Un Lun Dun Read Online Free PDF Page B

some clue, some advice. But it was only a card.

8
    Pins and Needles
    Deeba put her arm around her friend. Neither of them wanted to attract the attention of the strange market-goers. They sat quietly for a couple of minutes.
    “Ahem…”
    Cautiously, the two girls looked up. Standing before them was the boy—the boy who had scared off the trashpack. He eyed them with a look somewhere between sarcasm and concern.
    “I was just wondering…” he said slowly. “Is that yours?”
    He pointed near their feet, at an empty cardboard milk carton. Zanna and Deeba stared at it.
    The carton moved eagerly towards them, opening and closing its folded spout. Deeba and Zanna yelped and withdrew their feet. It was one of the pieces of rubbish that had chased them earlier.
    “I was going to kick it back into the maze,” he said. “But I thought maybe it was a pet…”
    “No,” Deeba said guardedly. “No, it’s not ours. We was…It was…”
    “It must have followed us,” said Zanna.
    “Righto,” the boy said, stuck his hands in his pockets, and whistled a tune for a second or two. He looked at them quizzically. “Well I’ll…” He hesitated. “Can I just ask…Are you okay?”
    He sat down beside them. “What’re your names, then? I’m Hemi. Pleased to meet you and all that.” He stuck out his hand. Zanna and Deeba looked at it suspiciously. Eventually they shook it and said their names. “So what’s up with you two then?” he said. “What’s happened?”
    “We don’t
know
what’s happened,” Zanna said.
    “We dunno where we are,” said Deeba. “We dunno what that is…” She pointed up into the sky.
    “We don’t know what’s going on,” Zanna finished.
    “Well…” the boy Hemi said slowly. “You two don’t know a lot, do you? But I might be able to help you. I can tell you where you are, for a start.” His voice dropped, and the girls eagerly leaned in close to hear him.
    “You’re…” he whispered slowly, “in…Un Lun Dun.”
    The girls waited for the words to make sense, but they didn’t. Hemi was grinning. “Un Lun Dun!” he repeated.
    “Un,” said Zanna. “Lun. Dun.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Un Lun Dun.”
    And suddenly the three sounds fell into a different shape, and Zanna said the name.
    “UnLondon.”
    “UnLondon?” Deeba said.
    Hemi nodded, and crept an inch closer.
    “UnLondon,” he said, and he reached for Zanna.
             
    “Hey!”
A loud voice interrupted. Zanna, Deeba, and the boy jumped up. The milk carton squeaked out air and scuttled behind Deeba. There in front of them was the pincushion man, his needles winking in the light. “Don’t you
dare
!” the book-wearing fashion designer shouted. “Get out!”
    Hemi leapt up, made a rude noise, and sped away, ducking at astonishing speed between the legs of passersby, into the crowd and out of sight.
    “What you doing?” Zanna shouted. “He was helping us!”
    “Helping?” the man said. “Do you have any idea who that was? He’s one of them!”
    “One of who?”
    “A ghost!”
    Deeba and Zanna stared at him.
    “You heard me,” he said. “A ghost. He’s from Wraithtown, and…Did he make you get really close to him? I saw him trying to grab!”
    “Well…we couldn’t really hear him, so we was leaning in…” Deeba said.
    “
Aha.
I knew it. One more minute and he’d have possessed you! That’s what they want: they’re desperate for bodies. They’ll possess you soon as look at you. Sneaky little wisper.”
    “Possess me?”
    “Absolutely. Or you.” He nodded at Zanna. “Why do you think he was talking to you?”
    “But…he
has
a body,” said Zanna. “We shook his hand.”
    The man looked a little put-out.
    “Well, yes, technically he has a body, that one. If you want to be really precise about it, he’s a half-ghost. But don’t you be fooled by his whole ‘Flesh-and-bone, just like you’ act. He’ll steal your body just like the rest of his family.
    “It’s just