Alistair Grim's Odditorium Read Online Free PDF

closed my eyes and braced myself for the flurry of blows that I was sure would follow.
    “Chin up, lad,” Mrs. Pinch said after a moment. “A good thrashing is the least of what you need to fear here.”
    I opened my eyes to find the old woman standing before me with her broom tucked beneath her arm like a musket, the handle aimed straight at my heart.
    “Now listen carefully,” she began. “You’re to step out of that trunk and march straight for the door. Once you’re in the hallway, you’re to turn left and keep
marching until I tell you to stop. Understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “You’re to keep your eyes straight ahead at all times. No peeking or ogling about, but straight ahead
at all times
no matter what. You hear me, lad?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “And you best mind my instructions, or blind me if you don’t feel my broomstick on your bottom. Now march!”
    And so I hopped from the trunk, turned left at the door, and set off down the hallway. Mrs. Pinch followed close behind, the tip of her broomstick lodged in the small of my back as if I were her
prisoner. And I did try to obey her instructions, I truly did…but out of the corners of my eyes I couldn’t help but notice a number of peculiarities.
    The walls appeared to be of the same polished black as Mr. G’s chambers, but they were lined with ornate sconces that burned with an eerie blue flame. Between some of the sconces were
doors; between others hung large, gilded portraits that reminded me of ones I’d seen on jobs with Mr. Smears.
    However, unlike the portraits in the manor houses, someone had marred the subjects with a bunch of swirly chalk mustaches. Even worse, on a portrait of a grim-faced little boy, someone had
written:
A.G. has a spotty bottom!
    “That’s far enough,” said Mrs. Pinch. We’d come to a large, oaken door at the end of the hallway. The old woman scooted around me to give the brass handle a twist, and
the door opened to reveal an iron gate behind it. Mrs. Pinch slid the gate sideways with a clang, and then scooted behind me with her broomstick at my back.
    “Inside,” she commanded.
    The narrow chamber into which I’d stepped resembled a jail cell, the walls from top to bottom made of long iron bars. The cell itself appeared to be suspended inside a vast chimney, and as
Mrs. Pinch closed the door and the gate behind me, I discovered the same eerie blue light shining down on me from higher up the shaft.
    “Very well, then,” said Mrs. Pinch. “You may turn around now.”
    As I did, the housekeeper shifted a large lever, which in turn set off the same cranking noise I’d heard earlier on my trip with Nigel. However, instead of moving upward, this time we were
moving down!
    Mrs. Pinch must have mistaken the expression of amazement on my sooty face for one of fear, for she stared down her nose at me and said, “Come, come now. It’s only a mechanical lift.
Surely you’ve seen something of the sort in your line of work.”
    “Only when they sank a down-shaft in the coal mines, ma’am,” I replied. “And that lift had to be cranked by a pair of blokes, each one bigger than Mr. Smears!”
    “Well, we won’t be traveling far down as any coal mines. Although blind me if I shouldn’t just move the master’s bed down here, what with his nose always buried in his
books.”
    The lift came to a stop, and Mrs. Pinch ushered me into a small parlor.
    “Although you deposited most of your soot on the master’s clothes,” she said, pointing her broomstick again at my heart, “you’ll stand here by the hearth without
touching anything until the master says you may enter. That is,
if
he says you may enter. Understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Once I introduce you, don’t speak unless spoken to. Be sure to speak clearly and to the point, and do not say anything casual, obvious, or irrelevant.”
    “Irr-
elephant
, ma’am?”
    “The master is a very proper man,” the old woman said, ignoring me.