Free Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

confused the crowd for a few moments; then, good-naturedly, they altered their cry:
    ‘For Batcheat and the Ocean!’ they exclaimed, and Prince Bolo looked satisfied enough with that.
    Iff the Water Genie put on his most winning expression. ‘Well, now it’s war, young Thieflet,’ he said with mock-regret. ‘That means nobody at P2C2E House will have any time for your little request. You may as well hand back that Disconnecting Tool; then, what do you say, I’ll have you taken home for nothing, completely free! There—what could be fairer than that?’
    Haroun clutched the Disconnector with all his might and stuck out his lower lip mutinously. ‘No Walrus, no Disconnector,’ he said. ‘And that’s flat.’
    Iff appeared to accept this philosophically. ‘Have a chocolate,’ he said, and produced from one of his many waistcoat pockets a jumbo-sized version of Haroun’s favourite chocolate bar. Realizing that he was starving hungry, Haroun gratefully accepted. ‘I didn’t know you made these here on Kahani,’ he said.
    ‘We don’t,’ Iff replied. ‘Food production on Kahani is strictly basic. For tasty and wicked luxury items we have to go to Earth.’
    ‘So this is where the Unidentified Flying Objects come from,’ Haroun marvelled. ‘And that’s what they’ve been after: snacks.’
    Just then there was a small commotion on the palace balcony. Prince Bolo and General Kitab went inside for a moment, then returned to announce that Guppee patrols who had entered the outlying areas of the Twilight Strip, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the Princess Batcheat, had arrested a stranger—a highly suspicious person who could give no satisfactory account of himself or explain what he was doing in the Strip. ‘I will question this spy before you all, myself!’ shouted Bolo, and though General Kitab looked a little embarrassed by that idea, he did not argue. Now a quartet of Pages led a man on to the balcony, a man wearing a long blue nightshirt with his hands tied behind his back and a sack over his head.
    When the sack was removed, Haroun’s mouth fell open and the unfinished chocolate bar fell from his hand.
    The man standing and shivering on the palace balcony between Prince Bolo and General Kitab was Haroun’s father, Rashid Khalifa the storyteller, the unhappy Shah of Blah.

Chapter 6
     

The Spy’s Story
     

 
    The capture of the Earthling ‘spy’ created a buzz of horror in the Pleasure Garden; and when he identified himself as ‘just a storyteller, and a long-time subscriber to your own Story Water service’, the general outrage only grew. Haroun started to force his wav somewhat rudely through the crowd. Many eyes stared suspiciously at this second Earthling, also wearing a nightshirt, who was pushing and shoving and appeared to be in quite a state. Up the seven terraces of the Pleasure Garden went Haroun, heading for the palace balcony; and on his way he heard many Guppees muttering: ‘Our own subscriber! —How could he betray and help the Chupwalas? —That poor Princess Batcheat—what did she ever do, except sing so badly it almost split our eardrums?—and she’s no oil painting, either, but that’s no excuse—you can’t trust these Earthlings, that’s the truth.’ Haroun, getting angrier by the minute, pushed even harder through the crowd. At his heels came Iff, the Water Genie, crying: ‘Wait on, patience is a virtue, where’s the fire?’ But Haroun would not be stopped.
    ‘What do Guppees do to spies, anyhow?’ he yelled bad-temperedly at Iff. ‘I suppose you rip out their fingernails one by one until they confess. Do you kill them slowly and painfully, or quickly with a million volts in an electric chair?’ The Water Genie (and every other Guppee who heard this outburst) looked horrified and affronted. ‘Where did you pick up such bloodthirstiness?’ Iff cried. ‘Absurd, an outrage, I never heard the like.’ —‘Well, then, what?’ Haroun insisted.