Free The Great Gold Robbery by Jo Nesbø

the policemen Nilly had seen in the London tourist brochures. There was exactly zero chance that he and the
out-of-shape Crunch Brothers were going to get away.
    The bus started, and Nilly coughed from the exhaust. Then, to his surprise, he felt them starting to move again.
    He turned and saw Betty Crunch grinning at him. Betty had grabbed hold of the pole that served as a handrail by the back door of the bus, which had now suddenly become their tow truck.
    A voice came over the loudspeaker in the bus ceiling. “Welcome to this guided tour of London. If you’ll look to your right, you’ll see Speaker’s Corner and Hyde Park.
We’ll be driving past Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and . . .”
    The policemen behind them had stopped running and were standing, doubled over forward with their hands on their knees, huffing and puffing so their backs went up and down.
    “Yippee!” Nilly yelled for the second time that day, even though it only ten past nine in the morning.
    A face appeared over the roof of the bus. “Forget about Speaker’s Corner! Look who’s down there, everyone! It’s Maximus Rublov!”
    More faces appeared over the edge of the roof. Apparently there were seats on the roof deck up there.
    “Hi, Rublov!” another tourist called. “What’s the matter? Can’t you afford a bus ticket?”
    “Not if I’m going to buy Ibranaldovez!” Nilly yelled, standing up in the baby carriage and bowing gallantly.
    Nilly suddenly lost his balance as the baby carriage swung to the left and disconnected from the bus.
    Now Nilly and the Crunch Brothers were racing down a cobblestone alley that got narrower and narrower and darker and darker the farther down it they went. The cobblestones made Nilly’s
teeth chatter in his mouth.
    “W-h-e-r-e a-r-e w-e?” he managed to say.
    Just then the baby carriage whipped to the right, right into the brick wall of a building, and just at the very instant Nilly was sure they would crash, a trapdoor opened and they rolled down a
walkway, coming out on the floor of a cellar, bumping right into a big, black pile of coal.
    “We’re home!” Charlie announced.
    Nilly coughed, climbed out of the now overturned baby carriage, and rubbed the soot out of his eyes. And as he stood there rubbing, he noticed how quiet it had gotten. No one said a word. There
must be something in the room that was keeping the otherwise very chatty brothers from . . .
    Nilly opened his eyes. He was looking right at a pair of legs that were at least as hairy as the ones he’d just seen in the park, but thick like tree trunks. Nilly slowly looked up, higher
and higher, as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
    “Mama,” Charlie whispered.
    She whose name could only be whispered had some humongous arms on her, which were crossed over her humongous chest, and above that there was a woman’s head, which looked like it had come
out of a waffle iron, because it was as wide as a snowplow and covered in layer upon layer of superfluous, wrinkled skin. And a pair of staring, glowing hunk-of-coal-like eyes in between the
wrinkles.
    “Mama,” whispered Betty.
    There was a little
pop
sound as Alfie finally managed to pull the bowler hat back off his head and see again.
    “Mama,” he whispered.
    But the woman wasn’t paying any attention to them. Her eyes were focused on the little redhead.
    “So,” she said, her voice sounding like an average dragon with a slightly above average anger management problem and an ugly, advanced case of laryngitis. “What are you?”
she croaked.
    “I’m—I’m—” Nilly began, his voice trembling, “I’m Nil—Sherl! I’m Sherl! And I’m a bandit. But not one of those trustworthy
bandits. A regular bandit down to the core, actually.”
    “Good for you,” the woman said, leaning down toward Nilly. And what do you know if she didn’t have dragon breath, too. “Because I’m . . . ,” she began, and
then lowered her voice to a crackling whisper