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

by Jonathan Stroud

A sneer on legs.

If she’d repeatedly fallen over while crossing soft ground, you could have sewn a crop of beans in the chin-holes she left behind.

‘Oh, come on. You love all that mystery about him. Just like you love that pensive, far-off look he does sometimes, as if he’s brooding about important matters, or contemplating a tricky bowel movement.

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).

‘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.

‘Well,’ Lockwood said, ‘if you judge success by the number of enemies you make, that was a highly successful evening.’