5thCLASS_97_185_jg:Layout 1 5/3/12 17:45 Page 135


‘Yes, it was.’ She peered closer. ‘How can you talk?’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘How can you talk? You move your mouth when you speak, but you’ve got no tongue, you’ve got no lips, you’ve got no vocal cords. I mean, I know what skeletons look like, I’ve seen diagrams and models and stuff, and the only things that hold them together are flesh and skin and ligaments, so why don’t you just fall apart?’ He gave another shrug, both shoulders this time. ‘Well, that’s magic too.’ She looked at him. ‘Magic’s pretty handy.’ ‘Yes, magic is.’ ‘And what about, you know, nerve endings? Can you feel pain?’ ‘I can, but that’s not a bad thing. Pain lets you know when you’re alive, after all.’ ‘And are you alive?’ ‘Well, technically, no, but. . .’ She peered into his empty eye sockets. ‘Do you have a brain?’ He laughed. ‘I don’t have a brain, I don’t have any organs, but I have a consciousness.’ He started clearing away the sugar and the milk. ‘To be honest with you, it’s not even my head.’ ‘What?’ ‘It’s not. They ran way with my skull. I won this one in a poker game.’ ‘That’s not even yours? How does it feel?’ ‘It’ll do. It’ll do until I finally get around to getting my own head back. You look faintly disgusted.’ ‘I just. . . Doesn’t it feel weird? It’d be like wearing someone else’s socks.’ ‘You get used to it.’ ‘What happened to you?’ she asked. ‘Were you born like this?’ ‘No, I was born perfectly normal. Skin, organs, the whole shebang. Even had a face that wasn’t too bad to look at, if I do say so myself.’ ‘So what happened?’ Skulduggery leaned against the worktop, arms folded across his chest. ‘I got into magic. Back then – back when I was, for want of a better term, alive – there were some pretty nasty people around. The world was seeing a darkness it might never have recovered from. It was war, you see. A secret war, but war nonetheless. There was a sorcerer, Mevolent, worse than any of the others, and he had himself an army, and those of us who refused to fall in behind him found ourselves standing up against him. ‘And we were winning. Eventually, after years of fighting this little war of ours, we were


How do you think Stephanie feels talking to a skeleton? What do you think of Skulduggery so far?


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