Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times Read Online Free PDF Page B

clock tower, but Jack was not afraid of the dark, and anyone who said otherwise was a liar. Bertie Ducksworth at school was a liar.
    “Mr. Havelock?” Now it was Jack’s own voice that rang, but there was no answer.
    Blindly, Jack felt his way along the wall. Mr. Havelock must have a job seeing in here, what with those dark spectacles. Possibly he took them off, folding them neatly into a pocket so as not to scratch the lenses.
    It was daft to have no lamps, no electric lights. Surely people must come here, clockmakers to set the time and sweeps with their brooms to clear out the dust, even ifthe lords in their fancy coats were too busy.
    “Hello?” He tried again, but there was no sound, no footsteps, no inconvenient sneeze of someone trying to stay quiet.
    The number of times he’d had to pinch his nose to keep his soul in so that he’d make no noise while peering through the parlor keyhole . . .
    His face bashed into something very hard, and he said a word for which Mrs. Pond would have given him a proper hiding if she’d been there to hear it. Rubbing his forehead with one hand, Jack flailed about with the other.
    The door handle was cold and solidly real in his hand. He turned it. Light began to seep in to the dark room, courtesy of slit-thin windows slashed high in the walls of a square staircase that climbed and climbed into the sky, with small landings on each floor.
    Mrs. Pond would still be gossiping with her friend, Wilson chasing urchins away from the horses. It could not be so very high, and if Mr. Havelock was up there, which he must be for there was nowhere else to go, he would be most impressed by Jack’s persistence. That, and Jack’s magic, for he had opened the door.
    “Such talent!” he’d marvel. “Such a special boy I must have to train, and we won’t take no for an answer this time!”
    The first hundred steps—Jack counted in his head—were easy enough. Then his chest began to burn, making him wish he’d put more effort into games at school, the way the fat games master always shouted at him to.
    Up he went, stopping every now and then to breathe, to listen, to test doors that stayed resolutely locked. He thought he could just hear the ticking of the clock, but it could simply be his own heartbeat.
    When he certainly must’ve risen to the stars, a door stood open off the stairs, and his wheezy gasps ceased altogether.
    Oh, oh, it was a wondrous thing, better than any gramophone or stinking piano. Every polished gear spun smooth, wheels and pinions oiled, one against another, and the whole thing bigger than Jack himself, bigger than ten of him.
    It must be heaps of fun to be a clockmaker, Jack thought. He’d read a very thick book about that, as well.
    Tick. Tick. Tick , it commanded to the clock hands you could see from half of London if you tried.
    Other than this, the room was entirely still, as if such a grand clock had stolen even the time it took for a dust mote to float across a sunbeam, needing every minute, every second it could find.
    But there were no sunbeams. Beyond the high windows, there was only gray. A raindrop hit. Another. Another.
    Oh, blast.
    Jack fairly flew down the stairs, fast as he could without falling, which would do nobody any good.
    Mrs. Pond would be furious. Such a hiding he’d never seen, surely, and any minute now the great bell would begin to mark the quarter hour, and he’d been gone far too long.
    She’d be looking for him to get out of the rain, back into the carriage and home. He could not even say he’d been following Mr. Havelock, who was nowhere to be found, or that the magician made a door appear just where he’d needed one. She would say he was telling tales.
    Little boys who wanted their dinner did not tell tales.
    Dizzied, he landed at the door to the dark room, and the most terrible thoughts filled his topsy head. What if he couldn’t see to make the door? What if it wouldn’t appear for him at all?
    Well, Mrs. Pond’d have a