Читать онлайн «The Creeps»
Автор Джон Коннолли
Praise for John Connolly’s Samuel Johnson Series
“Laugh-out-loud funny . . . a cross between Eoin Colfer and Terry Pratchett. ”
“Whimsical and wicked . . . Connolly’s tale screams to be shared. ”
—Minneapolis
“It is Madeleine L’Engle by way of Douglas Adams.
“Delightfully fresh and imaginative. ”
“A wholly original novel. ”
“Delightfully horrific and hilarious. ”
—Eoin Colfer
“Connolly’s graceful prose, laced with acerbically witty footnotes, is a joy to read, and he easily alternates among slapstick comedy, powerful drama, and skin-crawling horror. ”
“Brilliantly funny, often touching, with enough action to keep adventure fans on the edges of their chairs, this novel combines top-notch writing with cutting wit. ”
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For Cameron and Alistair
I
In Which a Birthday Party Takes Place, and We Learn That One Ought to Be Careful with Candles (and Dangling Prepositions)
IN A SMALL TERRACED house in the English town of Biddlecombe, a birthday party was under way.
Biddlecombe was a place in which, for most of its history, very little interest had ever happened. Unfortunately, as is often the case in a place in which things have been quiet for a little too long, when something interesting did happen it was very interesting indeed; more interesting, in fact, than anybody might have wished. The gates of Hell had opened in a basement in Biddlecombe, and the town had temporarily been invaded by demons.
But the creature in the pond was not the only entity from Hell that had now taken up permanent residence in Biddlecombe, which brings us back to the birthday party. It was not, it must be said, a typical birthday party. The birthday boy in question was named Wormwood. He looked like a large ferret that had suffered a severe attack of mange,1 and was wearing a pair of very fetching blue overalls upon which his name had been embroidered. These overalls replaced a previous pair upon which his name had also been embroidered, although he had managed to spell his own name wrong first time round. This time, all of the letters were present and correct, and in the right order, because Samuel Johnson’s mother had done the stitching herself, and if there was one thing Mrs. Johnson was a stickler for,2 it was good spelling. Thus it was that the overalls now read WORMWOOD and not WROMWOOD as they had previously done.
