Free Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Elinor's hostile gaze.
    "Ah, but you see the tricks I want to show Meggie wouldn't look so good by day," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm afraid I need the black cloak of night. Why don't you come and watch, too?
    Then you'll understand why it all has to be done in the dark."
    "Go on, accept his offer, Elinor!" said Mo. "You'll enjoy the show. And then perhaps you won't think fire's so sinister."
    "It's not that I think it's sinister. I don't like it, that's all," remarked Elinor, unmoved.
    "He can juggle!" Meggie burst out. "With eight balls."
    "Eleven," Dustfinger corrected her. "But juggling is more of a daylight skill."
    Elinor retrieved a string of spaghetti from the tablecloth and glanced first at Meggie and then at Mo. She looked cross. "Oh, very well. I don't want to be a spoilsport," she said. "I will go to bed with a book at nine-thirty as usual and put the alarm on first, but when Meggie tells me she's going out for this private performance I'll switch it off again for an hour. Will that be time enough?"
    "Ample time," said Dustfinger, bowing so low to her that the tip of his nose collided with the rim of his plate.
    Meggie bit back her laughter.
    37

    It was five to eleven when she knocked at Elinor's bedroom door.
    "Come in!" she heard Elinor call, and when she put her head around the door she saw her aunt sitting up in bed, poring over a catalog as thick as a telephone directory. "Oh, too expensive, too expensive!" she murmured. "Take my advice, Meggie Never develop a passion you can't afford.
    It'll eat your heart away like a bookworm. Take this book here, for instance." Elinor tapped her finger on the left-hand page of her catalog so hard that it wouldn't have surprised Meggie if she had bored a hole in it. "What a fine edition — and in such good condition, too! I've been wanting it for fifteen years, but it just costs too much money. Far too much."
    Sighing, she closed her catalog, dropped it on the rug, and swung her legs out of bed. To Meggie's surprise, she was wearing a long floral nightdress. She looked younger in it, almost like a girl who has woken up one morning to find her face wrinkled. "Ah, well, you'll probably never be as crazy as I am!" she muttered, putting a thick pair of socks on her bare feet. "Your father's not inclined to be crazy, and your mother never was either. Quite the opposite — I never knew anyone with a cooler head. My father, on the other hand, was at least as mad as me. I inherited over half my books from him, and what good did they do him? Did they keep him alive? Far from it. He died of a stroke at a book auction. Isn't that ridiculous?"
    With the best will in the world, Meggie didn't know what to say to that. "My mother?" she asked, instead. "Did you know her well?"
    Elinor snorted as if she had asked a silly question. "Of course I did. It was here that your father met her. Didn't he ever tell you?"
    Meggie shook her head. "He doesn't talk about her much."
    "Well, probably better not. Why probe old wounds? And you re not particularly like her. She painted that sign on the library door. Come on, then, or you'll miss this show of yours."
    Meggie followed Elinor down the unlit corridor. For a moment she had the odd feeling that her mother might step out of one of the many doors, smiling at her. There was hardly a light on in the whole vast house, and once or twice Meggie bumped her knee on a chair or a little table that she hadn't seen in the gloom. "Why is it so dark everywhere here?" she asked as Elinor felt around for the light switch in the entrance hall.
    "Because I'd rather spend my money on books than unnecessary electricity," replied Elinor, looking at the light she had turned on as if she thought the stupid thing should go easy on the power. Then she made her way over to a metal box fixed to the wall near the front door and hidden behind a thick, dusty curtain. "I hope you switched your light off before you knocked on my door?" she asked as she opened the