Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent Read Free Page A

laughing all the time.
    Just as the boat is about to tip over, the water abruptly calms. Loki stops laughing, out of breath. No birds caw overhead. The only sound is the soft lapping of the water against the side of his boat.
    He looks into the water. It’s darker now than it was, with a light coating of foam on the surface. Then he sees it: the serpent – his serpent, the Jormungand. And it is huge. Vengeance will be his, and that vengeance will destroy not just the gods but all the worlds.

    Arthur woke up in a sweat, panting. He grabbed his mobile from the bedside cabinet and checked the time. It was 3.16 a.m. He sighed and collapsed back onto his mattress. So he’d only been asleep for sixteen minutes but had already had that crazy dream. That strange laughing man, the weird rocky land and now a giant snake thing!
    He turned over and tried going back to sleep but soon realised that his sheets were damp. In fact, they weren’t just damp: they were soaking. How did I sweat so much in a quarter of an hour, he wondered to himself as he got out of bed.
    He left his room and followed the unfamiliar hallway downstairs to the living room. Arthur and Joe had piled cardboard boxes here which had yet to be packed away. He switched on the light and scanned the labels on the boxes.
    â€˜Office/computer stuff … Plans … Games and DVDs … Bed and soft stuff, etc.’
    He opened the box of bedding to find it nearly empty, as Joe had only thought of bringing one set of sheets each. However, there were a couple of large beach towels tucked away in the bottom. Arthur thought they would do for the night – or what was left of it.
    He made his way back upstairs. As soon as he entered his room again, he was hit by something that he hadn’t noticed when he’d left. His room smelled like the seaside – that strong briny smell of seaweed and salt water. As he moved closer to his bed, the smell grew stronger and more pungent.
    Somehow his sheets were damp with sea water, not sweat. He pulled them off in a hurry, replaced them with the beach towels and climbed back into bed. As he turned over to sleep, he feared that his dream of the strange man in the boat had something to do with the damp sheets. And if that was the case, then what was that huge snake thing and why was he dreaming about it?

Chapter Three

    Brown. Arthur’s new school uniform was brown. A brown itchy sweater, brown stiff slacks and brown uncomfortable leather shoes. Seeing no way around it, he put the uniform on and went downstairs to breakfast. Joe was already gone. He’d left a Post-it with instructions for how to get to the new school and a €20 note – ‘buy yourself something nice’. Arthur wasn’t hungry and left early, deciding it would be best to meet the principal before school started to keep the inevitable earth-shattering embarrassment to a minimum.
    The October air was frosty and Arthur could see his breath condensing in front of his face. He yawned, still exhausted from his fitful sleep, although luckily he’d managed to catch a few hours after waking from that bizarre dream. He looked around at his new estate. Across the road a businessman with a laptop bag was getting into his Saab. At another house an old woman in a dressing gown was letting her dog out to go to the toilet. The dog ran around the lawn in quick circles, clearly not pleased about being watched by its owner. And at the house in the far corner the boy from yesterday was sitting on the wall, watching him and wearing an identical brown uniform. The boy jumped down and ran to his front door.
    â€˜Stace! Ash!’ Even from across the street, Arthur could hear him calling into the house. The boy looked back at Arthur then ran inside, repeating the names.
    Arthur shrugged his backpack over his shoulder and walked on. After only a few steps, he heard a door slam and turned to see the boy running down the street towards him,