Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

home as soon as possible. If he hesitated, I would
admit that I’d been hallucinating, and we’d be on the
next ferry, guaranteed.
Inside the Hole were the usual collection of
inebriated men bent over foamy pint glasses and the
battered tables and dingy decor I’d come to know as
my home away from home. But as I headed for the
staircase I heard an unfamiliar voice bark, “Where
d’ya think yer going?”
I turned, one foot on the bottom step, to see the
bartender looking me up and down. Only it wasn’t
Kev, but a scowling bullet-headed man I didn’t
recognize. He wore a bartender’s apron and had a
bushy unibrow and a caterpillar mustache that made
his face look striped.
I might’ve said, I’m going upstairs to pack my
suitcase, and if my dad still won’t take me home I’m
going to fake a seizure, but instead I answered, “Just
up to my room,” which came out sounding more like a
question than a statement of fact.
“That so?” he said, clapping down the glass he’d
been filling. “This look like a hotel to you?”
Wooden creaks as patrons swiveled around in their
stools to get a look at me. I quickly scanned their
faces. Not one of them was familiar.
I’m having a psychotic episode, I thought. Right
now. This is what a psychotic episode feels like. Only
it didn’t feel like anything. I wasn’t seeing lightning
bolts or having palm sweats. It was more like the
world was going crazy, not me.
I told the bartender that there had obviously been
some mistake. “My dad and I have the upstairs
rooms,” I said. “Look, I’ve got the key,” and I produced
it from my pocket as evidence.
“Lemme see that,” he said, leaning over the counter
to snatch it out of my hand. He held it up to the dingy