A Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce #3)

by Alan Bradley

I’d learned quite early in life that the mind loves nothing better than to spook itself with outlandish stories, as if the various coils of the brain were no more than a troop of roly-poly Girl Guides huddled over a campfire in the darkness of the skull.

Whenever I’m with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.

As I scrambled out the window and climbed to the ground, I almost stepped on Dogger, who was on his knees in the wet grass. He got to his feet, lifted his hat, and replaced it. “Good afternoon, Miss Flavia.” “Good afternoon, Dogger.” “Lovely rain.” “Quite lovely.” Dogger glanced up at the golden sky, then went on with his weeding. The very best people are like that. They don’t entangle you like flypaper.

How I longed to tell her about Harriet—but somehow I could not. The grief in the room belonged to Porcelain, and I realized, almost at once, that it would be selfish to rob her of it in any way. I set about cleaning up the shattered glass from the test tube she had dropped. “Here,” she said. “I should be doing that.” “It’s all right,” I told her. “I’m used to it.” It was one of those made-up excuses that I generally despise, but how could I tell her the truth: that I was unwilling to share with anyone the picking up of the pieces. Was this a fleeting glimpse of being a woman? I wondered. I hoped it was … and also that it was not.

It always surprises me after a family row to find that the world outdoors has remained the same. While the passions and feelings that accumulate like noxious gases inside a house seem to condense and cling to the walls and ceilings like old smoke, the out-of-doors is different. The landscape seems incapable of accumulating human radiation. Perhaps the wind blows anger away.

A root! I had been frightened by a stupid root that had been put down, perhaps by one of the long gone borders which had, in earlier times, shaded the walkways of the Visto. Even though I ducked under the thing, its slimy finger still managed to caress my face, as if it were dying for want of human company.