In Your Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

the corner where she’d once bought him an epoch-making ham roll. But today she had a meeting with Judy di Castel’Bianco, to learn more about what she’d be doing; it would probably last all afternoon, and she’d see him back at the flat. Fine, he thought; with Sophie in that kind of mood, it’d probably be just as well. He spent the lunch hour and the rest of the day shuffling spreadsheets, and was about to call it a day (twenty-five past five; everybody was required to be off the premises by five-thirty, because of the goblins) when Ricky Wurmtoter came in.
    He came in without knocking, which was unusual in itself. Also he looked ruffled, almost worried. He had a suitcase, and Paul noticed that he wasn’t wearing his claw pendant.
    â€˜Paul,’ he said, ‘sorry to bother you. I’ve got a favour to ask.’
    â€˜Sure,’ Paul answered nervously.
    â€˜Would it be all right—’ Ricky Wurmtoter, mumbling? Never in a million years. ‘Look,’ he said, and if it’d been anybody else, Paul would have thought furtive or even guilty about something. ‘I don’t like to ask, but could I borrow that door thing of yours? You know, that thing you used to get into the place where Humph Wells marooned those two clerks?’
    What surprised Paul most of all was that Ricky Wurmtoter was asking . Ever since Paul had chanced upon the Acme Portable Door, a thin plastic sheet that, when pressed against a wall, turned into a door that opened onto anywhere or anywhen you wanted it to, he’d been expecting at any moment to be yelled at for misappropriating it and ordered to give it back immediately. He’d found it, after all, in a desk drawer; by no stretch of the imagination could it be described as his , and since it was clearly a rare and valuable piece of equipment, he was amazed that nobody had noticed it was missing. He’d finally reached the conclusion that no one (apart from himself, Sophie, Mr Tanner’s mother and the firm’s senior partner) knew that it was him who’d got it. But apparently Mr Wurmtoter knew too, and here he was asking nicely.
    â€˜Um,’ Paul said.
    â€˜I’ll let you have it back just as soon as I’ve finished with it,’ Mr Wurmtoter went on – totally weird, he was practically pleading. ‘Only, it just might make all the difference for this job I’ve got to do; and, well, the sooner I get the job done and get back here, the sooner you’ll be taken off pest-control duty and put in with Caz Suslowicz or Theo van Spee or somebody. How about it?’
    â€˜Sure,’ Paul repeated. He reached into his inside pocket and produced the cardboard tube in which the Portable Door lived. What with one thing and another, he hadn’t used it for months, hadn’t even given it a thought. Even so, he felt curiously reluctant to let go of it, and when Ricky Wurmtoter practically snatched it from him, he felt a tiny flicker of anger, a minuscule urge to fight—
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Ricky Wurmtoter, visibly sagging with relief. ‘That’s really kind, you’re a pal.’ While Paul was still speechless, he added, ‘Well, won’t hold you up any longer, you’d better be getting a move on if you don’t want to run into any of Dennis’s loathsome relatives. Thanks again, Paul, I won’t forget this, you’re a real life-saver. And you will get it back, promise.’ Mr Wurmtoter grinned awkwardly, sneezed ferociously, and more or less ran out of the room.
    Oh , Paul thought. A pal. Me. Also a life-saver – a real one, too, not just some kind of cheap imitation. On the other hand, he reflected, he was now minus one extremely useful enchanted object, which could well have come in handy when (for example) faced with an angry fire-breathing dragon. Presumably that was why Mr Wurmtoter – his pal Ricky Wurmtoter – wanted it so badly. Oh