down and left

A crowd gathered The suitcase sat there, center stage People began to shout, "On with the show!" and "Bring out the freak!"

The suitcase jiggled Then it began to shake, wobbling back and forth until it toppled onto its side The crowd pressed toward the stage, fixated on the case

Its latches popped, and very slowly, the case began to open A pair of white eyes peeped out at the crowd, and then the case opened a little more to reveal a face--that of an adult lasses, who had soer than my torso

The crowd burst into applause, which increased as the freak proceeded to unfold himself, limb by limb, and step out of the impossibly small case He was very tall and as skinny as a beanpole--so alarly thin, in fact, that it looked as if his bones were about to break through his skin He was a hunity that I couldn’t laugh at hi a deep bow

He then took a minute to demonstrate how his li so that the top of his foot touched his hip, then his hips folding so that the knee touched his chest--and after ered as the crowd filtered away The folding e when Emma said to him, "You’re peculiar, aren’t you?"

The man stopped He turned slowly to look at her with an air of imperious annoyance "Excuse me?" he said in a thick Russian accent

"Sorry to corner you this way, but we need to find Miss Wren," Emma said "We know she’s here so her with a noise halfway between laughing and hawking spit

"It’s an ewhat you say," then walked off the stage

"Nohat?" asked Bronwyn

"We keep looking," said Emma

"And if we don’t find Miss Wren?" said Enoch

"We keep looking," Eh her teeth "Everyone understand?"

Everyone understood perfectly well We were out of options If this didn’t work--if Miss Wren wasn’t here or we couldn’t find her soon--then all our efforts would have been for nothing, and Miss Peregrine would be lost just the same as if we’d never come to London at all

We walked out of the sideshow the e’d coes, past the plain-looking boy, out of the tent and into the daylight We were standing outside the exit, unsure what to do next, when the plain-looking boy leaned out through the flap "Wotsa trouble?" he said "Shoeren’t to your liking?"