like an ecstatic frog.
A truck made of green rippled riverglass was reversing down the road towards them at top speed, scattering the swarm, splattering some and sending the rest flying for the shelves. The back doors flew open and a crew of a dozen people jumped out wearing full-body jumpsuits, heavy black boots and great metal tanks on their backs, with spraying attachments they wielded like weapons, one in each hand. One of them carried a second tank out of the truck and tossed it lightly to Roshni.
Incredibly, the brigade of bookfighters was led by an enormous ostrichwun in a tweed vest, twice as tall as the rest of them, with great big feathery wings. He had the longest legs Morrigan had ever seen, ending in clawed feet that looked like three-pronged daggers.
‘About time, Colin!’ Roshni shouted, but she was grinning as she turned back to Miss Cheery and the scholars. Colin didn’t answer her but made straight for the mess instead, wings flapping wildly. ‘Right, you lot – we’ll take it from here. Into the truck and STAY INSIDE. Jagdish will come back and drive you to the loans desk once we’ve got a handle on this.’
She turned back to join the bookfighters and other librarians and they ran into the oncoming swarm, spraying thick rivers of bright pink foam and bellowing like warriors.
Unit 919 scrambled up into the riverglass truck and Miss Cheery shut the thick glass doors, sliding a huge metal bolt into place.
Everyone looked miserable and exhausted, but relieved to be out of the chaos … except for Thaddea, who gazed out through the rippled glass, watching Roshni and the bookfighters in awe. Yellow-green guts went flying as the brigade of bookfighters danced around each other, battling the infestation in what could almost pass as choreography. Morrigan thought the scene had a sort of … nauseating beauty about it.
Though she was very glad to be on this side of the riverglass.
‘I’m going to be a librarian,’ Thaddea declared rapturously, as a trail of putrid pus-coloured slime dripped down the side of her head.
‘Is … everyone … okay?’ Miss Cheery panted, pressing one hand to her chest.
Francis had his hand over his mouth, looking green and grim, and Mahir was slumped on the floor, having slipped over on a slime-puddle and not bothered to pull himself up. Arch was trying to wipe bug guts off his clothes, but so far had only managed to spread them farther. Cadence was shaking her head in disbelief – whether at the general situation or specifically at Miss Cheery’s question, it wasn’t clear.
‘Didn’t see that one coming, then?’ she asked Lam pointedly.
Lam gave a small, apologetic shrug. ‘I don’t see everything.’
She was the only one who had managed to escape any degree of sliming, thanks to Arch and Mahir. She pressed herself against the wall to avoid contact with the rest of them.
‘What are those things?’ asked Anah in a trembling voice from the corner of the truck.
‘Book bugs,’ said Miss Cheery, still catching her breath. ‘From the entomology section. There was this book – The Big Book of Bad Bugs. It was all about the world’s biggest and gnarliest insects, and it got checked out by loads of people because it had such good pictures. It was opened and shut constantly, which is bad news around here. People got a bit careless, and about a year ago some of the bugs got out. They started breeding before the bookfighters could round them all up. The bookfighters keep fumigating, but Rosh says they get another outbreak every couple of months. They don’t even try to get them back in the book any more, that’s how bad it is. They just kill them.’
Hawthorne came over to Morrigan and pressed his face against the door, peering miserably out at the action and shivering. ‘Wish we c-could go back out there and h-help.’
Morrigan glanced at her friend and noticed his clothes were drenched through. She cupped her hands, exhaled a little puff of fire and let it dance warmly, hovering just above her palms; a trick she’d learned last week from Rastaban Tarazed.
‘Thanks.’ Hawthorne rubbed his hands together over the flames and then looked up, nodding at the bookfighters with a little grunt of laughter. ‘What’s he playing at?’
He meant Colin. The ostrichwun was the only one who didn’t have a weapon, but he didn’t need one. Those clawed feet of his were weapons, and he used them to great effect. His legs bent