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Mo's guilty conscience showed clearly on his face when he turned to the boy. "What's your

name?" he asked. "It wasn't in the —" But there he broke off.

The boy looked at him suspiciously, then bowed his head. "Farid," he said dully. "My name is

Farid, but I believe it's unlucky to speak in a dream. You never find your way back if you do." He

shut his mouth tightly and stared straight ahead, as if to avoid looking at anyone, and said no

more. Did he have a mother and father in his story? Meggie couldn't remember. It had just

mentioned a boy, a boy without a name who served a band of thieves.

"It's a dream," he whispered again. "Only a dream. The sun will rise and it will all disappear.

That's what it'll do."

Mo looked at him, unhappy and at a loss, like someone who has handled a young bird, knowing it

can never return to the nest. Poor Mo, thought Meggie. Poor Farid. But she was thinking of

something else, too, and she was ashamed of herself for it- Ever since she had seen the lizard

crawl out of the golden coins in Capricorn's church she couldn't help thinking about it. I wish I

could do that, her thoughts had kept saying to her, very quietly. The wish had settled like a

cuckoo in the nest of her heart, where it kept fluffing Up its plumage and making itself at home,

no matter how hard she tried to throw it out. I wish I could do that, it whispered. I'd like to bring

them out of books, touch them, all those characters, all those wonderful characters. I want them

to come out of the pages and sit beside me, I want them to smile at me, I want, I want, I want...

Outside, it was still as dark as if morning would never come.

"I'm going to drive straight on," said Elinor, "until we reach my house."

Far behind them, headlights showed, like fingers probing the night.

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Chapter 2O – Snakes and Thorns

"None of that matters now," said Twilight. "Look behind you."

The Borribles did and there, just a little beyond the rim of the bridge, they saw a halo of

harsh whiteness reflected on the underneath of the dark sky. It was the beam of a car's

headlights as it got into position on the north side of the bridge, the side the runaways

had left only moments before.

– Michael de Larrabeiti, The Borribles Go for Broke

Behind them the headlights were getting closer, no matter how fast Elinor drove.

"It could be just any old car," said Meggie, but she knew that was unlikely. There was only one

village on the bumpy, potholed road they had been following for almost an hour, and that was

Capricorn's. Their pursuers could only have come from there.

"Now what?" asked Elinor. She was in such a state the car was weaving all over the road. "I'm

not letting them lock me up in that hole again. No. No. No." At each "No" she struck the steering

wheel with the palm of her hand. "Didn't you say you’d slit their tires?" she snapped at

Dustfinger.

"Yes, and so I did!" he replied angrily. "Obviously they've thought of that kind of thing. Ever

heard of spare tires? Go on, step on it! There ought to be a village quite soon. It can't be far away

now. If we can make it that far ..."

"If,yes, if is the question," said Elinor, tapping the fuel gauge. "I've got enough gas for about

another ten kilometers, twenty at the most."

But they never got that far. As they swerved around a sharp bend one of the front tires blew out.

Elinor only just managed to wrench the steering wheel around before the car skidded off the

road. Meggie screamed, burying her face in her hands. For a terrible moment she thought they

were going to plunge down the steep slope to their left, the bottom of which disappeared in the

darkness, but the car skidded to the right, scraped its fender against the low stone wall on the

other side of the road, gave a last gasp, and came to a halt under the low branches of a chestnut

oak that leaned over the road.

"Oh hell, hell, bloody hell!" swore Elinor, undoing her seat belt. "Everyone all right?"

"Now I know why I've never trusted cars," muttered Dustfinger, opening his door.

Meggie sat there trembling all over. Mo pulled her out of the car and looked anxiously at her

face. "Are you all right?"

Meggie nodded.

Farid climbed out on Dustfinger's side. Did he still think he was dreaming?

Dustfinger stood in the road, backpack over his shoulder, listening. The unmistakable sound of

an engine came piercing through the night from far away.

"We must get the car off the road!" he said.

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"What?" Elinor looked at him in horror.

"We'll have to push it down the slope."

"My car!" Elinor was almost screaming.

"He's right, Elinor," said Mo. "Perhaps we can shake them off that way. We'll push the car down

the slope — they may not notice it in the dark, and even if they do, they'll think we went off the

road. Then we can climb up the hill on the other side and hide among the trees."

Elinor cast a doubtful glance at the hill on their right. "But it's much too steep! And what about

the snakes?"

"I'm sure Basta has a new knife by now," Dustfinger reminded her.

Elinor gave him her darkest look and, without another word, went around to the back of her car

to check inside the trunk. "Where's our luggage?" she asked.

Dustfinger looked at her with amusement. "I expect Basta's divided it out among Capricorn's

maids. He likes to ingratiate himself with them."

Elinor looked at him as if she didn't believe a word of it, but then quickly closed the trunk,

braced her arms against the car, and began to push.

They couldn't do it.

Hard as they pushed and shoved, Elinor's car only rolled off the road but would not slide more

than a few meters down the slope. Then it stopped with its hood stuck in the undergrowth and

refused to go any farther. Meanwhile, the sound of an engine, so curiously out of place in this

desolate wilderness, was getting alarmingly loud. Dustfinger gave the obstinate car a final kick,

and they all clambered back up to the road, sweating. After climbing over an ancient wall on the

other side they struggled on up the slope. Anything to get away from the road itself. Mo hauled

Meggie along behind him whenever she got stuck, and Dustfinger helped Farid. Elinor had her

work cut out getting herself up the hillside, which was crisscrossed with low walls that had been

built in a laborious attempt to wrest narrow fields and orchards from the poor soil, somewhere

to grow a few olive trees and grapevines, anything that would bear fruit here. But the trees had

run wild, and the ground was covered with fruit that was no longer harvested, for the people

who once lived here had long since left to find an easier life elsewhere.

"Keep your heads down!" gasped Dustfinger, ducking behind one of the ruined walls. "They're

coming!" Mo pulled Meggie down under the nearest tree. The tangled thorn bushes growing

among its gnarled roots were just tall enough to hide them.

"What about the snakes?" Elinor whispered as she stumbled after them.

"Too cold for snakes at the moment!" whispered Dustfinger from his hiding place. "Haven't you

learned anything from all those clever books of yours?"

Elinor was about to snap back an answer, but Mo had quickly put a hand over her mouth to keep

her quiet. The vehicle appeared on the road below them. It was the white delivery van in which

the guard had been sleeping. Without slowing down it drove past the place where they had

pushed Elinor's car over the slope and disappeared around the next bend. Relieved, Meggie was

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about to raise her head above the thorn bushes when Mo pushed her down again. "Not yet!" he

muttered, straining his ears.

The night was perfectly still. Meggie had never known one like it. It was as if she could hear the

trees breathing — the trees, the grass, the night itself.

They watched the van headlights emerge on the slope of the next hill: two fingers of light

groping their way along an invisible road in the dark. But suddenly they stopped moving.

"They're turning!" whispered Elinor. "Oh God! Now what?"

She tried to stand up, but Mo held her back. "Are you mad?" he hissed. "It's too late to climb any

farther. They'd see us."

Mo was right. The delivery van was speeding back up the road. Meggie saw it stop just a few

meters from where they had pushed Elinor's car off the road. She heard the van doors open and

saw two men get out. Both had their backs to the fugitives, but when one of them turned and

looked suspiciously up the slope Meggie thought she recognized Basta's face, though it was little

more than a patch of paler color in the night.

"There's the car," said the other man.

Was that Flatnose? He was certainly tall and broad enough.

"See if they're in it."

Yes, that was Basta. Meggie would have known his voice among a thousand others.

Flatnose made his way down the slope, clumsy as a bear. Meggie heard him cursing the thorns,

the prickles, the darkness, and the wretched riffraff he was having to stumble after in the middle

of the night. Basta was still standing in the road, his face sharply outlined when he lit a cigarette

with a lighter. The white smoke drifted up to them until Meggie thought she could almost smell

it.

"They're not here," called Flatnose. "They must have gotten away on foot. Hell, do you think we

have to follow them?"

Basta went over to the roadside and looked down. Then he turned and looked up at the slope

where Meggie was crouching beside Mo, her heart thudding wildly. "They can't have gotten far,"

he said. "But it'll be difficult to find their trail in the dark."

"Exactly!" Flatnose was panting as he appeared back on the road. "We're not bloody native

trackers, are we?"

Basta did not reply. He just stood there, listening and inhaling his cigarette smoke. Then he

whispered something to Flatnose. Meggie's heart almost stopped.

Flatnose looked around anxiously. "Nah, let's get the dogs instead!" Meggie heard him say. "Even

if they're hiding somewhere around here, how do we know whether they climbed up or down?"

Basta glanced at the trees, looked down the road, and trod out his cigarette. Then he went back

to the van and took out two shotguns. "We'll try going down first," he said, tossing Flatnose one

of the guns. "I'm sure that fat woman would rather climb downhill." And without another word,

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he vanished into the darkness. Flatnose cast the van a longing glance, then trudged after him,

grumbling.

The two were barely out of sight before Dustfinger rose to his feet, soundless as a shadow, and

pointed up the slope. Meggie's heart was beating in her throat as they followed him. They darted

from tree to tree, from bush to bush, constantly looking behind them. Every time a twig cracked

underfoot Meggie jumped, but luckily Basta and Flatnose were making a fair amount of noise

themselves as they worked their way downhill through the undergrowth.

A time came when they couldn't see the road anymore. But their fear did not leave them, the fear

that Basta might have turned back already and was now following them uphill. Yet however

often they stopped and listened, all they could hear was their own breathing.

"They'll soon realize they've gone the wrong way," Dustfinger whispered after a while. "Then

they'll go back for the dogs. We're lucky they didn't bring them in the first place. Basta doesn't

think much of those dogs, and he's right. I've fed them cheese often enough, and cheese dulls a

dog's nose. All the same, he'll fetch them sooner or later because even Basta doesn't like taking

bad news back to Capricorn."

"Then we must just go faster," said Mo.

"Go faster where?" Elinor was still fighting for breath.

Dustfinger looked around. Meggie wondered why. She could hardly make out anything, it was so

dark. "We must keep going south," said Dustfinger. "Toward the coast. We must hide among

other people. That's the only thing that can save us. Down there the nights are bright and

nobody believes in the devil."

Farid was standing beside Meggie, gazing at the night sky as if he could make morning come or

find the people Dustfinger had mentioned somewhere, but there wasn't a light to be seen in the

darkness except for the tangle of stars sparkling cold and distant in the heavens. For a moment,

Meggie felt as if those stars were eyes giving away their presence and imagined she could hear

them whispering, "Look, Basta, there they go, down there! Quick, catch them!"

They stumbled on, keeping close together so that no one would get lost. Dustfinger had taken

Gwin out of his pack and put him on his chain before letting him run alongside them. The marten

didn't seem to like it. Dustfinger had to keep hauling him out of the undergrowth, away from all

the worn scents that their human noses couldn't pick up. The marten spat and snarled with