Free The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer Page A

the instructions, and they waited tensely for the shuttle to maneuver to the back of the house. It seemed like a long wait, silent but for the rasp of Angeline’s labored breathing.
    “N o 1 might not be able to do it,” said Foaly almost to himself. “He is a young warlock, with barely any training. Time travel is the most difficult of magics.”
    Artemis did not offer a comment. There was no point. All his hopes rested on N o 1.
    He does it, or Mother dies.
    He took Angeline’s hand, stroking the rough parchment skin with his thumb.
    “Hold on, Mother,” he whispered. “I will only be a second.”

CHAPTER 5
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU
    The little demon known as N o 1 cut a strange figure waddling down the LEP shuttle’s gangplank. A small, stocky individual with gray armored plates and short limbs, he looked a little like a miniature upright rhino-ceros with fingers and toes, except for the head. The head was pure gargoyle.
    I wish I had a tail, thought N o 1.
    In actual fact he did have a tail, but it was stubby and not good for much except making snow fans in Haven City’s artificial weather park.
    N o 1 consoled himself with the observation that at least his tail didn’t dangle down into the toilet. Some of the Hybras demons had trouble adjusting to the new-fangled seats on the recycling lounges in Haven. He had heard horror stories. Apparently there had been three emergency reattachments this month alone.
    The transition from Limbo to normal time had been difficult for all demons, but there were many more positives than negatives. Restrictions imposed under the old tribal leader were now being lifted. Demons could eat cooked food if they felt like it. Family units were taking hold again. Even the most belligerent demons were a lot more relaxed with their mothers around. But it was difficult to shake off ten millennia of human-hating, and many of the buck demons were undergoing therapy or were on mood pills to stop them hopping a shuttle to the surface and chomping on the first human limb they saw.
    Not N o 1, though, who had no limb-chomping ambitions whatsoever. He was something of an anomaly among demons. N o 1 loved everyone, even humans, especially Artemis Fowl, who had saved them all from the deathly dreariness of Limbo, not to mention Leon Abbot, the psychopathic ex–tribe leader.
    So when the call came through to Section 8 that Artemis needed him, N o 1 had strapped himself into the division’s shuttle and demanded to be taken aboveground. Commander Vinyáya had agreed because disagreeing could lead to all sorts of magical tantrums from the fledgling warlock. Once, in a fit of frustration, he had accidentally shattered the magnifying wall of the city’s huge aquarium. Fairies were still finding minnows in their toilet ponds.
    You can go , Vinyáya had told him. But only if you take a squad of guards to hold your hand every step of the way.
    Which did not literally mean hold his hand , as N o 1 had found out when he tried to link with the captain of the guard.
    “But, Commander Vinyáya said,” he had objected.
    “Stow the hand, demon,” ordered the captain. “There’ll be no hand-holding on my watch.”
    And so N o 1 appeared to approach Fowl Manor alone, though he was flanked by a dozen shielded fairies. Halfway up the avenue he remembered to shroud his real appearance with a shape-shifting spell. Any human who happened to be looking down the driveway would now see a small boy in flowing, flowered robes strolling toward the front door. This was an image N o 1 had seen in a human movie from the last century, and he thought it was appropriately nonthreatening.
    Miss Book happened to appear at the doorway just as N o 1 reached it. The sight of him stopped the nurse-publicist in her tracks. She tugged off her glasses as though they were feeding false information to her eyes.
    “Hello there, little boy,” she said, smiling, though she probably would not have been so jolly had she been aware of the