Grizelda Read Online Free PDF Page B

books out of the
shelves, though I can’t really put them back again. I like your
histories the best, like Romeo and Juliet. ”
    “Wait, wait.” Grizelda’s head was spinning.
“ Romeo and Juliet’s not a history. It’s made up.”
    “Who the heck put something made up in the
library?”
    “Geddy, there’s parts of a library that have
histories and science and things, and there’s other parts that have
made up stories.”
    “That would explain an awful lot,” he said,
crestfallen.
    “Look, I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t...”
    “No, I’m learning so much.” He tried to put
on a cheerier countenance. “Birthday parties, though, did I get
that part right? I read that you people don’t like knowing that
you’re getting older...”
    Now that he brought it up, the whole birthday
party thing did strike her as odd. “I … don’t really know why we
have birthday parties. Just another excuse to have a party, I
guess…”
    While they were talking, Kricker had left the
group and rode on ahead. But at this juncture he came riding back.
“We can’t go this way. It’s flooded.”
    That caused them a great deal of
inconvenience, as they had to double back and find some other way.
Every way they turned, they seemed to be blocked by a flooded
tunnel or a cave-in. Several times, there were spaces the ratriders
could have gone through, but were too small for her. They had had
to turn away and try somewhere else. And as they wandered, they
drifted farther and farther from their path.
    Grizelda began to grow alarmed when she
realized that their route was starting to tend downward. That
couldn’t be right, could it? They should be going upwards if they
were going to be coming out at the surface. The air was growing
warmer and thicker, and the very character of the tunnels started
to change. These tunnels were newer, smoother cut, and they did not
have carving on the walls.
    Then it hit her that these tunnels weren’t
abandoned. Goblins actually lived here. Lord, what if they actually
ran into one of the twisted creatures? She’d heard horror
stories about them, about how they were sun-shunning, human-hating.
She did her best to hide her fear from the ratriders, though, and
let them guide her on.
    When they started to hear a faint clanging in
the distance, nobody could deny that something was wrong.
    “There’s a live manufacturing floor down
there,” Geddy said.
    They stopped, at an impasse. The heat here
was perceptible. Hot, dry air flowed into their faces from
somewhere up ahead.
    Tunya had been following the others along
morosely, but now that they were stuck, she spoke. “We have to go
back and find some other way. Geddy, I told you we shouldn’t have
done this.”
    “There isn’t some other way!” said
Kricker. “They’re all either flooded or caved in. Why do you think
we’ve been wandering all over the place?”
    “All right.” Geddy looked like he was coming
to a decision. “Kricker, go ahead and see what it looks like.”
    Kricker rode out, and came back in a few
minutes. “We’re in luck. There’s sort of this walk running along
the top of the wall.”
    So they went forward again, but now they
stopped and waited at every corner, watching for goblins. Goblins!
Grizelda was getting a sick feeling to her stomach at the thought
of them. She swallowed, refusing to let these ratriders who were
her guides see she was afraid.
    When they passed the final turn and came upon
the work floor, a blast of heat hit Grizelda with enough force to
make her reel. There was the walkway Kricker had promised up ahead,
a frail-looking thing winding along the cave wall, lit an infernal
red from below. From this distance she could sense rather than see
the great chasm that opened up beneath it, full of lumbering
manufacturing machines and blast furnaces being run by slimy… She
put the thought out of her mind. If they hurried, and the goblins
didn’t look up, they wouldn’t notice one small figure and three
tiny