The Whispering Skull (Lockwood & Co., #2)

by Jonathan Stroud

His face was serene, his hair glistened; his eyes shone with dark intent. I watched him from the door.

She is obsessed

Lockwood just grinned at me, flicking his blade to and fro so that the air sang.

He turned my wrist, and altered my stance by gently adjusting the position of my waist.

Lockwood was at the door. He’d showered and dressed, and his hair was wet. His dark eyes were on me. I couldn’t tell how long he’d been there.

Dr Bickerstaff, or what was left of him, lay on the floor of his study. There were fragments of robe, but little else. The rats had eaten him.’

‘Personally,’ I said, ‘I like to welcome them with a magnesium flare.’

Which is why he’s the leader, and I’m not. Also why I have no female friends.

Um pick me wtf

‘Iron . . .’ Lockwood said. ‘An iron coffin—’ ‘Can you hear it?’ I said suddenly. ‘The buzzing of the flies?’ ‘But they didn’t have the Problem then,’ George said. ‘What did they need to trap in there?’

‘You didn’t actually aim it at all, did you?’ Lockwood said. ‘No.’

‘What, fat George? Deceitful Lockwood?’ The face crinkled with merriment. ‘Ooh yes, brilliant. What a team.’

The sass

I got to my feet, but Lockwood got up too. ‘Oh no, you’re not,’

Our ordinary responses in such circumstances would be to either (a) ignore it (Lockwood); (b) ask them politely to ring back (George); or (c) send them away with a shrill torrent of abuse (me: I get grumpy with lack of sleep).

although he had complimented me on the pretty tulips I’d put in the boxes outside the windows this past spring.

Awhh

If I leap on the table and start shrieking, don’t try to stop me. Just let me howl.’

HELP

‘I understand your eagerness to clout this kid,’

WHAT

I trust her with my life.

OMFG AHHHHHHHH

‘To be frank, I thought that was Flo.’

‘Or we can just pour you out a bowl of sugar and you can drizzle a teaspoonful of coffee on top,’ Lockwood said. ‘Might be simpler that way.’

He is so sassy

you were Gravedigger Sykes’s lad.

We literally know nothing about him

Luce, you always carry money. Mind going up and paying?

Dickhead

as motionless as he was, holding our breaths, sharing the moment of transition. It was as if we were trying to stay with him, those first few seconds, wherever he was, wherever he was going.

Poetic

‘Lucy,’ he said. ‘Do you know how remarkable you are?

AWH

‘Or Specky Four-Eyes or something.’

Bickerstaff hiding papers under the floorboards of his study. Secret papers.

Omg they are gonna go to the place they said theyshhouldnt gp to

a cool silvered light bathed the undulating wasteland.

‘What?!’ I spun round upon our leader, who had been doing a good impression of someone utterly fascinated by a nearby patch of nettles. ‘Lockwood! You knew about this?’

WHAT?!

Lockwood and I moved so that George was between us. We protected him on either side.

They stood very close, closer than normal – but I didn’t really blame them. In fact I was grateful for it.

My babies <3

I became suddenly aware that I could no longer sense anyone on either side. ‘You ready, Lockwood?’ I said, my voice a little louder. Nothing. From somewhere across the room came a man’s deep cough.

oh nevermind

‘I felt you standing next to me . . .’

omfg.

Lockwood touched my hand. ‘It’s all right. Calm down. You need to calm down and tell us what’s happened.’

DYGDWSHOKJNNVFDCJ

I had them both well trained.

Walk em like a dog

‘Give us back our bones!’

‘This is cosy,’ George said. ‘Nice cologne, Kipps. I’m being genuine there.’ ‘Thanks.’

‘It’s not a mirror. It’s a window. A window to the Other Side.’

Oh my gosh.

It pulled extravagant expressions of horror and disgust whenever I passed by.

‘Lucy, you look delightful,’ he said. ‘George, you’ll have to do. Oh, here’s something for you, Luce. Might go well with that excellent dress.’ He took my hand, and placed in it a necklace of pretty silver links, with a small diamond suspended as a pendant. It was really very beautiful.

‘You look terrific, Luce. You might have been born to this. Don’t step back like that; you just prodded that lady’s bottom with your sword.’ ‘Oh no. Did I?’ ‘And don’t turn round so fast. You nearly cut that waiter in two.’ George nodded. ‘Don’t move, basically – that’s my advice.’

Lockwood was lying flat on his stomach on the surface of the balcony almost directly above. He was doing his best to merge in with the metal and the darkness. The black dinner jacket helped. His pale face didn’t.

And the nearest window blew apart in an explosion of incandescent fire.

WHAT

‘On the upside, that’s one bullet less for us.’ ‘How I love your optimism, Luce.

‘So . . .’ He grinned at me. ‘So . . .’