Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

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When I asked my dad why Grandpa was so crazy about guns, he said it sometimes happened to people who used to be soldiers or who had experienced traumatic things. I guess that after everything my grandfather had been through, he never really felt safe anywhere, not even at home. The irony was, now that delusions and paranoia were starting to get the best of him, it was true—he wasn’t safe at home, not with all those guns around. That’s why my dad had swiped the key. I repeated the lie that I didn’t know where it was. There was more swearing and banging as Grandpa Portman stomped around looking <strong>for</strong> it. “Feh!” he said finally. “Let your father have the key if it’s so important to him. Let him have my dead body, too!” I got off the phone as politely as I could and then called my dad. “Grandpa’s flipping out,” I told him. “Has he taken his pills today?” “He won’t tell me. Doesn’t sound like it, though.” I heard my dad sigh. “Can you stop by and make sure he’s okay? I can’t get off work right now.” My dad volunteered part-time at the bird rescue, where he helped rehabilitate snowy egrets hit by cars and pelicans that had swallowed fishhooks. He was an amateur ornithologist and a wannabe nature writer— with a stack of unpublished manuscripts to prove it—
which are real jobs only if you happen to be married to a woman whose family owns a hundred and fifteen drug stores. Of course, mine was not the realest of jobs either, and it was easy to ditch whenever I felt like it. I said I would go. “Thanks, Jake. I promise we’ll get all this Grandpa stuff sorted out soon, okay?” All this Grandpa stuff. “You mean put him in a home,” I said. “Make him someone else’s problem.” “Mom and I haven’t decided yet.” “Of course you have.” “Jacob …” “I can handle him, Dad. Really.” “Maybe now you can. But he’s only going to get worse.” “Fine. Whatever.” I hung up and called my friend Ricky <strong>for</strong> a ride. Ten minutes later I heard the unmistakable throaty honk of his ancient Crown Victoria in the parking lot. On my way out I broke the bad news to Shelley: her tower of Stay-Tite would have to wait until tomorrow. “Family emergency,” I explained. “Right,” she said. I emerged into the sticky-hot evening to find Ricky smoking on the hood of his battered car. Something about his mud-encrusted boots and the way he let smoke curl from his lips and how the sinking sun lit his green hair reminded me of a punk, redneck James Dean. He was all of those things, a bizarre crosspollination of subcultures possible only in South Florida. He saw me and leapt off the hood. “You fired yet?” he shouted across the parking lot. “Shhhh!” I hissed, running toward him. “They don’t know my plan!” Ricky punched my shoulder in a manner meant to
Page 4 and 5: Copyright © 2011 by Ransom Riggs A
Page 6: Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph
Page 9 and 10: father would infect me with some in
Page 11 and 12: suit of clothes with no person in t
Page 16 and 17: I stared at the last photo as Grand
Page 18 and 19: fight, but instead he just said,
Page 21 and 22: I spent the last afternoon of Befor
Page 23 and 24: * * * Wading through the diapers, S
Page 28 and 29: e encouraging but that nearly snapp
Page 30 and 31: to me. “Right at the flamingo org
Page 32 and 33: subdivision, Century Woods. Accordi
Page 34 and 35: danger or blood, but I couldn’t f
Page 36: and I couldn’t speak to tell him,
Page 39 and 40: elieved him, and neither had anyone
Page 41 and 42: Even my best and only friend Ricky
Page 43 and 44: eaction. “I don’t see anything
Page 45 and 46: cross-examining my subconscious, lo
Page 47 and 48: that week. I woke up screaming and
Page 49: just for me to find. Inside were th
Page 56 and 57: delusions that would take years of
Page 58 and 59: out, pouring herself some chardonna
Page 60 and 61: like showing off to accept such a l
Page 62 and 63: I got up to leave, afraid I might s
Page 65 and 66: As promised, the writer had enclose
Page 67 and 68: * * * As you can imagine, convincin
Page 69 and 70: on a big adventure!” I found her
Page 72 and 73: Fog closed around us like a blindfo
Page 74 and 75: oofs, lined a small grid of muddy g
Page 76 and 77:
was unlikely to be a four-star mint
Page 78 and 79:
“Right here,” he said, tapping
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I’d seen this look on his face be
Page 82 and 83:
fake gold chains. He couldn’t hav
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plow through a field of marshy gras
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come. My grandfather had described
Page 88:
kitchen was a science experiment go
Page 91 and 92:
“So how was the house?” “Tras
Page 93 and 94:
“It was a lot more than just one
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how much you worshipped him.” He
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thought of him that way. He’s our
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come back tomorrow, however—”
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ut one of them unplugged. Living on
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I felt numb, disconnected. It was t
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Knox.” “I wonder if it doesn’
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I thought maybe I’d heard him wro
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upon its malevolent shape—the way
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peering at me through cracks and kn
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I grabbed it by the sides and pulle
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sweat in the process. I finally mad
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ut organs. Brains. Hearts. Lungs. E
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was certainly a boulder made from p
Page 126 and 127:
that my fear was irrational—it wa
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The girl’s expression soured. I w
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een lost to the ages. Here lies bog
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I unfolded myself from the cramped
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home as soon as possible. If he hes
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the hell was going on without a roo
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what?” “About the house—about
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on my arm and her knife at my side.
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and gross that I finally had to sit
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titled “Cairnholm under Siege.”
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sneaking around the back, any hope
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horse, flicked its reins, and we lu
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I was led down a flagstone path and
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silently. “There are far easier w
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Emma guided me onto the rug and cle
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ehind him. “I would ask you to si
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and held it up, moving her lips as
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I began to understand why Emma had
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not kill them outright.” “That
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and said, “This is Miss Finch and
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unstable.” She bent over the albu
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occurred to me, one that had been n
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“Never mind what Abe’s doing,
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Claire turned forward and crossed h
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“We have to get out of here,” I
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It began to drizzle, as if all that
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the rest. It was close, and getting
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upturned palm, flicked her wrist, a
Page 186 and 187:
Kev was manning the bar again and r
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It was Dr. Golan. I wanted to say t
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Morning brought rain and wind and f
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“What’s it about?” She pinche
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ehind the curtain. “She may not b
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didn’t attend. Bronwyn yawned and
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There were a few more acts after Fi
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overboard: top hat, cane, monocle
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thing: nobody recognized me. Walkin
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answer them frankly. What was my wo
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“One minute? What can we do in on
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called out. “Where you been off t
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“Five sheep. How much blood do yo
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of it. Worm and Dylan talked tough,
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“That’s good,” she replied, a
Page 219:
topic behind us as quickly as possi
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stayed too long, I’d never want t
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The clay soldier I’d returned beg
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was a lie, of course. I had thought
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Then something terrible occurred to
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“Tell me what happened to Victor!
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It was like waving red underwear at
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more letters. I wondered how much l
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grandfather had trampled her poor,
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century, and by the time I reached
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I shielded my face with the menu an
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“I am, too,” I said, patting he
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“Are you on a sandbar or somethin
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saw was the great bold stripe of th
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He could see the monsters. The mome
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anyway.” Hugh seemed taken aback
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Bronwyn trooped out, nodding solemn
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“He used to say he’d gone to wa
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I was moved by this new idea of my
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“No—abducted. Just as Miss Wren
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climbing roses, a kerosene lantern
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are empty. In a cruel twist of iron
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“Who took it?” “The wight him
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traveling back and forth, I need yo
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your distance, okay?” He looked a
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of the normal growing-up things peo
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looked up and noticed her, at which
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When someone goes missing in a town
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“Or if he was out by the cliffs,
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climbed down a drainpipe to the gro
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meal.” A collective groan arose,
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“You’ll turn into a wrinkled ol
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“And how’s that?” said Millar
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* * * When we stopped at the bog’
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“Which one’s he in?” Enoch as
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to shake and tremble like an overcr
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“Send me back,” he pleaded. “
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I’m just a poor old bus driver, g
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they can fabricate these days. And
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knives that the flesh of its mouth
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wood puffing out and blowing down t
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“If it catches us, it’ll kill u
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the floor as quietly as I could. Em
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Twice the hollow was close enough f
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could kill them. I tested out the w
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went. Said if we tried to come afte
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“Fine,” I said, “so let’s t
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for someone to pick him up, or for
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ealize what it was—it didn’t so
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the single breath it allowed me eve
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“Winston Churchhill,” he said.
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ack.” I turned to Emma. “You up
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landing above our heads, through wh
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“Just put it down and come with u
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common genetic trash of the human r
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scrambling to the hatch and sprinti
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sea. I squinted through the salt sp
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they understood what they needed to
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We marched up the steep trail and a
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died, he told us why they’ve been
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said Hugh. “What if all the ymbry
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out where it is, but when, too?”
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him a letter. I tried to explain ev
Page 361 and 362:
said vaguely. “I’m so tired …
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“Ready to go?” I said. My frien
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the bottom were some strange markin
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we’d finished, Emma suggested tha
Page 371 and 372:
Miss Nightjar Takes All the Hard Ca
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Table of Contents Cover Title Page
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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

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