The Fowl Twins

by Eoin Colfer

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, shall I?” said Myles, rising from his bed, slotting his feet into velvet slippers, and belting on his silk dressing gown, which bore the Fowl crest stitched onto the breast in golden thread. “What’s wrong is that I presented an irrefutable argument to the LEP as to why we should not be subjected to a mind-wipe and still they have taken three days to deliberate. The fate of our very brains is in their hands. It is, in a word, ridiculous. My mind should be bequeathed to science, not tampered with by some intern with electrodes. It is intolerable.”

  Beckett executed a near-perfect dismount from the bed and landed nose-to-nose with his twin.

  “But, brother, we are at home with Mum and Dad, the sun is shining, and there are fairies in the world. Plus, the fairy serum made our hair grow back.”

  “Be all of that as it may,” said Myles, “I gave up my quest for knowledge to protect Specialist Heitz. I followed their rules, which is not easy for a Fowl, and now I am to be brain-scraped. No, I say. Not fair. Do you know something, brother?”

  “I know seven things,” said Beckett seriously.

  “I am beginning to think that Great-Grandmother Peg O’Connor Fowl had the right idea.”

  Beckett was aghast. “Peg the Pirate?”

  “No,” said Myles. “Peg the Information Corsair. She knew that knowledge was power, not gold. Lord Bleedham-Drye knew that, too.”

  Beckett asked a pertinent question. “Would you rather end up like the duke?”

  Myles opened the bedroom window and looked out over the island. His parents were performing sunrise tai chi on the beach, and Dublin Bay was picture-postcard Irish.

  “The duke made mistakes,” said Myles. “He was vain and obvious. I would never make those mistakes. He had the right idea but used the wrong methods.”

  There was a shimmering on the windowsill—small at first, like the flash of fish scales in a clear stream, but the shimmer grew larger and solidified to become Lazuli Heitz, whose uniform seemed to have been upgraded somewhat. For one thing, it fit her well, and for another, it was golden.

  Myles checked his smartwatch. “Specialist Heitz,” he said, “you are early. I prefer not to conduct conversations until after my brain smoothie.”

  Lazuli smiled. “Sounds like Myles Fowl. How are you, Beckett?”

  Beckett bounced across the room. “I am excellent, Laser. Yesterday I taught a worm to tie itself in a knot. Today we are doing untying.”

  “And that sounds like Beckett,” said Lazuli.

  The pixel was changed somehow, and it wasn’t just her uniform. Her features seemed sharper and her eyes more alert.

  “You have been promoted,” Myles guessed. “You are wearing a new uniform, and confidence has given your body language a certain focus.”

  Lazuli stepped inside. “You are half right, Myles. I have been bumped up two grades in my pay scale but not promoted exactly. A new post has been created for me.”

  Myles unwrapped a seaweed stick and sucked it as he deduced. “Our objection was upheld and we are not to be wiped. And you are to be our babysitter.”

  “Not babysitter,” said Lazuli. “Fairy liaison officer. You can call me Ambassador Heitz, Fowl Affairs. It’s a whole new office. Just me and a robot. And yes, your objection was partly successful. Magical creatures cannot be mind-wiped, as it would be a violation of their civil rights, and, since both you and Beckett were once possessed by magical creatures, you have been deemed, by extension, to be magical. A tiny loophole, humans, but you squeezed through it.”

  Myles did not seem cheered. “A babysitter by any other name is still a babysitter. We already have a NANNI, thank you very much.”

  Lazuli took off her helmet, tucked it under her arm, stood soldier straight, and did not back off from Myles’s gaze. “This is not a request, Myles. You are on probation. If I find that you are interfering with fairy affairs, your privileges will be revoked. If you tell anyone about us, even your parents, your privileges will be revoked. If you attempt to harbor or make contact with a fairy fugitive, your privileges will be revoked. You will wake up one morning with no memories of the Fairy People.”

  “How long is the probation?” Myles asked.

  “Five hundred years.”

  “That seems excessive, given our life span.”

  Lazuli shrugged. “As I’m finding out, humans have ways of cheating when it comes to life spans.”

  Beckett too had a question. “Would we remem-ber you?”

  Lazuli relaxed a little. “No, Beck. You wouldn’t remem-ber me.”

  “Then we’ll be good,” promised Beckett. “You’re my friend, Laser. I want to remember you.”

  “And I you, Beck,” said Lazuli. “Meeting you both has been quite an introduction to humanity. To be honest, I never believed the stories they tell about your brother in the Academy, but the past few days have changed my mind. We owe each other our lives, boys, and I feel honored to be your point of contact with the LEP.”

  Myles knew flattery when he heard it, but still he appeared to soften.

  “Thank you, Ambassador. We too feel honored. Without you I feel that it would have taken me slightly longer to outwit Sister Jeronima and the duke, but you certainly expedited matters.”

  “Thanks…I think,” said Lazuli. “We will set up a timetable for weekly debriefings. Also, I have something for you.”

  Lazuli handed each boy a golden acorn pin. “Communicators, in case you ever need me. They’ve already been coded, so just press your thumb on the acorn to speak.”

  Beckett immediately pressed the pin and said, “Check, check. This is Beckett Fowl of the Regrettables, and I made a mnemonic for the planets: Medium Voltage Easily Makes Jumpy Snakes Undulate Near Pylons. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Lazuli touched her earpiece, wincing slightly. “Very good, Beck. No need to shout.”

  Myles held the pin in his palm, regarding it with some suspicion. “You wouldn’t be trying to spy on us, would you, Ambassador?”

  “Not spy, Myles, monitor,” said Lazuli. “For your own protection.”

  “Protection?” asked Myles. “And why would we need protection?”

  Lazuli was about to answer, but Myles held up a hand to stop her.

  “The duke,” he said. “He escaped.”

  “Not exactly,” said Lazuli. “But when Retrieval checked the blowhole, Bleedham-Drye was gone. He must have washed out to sea.”

  “Washed out to sea?” said Myles, amused. “And the mighty all-seeing LEP with all its regenerative technology couldn’t find one bobbing nobleman?”

  “Bleedham-Drye is probably dead,” said Lazuli. “Killed by his own weapons. But, just in case, we’ll keep an eye on you for a while.”

  “I am comforted beyond words,” said Myles. “And how did you deal with Sister Jeronima, or is she too missing?”

  “Sister Jeronima and her team are devoting their time to humanitarian efforts,” said Lazuli. “I can’t say any more.”

  Myles pocketed the pin and clapped once. “That’s it, then, Ambassador,” he said. “Our business appears to be concluded.”

  “For this week,” said Lazuli. “I’ll be in touch. Perhaps you could help us out from time to time?”

  “Consultants?” said Myles.

  “Exactly,” said Lazuli, strapping on her helmet. “Would that interest you both?”

  “Absolutely,” said Beckett, hugging the tiny fairy tightly. “The Regrettables ride again.”

  “Consultants,” repeated Myles. “I would enjoy that. I imagine there are many problems that would require a Fowl mind to solve.”

  Lazuli coughed when Beckett released her. “I imagine there are,” she said. “So we are parting on good terms, then? All is well? I am on probation as much as you are.”

  Beckett shook his own two hands. “Fowl and fairy, friends forever.”

  “Fowl and fairy, friends forever,” repeated Lazuli.

  Myles could not help but join in the spirit of the mome
nt. “Fowl and fairy, friends forever,” he said, then added: “Ambassador.” For decorum’s sake.

  “You don’t have to call me Ambassador,” said Lazuli. “I think we know each other reasonably well by now. It’s Lazuli. Like the semiprecious stone.”

  “Not semi,” said Myles, with uncharacteristic and temporary affection. “Utterly precious. In fact, I would say invaluable.”

  “Thank you, Myles,” said Lazuli. “I will see you both in a week. Look for me at sunset.”

  Ambassador Heitz activated her shield and disappeared in sections, the last thing to go being her smile, which lingered behind her like that of the Cheshire Cat.

  Some minutes later, Myles was leaning on the bedroom balcony, sipping his brain smoothie at a rate of precisely five milliliters per minute to ensure maximum absorption, when Beckett appeared at the doorway below and made his way into the garden.

  It looks suspiciously like Beck is sneaking away somewhere, thought Myles, and he called down to his brother. “Beckett, brother mine. Might I ask you a question?”

  Beckett stopped in his tracks and craned his neck upward.

  “Wait a sec,” he said, and in seconds had clambered on top of the kitchen door and jumped onto the balcony. “What is it?”

  “When Ambassador Heitz was here, I inquired about Lord Teddy and Sister Jeronima, and yet you never asked about Whistle Blower. Why was that, I wonder?”

  Beckett pointed one finger to his lips and another to the LEP communicator now pinned to Myles’s lapel.

  Myles waved away the finger. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Artemis left us detailed specifications of fairy technology, details which were accurate for once. NANNI hacked the communicator in less than half a minute. She is feeding the fairy police with inane banter about her latest obsession, which happens to be the residual life force found in oil paintings. It will take the LEP months to catch on.”

  “In that case,” said Beckett, “I didn’t ask about Whistle Blower because he escaped already and is hiding on the beach. I didn’t bring him to the house, in case he was bugged.”

  “You are violating our parole, Beck,” said Myles sternly. “Are you certain you can bear the consequences?”

  Beckett smiled his wide innocent smile. “I can’t choose between friends, brother. That’s just me being me.”

  This, so far as Myles was concerned, was the perfect answer.

  One has to be oneself, he thought. Nature always wins out.

  “In that case,” he said, handing Beckett his spectacles, “take NANNI with you. She will debug Whistle Blower and make it safe for him to come indoors.”

  Beckett placed the spectacles on his face. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m Myles Fowl. The vortex of the quadrangle is deteriorating my underpants.” And he was gone, back-flipping to earth and scampering across the garden like a boy who had been raised by beasts.

  “Be careful, brother,” Myles said softly. “We both play a dangerous game.”

  For he, too, intended to violate the LEP parole as soon as possible. There was so much to learn and so little time in which to learn it.

  Lord Teddy had good ideas but bad methods, thought Myles Fowl.

  In his own quest for knowledge, Myles was fully confident that his techniques would be superior to Bleedham-Drye’s but also certain that these techniques would put him in the LEP’s crosshairs.

  We shall see, he thought, which of us will emerge victorious.

  Myles shook his own hands and said with no little sarcasm, “Fowl and fairy, friends forever.”

  Forever is a long time, he thought. And I don’t have forever.

  Myles watched Beckett disappear over the ridge.

  “Not yet I don’t,” he said softly.

  Some two hundred and fifty miles south of Dalkey Island, a strange blob of cellophane was being nudged deeper into the Celtic Sea by our old friend the white-tip shark. White-tips are not typically aggressive but can become agitated in the presence of food, and this particular shark could see a sizable chunk of meat inside what seemed to be the corpse of an enormous jellyfish, and so he tore chunks from the cellophane ball with the hope of reaching the bounty inside. The bounty was, of course, Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye, who, by an amazing aligning of the planets, was not yet deceased. For the perfect storm of stomach wounds, troll venom, and electricity had shocked him back to life, cauterized his wounds, regrown his broken bones, and granted him a longevity equal to that of a troll. A dream come true, one might think. But one would be wrong, for while Teddy was preserved, he would not be for long if this blasted shark had his way.

  Perhaps that would be for the best, thought Teddy.

  Chew away, you gruesome beast, he broadcast at the shark, whose sharp features were distorted by the cellophane. I hope you choke on that rubbery gunk.

  In case you are anxious for the white-tip, fear not. The shark’s stomach acid was more than equal to the task of dissolving any ingested Myishi cellophane. The shark took another chomp, affording the duke a frightening glimpse of its rows of teeth, and Lord Teddy found that he did, in fact, want to live after all. He managed to summon the strength to crunch down on a crown mounted on a rear molar, activating the Myishi tracker that came as standard with the Myishi Concierge service.

  In one of the Myishi service centers in London, a young man named Douglas noticed that the Duke of Scilly’s emergency beacon was flashing. He followed protocol by putting a direct call into Ishi Myishi himself in Tokyo, while simultaneously trying to open a line to the duke, for, more often than not, the emergency molars were cracked by an errant piece of toffee or the corner of a cashew nut.

  Myishi picked up, but the duke did not.

  Douglas explained the situation to his boss and recommended they send a chopper, for, after all, the duke was literally their oldest and certainly most valued client.

  Ishi Myishi found himself concerned for his friend’s well-being and immediately gave the order to send the helicopter, demanding hourly updates. Myishi warned Douglas to ensure the chopper was flown under the British Coast Guard’s radar.

  “I will pilot the helicopter myself,” said Douglas, delighted that he would finally get to meet the duke in person and perhaps earn himself that elusive six-skull rating.

  is the author of the New York Times best-selling Artemis Fowl series, which was adapted into a major motion picture from the Walt Disney Studios. He also wrote the critically acclaimed WARP trilogy, and many other titles for young readers and adults, including Iron Man: The Gauntlet, Airman, Half Moon Investigations, Eoin Colfer’s Legend of…books, The Wish List, Benny and Omar, and Benny and Babe. In 2014, he was named Ireland’s laureate for children’s literature. He lives with his wife and two sons in Dublin, Ireland, where he is working on the next Fowl Twins novel. To learn more, visit www.eoincolfer.com. He is also on Twitter and Instagram @EoinColfer.