The Trap. Michael Grant

sea spray, mop water, overflowing toilet water, spilled coffee water, seasickness results, you name it. It was about up to Paddy’s thighs. It smelled like a toilet.

      For food, the seventh-class passengers had to trap and kill one of the many alligators that slithered through the dank, cold, oily, poo-smelling water.

      So basically it was bad. Very bad. As bad as it gets.

      But Paddy was a tough kid. On his first night in the bilges he earned the respect of the wild dog pack by biting the pack’s leader on the ear and gnawing away for so long that forever after that dog was known as Rex “One Ear” Plantagenet.

      On his second night Paddy killed and ate an alligator.

      By the time he left the DiCaprio – seventh-class passengers didn’t walk down the gangplank; they were tossed into the water and left to swim ashore – he not only had a belly full of tasty alligator sushi, he had a nice pair of homemade alligator boots and a matching alligator vest.

      Which was frankly disturbing to the first New Yorkers who saw him, what with Paddy having had no facilities for drying or even properly cleaning alligator skin. So his alligator boots had bits of alligator intestine trailing behind.

      On the plus side, no one asked him for spare change.

      Paddy went straight from the dock to the headquarters of the Toomany Society, which was housed in Toomany Hall. The Toomany Society offered help to newly arrived immigrants.

      “What do you do for a living?” the woman at the desk asked.

      “I used to grow oats.”

      “That’ll be really useful here in New York. We have so many vast fields of oats.”

      “Are you being sarcastic?” Paddy asked.

      “Actually, no. I mean, this isn’t New York like it might be in the future, say, the far-off twenty-first century. This is New York in the early twentieth century. And believe it or not, we still have farms here. A hardworking oater can eke out a miserable existence working sixteen backbreaking hours a day, seven days a week in harsh conditions. You’ll marry a dance hall girl, spawn ill-mannered brats, grow old before your time, and die of some miserable disease, possibly consumption. But hey, it’s a living.”

      “What are my other choices?” Paddy asked.

      The woman shrugged. “You’re not fit for anything but oat farming or banking – and you don’t have the wardrobe for banking. And then, there’s always crime.”

      “Tell me about this ‘crime’ of which you speak.”

      “Well, hmm… I suppose you’d join a criminal gang, extort money from shopkeepers, rob banks, dress in flashy clothes, and mostly sit around all day drinking with other criminals in between acts of mayhem.”

      Paddy pointed a jaunty finger at her and said, “Bingo.”

      

      y favourite colour used to be purple!” Mack cried out as Stefan and Jarrah pedalled frantically.

      The Tong Elves were just behind them.

      Nine Iron Trout was just ahead, ready to impale them.

      Clearly the Pale Queen’s minions weren’t waiting around for the thirty-five days to be up. They were looking for a quick kill.

      Or in Nine Iron’s case, a slow kill.

      Panicky vendors were trying desperately to save squids and snakes-on-a-stick from the threatening flames. All the commotion was lit by cheery neon lights shining off candy-striped awnings.

      Stefan had powerful legs. But the weight of a not-exactly-steady Mack flailing all over the handlebars slowed him down a bit.

      Mack didn’t snap entirely back to reality until he saw Nine Iron’s cane-sword within about eight feet of skewering him like a fried scorpion.

      “Hey!” he yelled.

      Stefan tried to veer right to pass the safe side of the pedicab, but quick-peddling Tong Elves cut him off.

      “Left! Closer!” Mack shouted.

      Maybe Stefan obeyed or maybe he just wobbled, but either way Mack’s left hand came just close enough to a tray of mixed skewers.

      He snatched them up, transferred them to his right hand, and with Nine Iron’s deadly sword just two feet from his heart, flung the skewers like darts.

      The sudden movement sent Stefan even further left, crashing through a grease fire and slip-sliding through a couple of dozen frantic lobsters who were no doubt hoping to reach the ocean. (Sorry: no.)

      The sword missed by millimeters.

      The skewers did not. In a flash of neon, Mack saw that a skewer of fried sea horses had stuck in Nine Iron’s gaunt cheek. And a skewer of fried silkworm cocoons had stuck in Nine Iron’s green bowler hat.

      They flashed past the pedicab and gained speed. Jarrah was alongside, pedalling hard.

      “Why am I riding on the handlebars?” Mack cried.

      “Look out! Here they come!” Jarrah cried, jerking her chin back towards the Tong Elves. With a glance, Mack could see that the pedicab driver had spun his vehicle sharply, making a teetering two-wheel turn, and now raced after the fleeing bikes.

      Ahead was a tall, red-lacquered double door studded with brass bolts as big as a baby’s head. Two uniformed guards were just closing a massive filigreed gate behind a departing cleaning crew.

      Mack, Stefan and Jarrah shot through the gap, pursued by Chinese shouts of outrage. Which aren’t that different from American shouts of outrage because outrage is a universal language.

      The guards slammed the gates closed behind them, locking out Nine Iron and the elves on bikes.

      Unfortunately now the guards were yelling at Mack, Stefan and Jarrah, and blowing police whistles, so while things looked better than they had, they still didn’t look good.

      “We have to hide!” Jarrah said.

      They were in a vast square. Buildings all around formed the edges of a cobblestoned courtyard. The walls on all sides were reddish, although in the dim light it was hard to see very clearly.

      Mack was trying to picture the map of the Forbidden City in his mind. He’d glanced at the map but he hadn’t exactly memorised the place. After all, it’s a huge complex full of numerous palaces – some big, some small, all fabulously decorated with dragons and filigree and Chinese characters.

      And still, even now, Mack was thinking just a little bit about Toaster Strudel.

      “Which way?” Stefan asked.

      They were easily outpacing the guards, who were on foot. But Mack had no illusion that these were the only guards. In a few minutes the place would be swarming with guards and cops and, for all he knew, the entire Chinese army.

      Things had loosened up a bit at the Forbidden City, but not so much that they’d let two Yanks and an Aussie ride bikes around the place at night.

      “Just keep riding!” Mack yelled.

      They were pedalling up a long ramp that led to one of the central palaces.