فصل شانزدهم

CHAPTER 16: A TEAM OF

HAIRDRESSERS

LESS than an hour later they landed at Fowl Manor. Artemis woke up just as Holly’s heels hit the gravel and was instantly alert.

‘Magic is wonderful stuff,’ he said, pin-wheeling his left arm.

‘You should have held on to yours,’ quipped Holly.

‘Ironically, if I had not attempted to cure Mother, Opal would have allowed her to recover. It was my journey into the past that gave Opal the basis for her plan, which she instigated by following us to her future.’ ‘I liked you better asleep,’ said Holly, retrieving her tether. ‘My head hurt less.’ ‘It’s the big time paradox. If I had done nothing, then nothing would have needed to be done.’ Holly touched her helmet. ‘Let me get Foaly on the com. You two could both talk at the same time.’ The exterior lights cast a soft glow on the gravel, setting the stones shimmering like gems. Lofty evergreen trees swayed in the gentle breeze, rustling with life. Like Tolkien’s creatures.

Artemis watched Holly stride towards the main doors.

If only, he thought. If only.

No1 sat on the front step, flanked by a squad of LEP officers bristling with the latest weaponry. Artemis knew that his DNA was coded into their guns and all they had to do was select his icon from a list and there would be no escape. Jayjay had wrapped himself around the demon’s crown like a hunting cap and seemed most comfortable there. He roused himself when he saw Artemis, leaping into the boy’s arms. A dozen LEP rifles instantly beeped, and Artemis guessed that his icon was being selected.

‘Hello there, little fellow. How do you like the present?’ No1 answered for the lemur. ‘He likes it fine. Especially now that no one will be sticking any needles in his head.’ Artemis nodded. ‘You duplicated the fluid. I thought that might be an option. Where is Doctor Schalke?’ ‘He collapsed once Opal departed. Butler put him in a guest room.’ ‘And Artemis Junior?’

‘Technically, you are Artemis Junior,’ replied No1. ‘But I know what you are trying to ask me. Your younger self has been transported back to his own time. I sent a Retrieval captain and stayed here as a marker. I thought you would want him out of the way as soon as possible, what with your father and the twins on their way home.’ Artemis tickled Jayjay under the chin. ‘It might have proved awkward.’ Holly was troubled. ‘I know we promised not to wipe him, but I’m not particularly thrilled that there’s a little Fowl running around with fairy knowledge in his devious skull.’ Artemis raised an eyebrow. ‘Devious skull? Charming.’ ‘Hey, if the flap fits …’

No1 was a little pale. With a flex of his tail, he lifted his squat rump from the step.

‘About this no mind-wiping promise. The thing is, nobody told me.’ Holly stared at him. ‘So you wiped him?’

No1 nodded. ‘And Schalke. I also left a residual spell in young Artemis’s eyeballs so Butler will get it too. Nothing fancy, just a blanket memory loss. Their brains will fill in the gaps, invent believable memories.’ Holly shuddered. ‘You left a spell in his eyeballs. That is revolting.’ ‘Revolting but ingenious,’ said Artemis.

Holly was surprised. ‘You don’t seem too indignant. I was expecting a speech. Rolling eyes, flapping arms, the whole Fowl thing.’ Artemis shrugged. ‘I knew it would happen. I didn’t remember anything, so I must have been wiped, therefore we must have won.’ ‘You always knew.’

‘I didn’t know what the cost would be.’

No1 sighed. ‘So I’m off the hook, as you humans say?’ ‘Absolutely,’ said Holly, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘I feel a lot better now.’ ‘On the positive side, I bolstered your atomic structure. Your atoms were a bit rattled by the time stream. I’m amazed you are still in one piece. I can only imagine how hard you were forced to concentrate.’ ‘Well, you had bolstered my atoms, and I have to beg one more favour,’ said Artemis. ‘I need you to send a note back in time.’ ‘I’ve been ordered not to open the time stream again, but maybe we can squeeze back one more thing,’ said No1.

Artemis nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘When and where?’

‘Holly knows. You can do it from Tara.’

‘How do you spell stupendous?’ said Holly, smiling.

Artemis stepped back, craning his neck to peer upwards at the front window of his parents’ room. Jayjay mimicked the action, climbing on to Artemis’s shoulders and tilting his tiny head back.

‘I’m afraid to go up, for some reason.’

He noticed himself wringing his fingers, and stuffed both hands in his jacket pockets.

‘What she must have been through, all because of my meddling. What she must have–’ ‘Don’t forget us,’ interjected No1. ‘We were submerged in animal fat. You have no idea how gross that is. Eyeball spells are the epitome of good taste compared to animal fat.’ ‘I was turned into an adolescent,’ said Holly, winking at Artemis. ‘Now that was gross.’ Artemis’s smile was forced. ‘Strangely, all this guilt tripping is not making me feel any better. The DNA cannons aren’t helping either.’ Holly gestured at the LEP squad to stand down, then tilted her head slightly as a message came through.

‘There’s a chopper coming in. Your father. We’ve got to fly.’ No1 wagged a finger. ‘And that’s not just a figure of speech. We actually have to fly. I know humans use that expression even when they don’t intend to actually fly, so just to avoid confusion–’ ‘I get it, Number One,’ said Artemis softly.

Holly raised her forearm, and Jayjay jumped on to it. ‘He will be safer with us.’ ‘I know.’

He turned to Holly, meeting her gaze. Blue and hazel eyes.

She gazed back for a second, then activated her wings, rising a little from the surface.

‘In another time,’ she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

He was at the front door before Holly called to him.

‘You know something, Fowl? You did a good thing here. For its own sake. Not one penny of profit.’ Artemis grimaced. ‘I know. I’m appalled.’

He looked down at his feet, composing a pithy remark, but when he looked up again the avenue was empty. ‘Goodbye, my friends,’ he said. ‘Take care of Jayjay.’ Artemis could hear helicopter rotors in the distance by the time he reached his mother’s bedroom. He would have some explaining to do, but he had a feeling that Artemis Senior would not press him for details once he saw Angeline in good health.

Artemis flexed his fingers, summoning his courage, then pushed through into the bedchamber. The bed was empty. His mother sat at her dresser, despairing at the state of her hair.

‘Oh dear, Arty,’ she said in mock horror on spotting her son in the mirror. ‘Look at me. I need a team of hairdressers flown in immediately from London.’ ‘You look fine, Mother… Mum. Wonderful.’

Angeline ran a pearl-handled brush through her long hair, the lustre returning with each stroke. ‘Considering what I have been through.’ ‘Yes. You were ill. But you are better now.’

Angeline turned on her dresser stool, reaching out her arms.

‘Come here, my hero. Hug your mother.’

Artemis was happy to do as he was told.

A thought struck him. Hero. Why did she call him a hero?

Generally, victims of the mesmer remembered nothing of their ordeal. But Butler had remembered what Opal had done to him; he had even described the experience to Artemis. Schalke had been wiped. But what of Mother?

Angeline held him tightly. ‘You have done so much, Arty. Risked everything.’ The rotors were loud now, rattling the windows. His father was home.

‘I didn’t do so much, Mum. What any son would do.’ Angeline’s hand cradled his head. He could feel her tears on his cheek. ‘I know everything, Arty. Everything. That creature left me her memories. I tried to fight her, but she was too strong.’ ‘What creature, Mother? It was the fever. You had a hallucination, that’s all.’ Angeline held him at arm’s length. ‘I was in the diseased hell of that pixie’s brain, Artemis. Don’t you dare lie to me and say that I wasn’t. I saw your friends almost die to help you. I saw Butler’s heart stop. I saw you save us all. Look me in the eye and tell me these things did not happen.’ Artemis found it difficult to meet his mother’s stare and, when he did, it was impossible to lie.

‘They happened. All of them. And more.’

Angeline frowned. ‘You have a brown eye. Why did I not notice that?’ ‘I put a spell on you,’ said Artemis miserably.

‘And on your father?’

‘Him too.’

Below, the front door crashed open. His father’s footsteps raced across the lobby, then on to the stairway.

‘You saved me, Artemis,’ said his mother hurriedly. ‘But I have a feeling that all your spell-casting in some way put us in this situation. So I want to know everything. Everything. Do you understand?’ Artemis nodded. He couldn’t see how to escape this. He was in a dead end and the only way out was complete honesty.

‘Now we will give your father and the twins time to hug me and kiss me, then you and I are going to have a talk. It will be our secret. Understood?’ ‘Understood.’

Artemis sat on the bed. He felt six years old again, when he had been caught hacking into the school computers to make the test questions a little more challenging.

His father was on the landing now. Artemis knew that his secret life ended today. As soon as his mother got him alone he would be explaining himself. Starting at the beginning. Abductions, uprisings, time jaunts, goblin revolutions. Everything.

Complete honesty, he thought.

Artemis Fowl shuddered.

Some hours later, the master bedroom had been transformed by the whirlwind known as Beckett Fowl. There were pizza boxes on the night table and tomato-sauce finger paintings on the wall. Beckett had stripped off his own clothes and dressed himself in one of his father’s T-shirts, which he had belted round his waist. He had applied a mascara moustache and lipstick scars to his face and was currently fencing with an invisible enemy using one of his father’s old prosthetic legs as a sword.

Artemis was finishing his explanation of Angeline’s miraculous recovery. ‘And then I realized that Mother had somehow contracted Glover’s Fever, which is usually confined to Madagascar, so I synthesized the natural cure preferred by the locals and administered it. Relief was immediate.’ Beckett noticed that Artemis had stopped talking and heaved a dramatic sigh of relief. He rode an imaginary horse across the room and poked Myles with the prosthetic leg.

‘Good story?’ he asked his twin.

Myles climbed down from the bed and placed his mouth beside Beckett’s ear.

‘Artemis simple-toon,’ he confided.