Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,58
fifty-nine human and three hundred thirty-two animal residents of Cairnholm, minute by minute, sunup to sundown.”
“That’s incredible,” I said.
“I can’t help but agree,” he replied. “In just twenty-seven years I’ve already observed half the animals and nearly all the humans.”
My mouth fell open. “Twenty-seven years?”
“He spent three years on pigs alone!” Hugh said. “That’s all day every day for three years taking notes on pigs! Can you imagine? ‘This one dropped a load of arse biscuits!’ ‘That one said oink-oink and then went to sleep in its own filth!’ ”
“Notes are absolutely essential to the process,” Millard explained patiently. “But I can understand your jealousy, Hugh. It promises to be a work unprecedented in the history of academic scholarship.”
“Oh, don’t cock your nose,” Emma said. “It’ll also be unprecedented in the history of dull things. It’ll be the dullest thing ever written!”
Rather than responding, Millard began pointing things out just before they happened. “Mrs. Higgins is about to have a coughing fit,” he’d say, and then a woman in the street would cough and hack until she was red in the face, or “Presently, a fisherman will lament the difficulty of plying his trade during wartime,” and then a man leaning on a cart filled with nets would turn to another man and say, “There’s so many damned U-boats in the water now it ain’t even safe for a bloke to go tickle his own lines!”
I was duly impressed, and told him so. “I’m glad someone appreciates my work,” he replied.
We walked along the bustling harbor until the docks ran out and then followed the rocky shore toward the headlands to a sandy cove. We boys stripped down to our underwear (all except Horace, who would remove only his shoes and tie) while the girls disappeared to change into modest, old-school bathing suits. Then we all swam. Bronwyn and Emma raced each other while the rest of us paddled around; once we’d exhausted ourselves, we climbed onto the sand and napped. When the sun was too hot we fell back into the water, and when the chilly sea made us shiver we crawled out again, and so it went until our shadows began to lengthen across the cove.
We got to talking. They had a million questions for me, and, far away from Miss Peregrine, I could answer them frankly. What was my world like? What did people eat, drink, wear? When would sickness and death be overcome by science? They lived in splendor but were starving for new faces and new stories. I told them whatever I could, racking my brain for nuggets of twentieth-century history from Mrs. Johnston’s class—the moon landing! the Berlin Wall! Vietnam!—but they were hardly comprehensive.
It was my time’s technology and standard of living that amazed them most. Our houses were air-conditioned. They’d heard of televisions but had never seen one and were shocked to learn that my family had a talking-picture box in almost every room. Air travel was as common and affordable to us as train travel was to them. Our army fought with remote-controlled drones. We carried telephone-computers that fit in our pockets, and even though mine didn’t work here (nothing electronic seemed to), I pulled it out just to show them its sleek, mirrored enclosure.
It was edging toward sunset when we finally started back. Emma stuck to me like glue, the back of her hand brushing mine as we walked. Passing an apple tree on the outskirts of town, she stopped to pick one, but even on tiptoes the lowest fruit was out of reach, so I did what any gentleman would do and gave her a boost, wrapping my arms around her waist and trying not to groan as I lifted, her white arm outstretched, wet hair glinting in the sun. When I let her down she gave me a little kiss on the cheek and handed me the apple.
“Here,” she said, “you earned it.”
“The apple or the kiss?”
She laughed and ran off to catch up with the others. I didn’t know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good. I put the apple in my pocket and ran after her.
When we came to the bog and I said I had to go home, she pretended to pout. “At least let me escort you,” she said, so we waved goodbye to the others and crossed over to the cairn, me doing my best to memorize the placement of her