Sky Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

us come in, one hand on the harpoon gun, the other swatting the insects away. Maybe it was his beard they were in love with, or perhaps they liked to nestle in the undergrowth that thatched his arms. Either way they bothered him silly. It was no wonder he seemed in a bad mood.
    We glided in to tie up at the jetty, where he stood waiting, big and fearsome and slightly unhinged-looking.
    The Toll Troll was in, all right. And in a bad mood too. But then perhaps he was never in anything else.

4
toll
    MARTIN STILL TALKING:
    Peggy, being so old, often doesn’t seem so bothered about things that rightly ought to worry a person. I mean, I’m not a worrier. I’ve never really had anything to worry about – except for that time when we were small and we didn’t have anyone and everybody kept calling us orphans (and usually poor ones too, as the words
orphans
and
poor
are kind of inseparable).
    But even with a whole bunch of carefree years behind me, I was worried now. I’d never seen anything like this. The so-called, self-styled Toll Troll was even bigger close to than he’d seemed far away. He was immense. He was twice as tall as Peggy and as broad as a rock. He looked down on us like somebody contemplating his dinner and thinking that the helpings looked rather mingy. But Peggy just acted like she was the big muscly one, and he was the one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old sky-shrimp.
    â€˜Well?’ she said, with a very sharp tone to her voice. ‘And what do you want?’
    â€˜What do you think?’ the huge man said. ‘What does it look like?’
    Only he didn’t exactly say it like that, as he had a very odd accent, not like anything I’d heard before. He said it more like: ‘Whit dee yee thunk? Whot daes it luuk lyke?’ But his accent fluctuated. At first he was calm and clear, but then the more irritated he got, the more impenetrable it became.
    â€˜Why’s he started talking funny, Peg?’ I said. But I didn’t get a proper answer. Peggy just glowered at me, Gemma kicked my shin, and the big guy kind of tensed up and started clenching his fists.
    â€˜Will ye tell yon brat tae hold his tongue before I rip it oot his mouth for him?’ he said.
    â€˜Martin –’
    But I’d heard.
    â€˜Good,’ he said, when I clammed up.
    â€˜So what do you want?’ Peggy said again.
    â€˜The toll. Whit else?’ he said.
    â€˜Toll?’
    â€˜Aye.’
    Peggy looked at him, up and sideways.
    â€˜And why should we pay you any toll?’
    â€˜Because I’m asking for it.’
    â€˜And what entitles you to ask?’
    The big man looked around with a kind of false innocence, and then he slowly raised his big fist and he waved it under Peggy’s nose.
    â€˜This,’ he said. ‘This does.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜Good.’
    â€˜You’re a crook then,’ she told him.
    The big man got indignant at that.
    â€˜I’m nae a cruk!’ he said (his variable accent suddenly thick as cream). ‘Ye want to use my airspace and sail between my islands, then ye have to pay.’
    â€˜Why?’ Peggy said.
    He stared at her, as if no one had asked him this before.
    â€˜To pay for all the maintenance,’ he said.
    â€˜What maintenance?’ she said.
    He got angry again.
    â€˜The maintenance!’ he repeated. ‘Maintaining the highway and keeping it in good repair.’
    â€˜It’s sky,’ Peggy pointed out. ‘You don’t have to do anything to it. It’s just there. So what are you maintaining exactly?’
    The giant of a man thought about this for a moment; he stood winding bits of his straggly red beard around his fingers, then said:
    â€˜I’m keeping the sky clean and free from debris.’
    And that was when I heard Peggy mutter something that sounded like
bullsh
— But I’m not supposed to know expressions like that, let alone use them.
    The man