Free The Gargoyle Overhead by Philippa Dowding

over his shoulder. “We’re taking the cage and the statue, and you’re not going to stop us. You’re lucky I don’t have you arrested…”
    And with that, the boy and his father melted back into the crowd, the vendor watching them go.
    “Goodbye, Gargoth,” he whispered sadly, tears in his eyes.
    The boy had what he wanted and clutched the cage, happy now, oblivious to the vendor’s sadness or the little gargoyle weeping inside.
    It will be years before the boy lets Gargoth out of the cage, even for a moment. And it will be longer still, seventy years or more, before Gargoth sees a friendly face again.

Chapter Fourteen
    Ball-on-a-foot
    It was a clear night in Toronto. Cassandra was watching Katherine play soccer. Katherine’s team was playing against a team of tall girls, and her team was losing 3-0. It wasn’t a great game.
    At Cassandra’s feet was a sturdy yellow canvas backpack. If you looked closely, you might notice two dark holes cut into the cloth, but you probably wouldn’t look that closely. It was just an old backpack, after all. Certainly, no one had ever noticed the holes or commented on them. Occasionally they might think they heard an odd sound coming from it, something like a whispery breeze or a sneeze or cough, but then they dismissed it. It was awfully loud sitting on the sidelines of a soccer game, and it was hard to tell where noises came from, exactly.
    Of course it was Gargoth inside, calling out encour-agement (or more often saying something rude to the opposite team). Thankfully no one understood him, and when Gargoth became too loud or outrageous, Cassandra would gently pat the backpack, reminding him to be quiet.
    It worked perfectly. No one knew Gargoth was there.
    Everyone was cheerful (despite the losing score), and people were chatting and commenting on the game, but if you looked closely (if you were the type to look closely enough to notice holes cut into a backpack, for instance), you might notice an old man sitting off by himself all alone, watching the game. He wore thick glasses, a white straw hat and a big baggy brown jacket which didn’t fit with the hot weather. Most of the time he stared straight ahead, but sometimes he would suddenly stare up into the night sky, as though he was expecting rain, which was odd, since it was a perfectly clear evening.
    And once in a while he turned to look over at Cassandra Daye. Or really, at the yellow canvas backpack at her feet.
    If you looked even more closely, say with a telescope or binoculars (not completely unheard of at a soccer game), you might notice a tiny winged creature circling high, high above the soccer field, then flying slowly off into the night.

Chapter Fifteen
    Ambergine:
In Toronto with the Dwarves
    Ambergine flew, clumsily perhaps, but she flew…
    She was circling slowly, high above the city, searching for anywhere a gargoyle would want to hide. She had visited the Golden Nautilus store the night before but found nothing. No gargoyles at all. Plenty of odd statues and frightening masks and candles and incense. But no gargoyles.
    Her hiding place for the past few days had been a large round park with a giant statue of a poet in it. She curled up beside the poet’s head each day, perfectly hidden.
    This night, she was flying over a neighbourhood west of the university with many small backyards. She had just flown over a large field full of girl children running after a strange black and white ball. She had seen this odd human game played many times in her life, but it didn’t really interest her, so she left.
    She flew lower, just skimming the tops of the trees. As she flew, she heard a quiet trickling coming from one backyard. Water. She decided to investigate and flew lower, hovering just above the yard. The house was dark, so the people were out. She settled on the backyard fence.
    What a backyard! It was full of glorious flowers and statues. The trickling was coming from a unicorn fountain; water was pouring