Free Alexander Graham Bell: Master of Sound #7 by Ann Hood Page B

his feet with pins, over and over.
    Felix screamed. But he also shimmied up further, away from Johnny.
    He paused again. The light from below seemed very far away now, and the darkness above seemed vast and endless.
    Again, Johnny reached up and pricked his feet with the pins, piercing little stabs of pain that sent Felix up even more.
    Felix felt hot tears on his cheeks. The soot was so thick he was having trouble catching his breath. Even though he knew it was silly, he closed his eyes.Somehow the darkness there, behind his own eyes, was less scary.
    “Sweep as you go!” Johnny called up to him.
    Felix’s foot found one of the small dents Johnny had told him he could use as a foothold. But when his toes moved to grip it, they slipped off, moist with sweat and blood.
    Felix felt himself begin to slip.
    Frantically he tried to push his shoulders against the sides of the chimney for support. His feet swung through the darkness, searching for another foothold.
    But it was too late.
    He was off-balance and falling.
    His hands and cheeks scraped on the brick as he slid downward.
    The light that had grown so far away now grew brighter and closer with increasing speed.
    Felix heard his own voice making strangled, terrified sounds.
    All of this happened in an instant, yet the fall seemed to go on forever.
    Until finally Felix hit the bottom—hard.
    He heard his glasses break.
    He felt his head hit stone.
    The taste of blood filled his mouth.
    And then, like in cartoons he had seen, stars, pinpoints of light exploded in front of him. Then they extinguished and darkness followed. Felix felt himself slipping, slipping, slipping away.
    “The sweep!” a woman in a haughty British accent shrieked. “He’s dropped from the chimney.”
    Felix wanted to tell her that he wasn’t a chimney sweep at all, but he felt as if he were falling again, this time into that darkness that enveloped him.
    “Whatever shall I do?” the woman asked the empty cellar.
    The last words that came into Felix’s mind were
Eighteen Harrington Square
. But he couldn’t remember what they meant, or why they were important.
    That darkness finally covered him completely. And Felix did not hear or feel or think anything else.

CHAPTER 9
MRS. DUCKBERRY’S BRILLIANT IDEAS
    A melia’s cheerfulness was getting on Maisie’s nerves. Didn’t the poor girl realize how bleak her life was? Maisie certainly did. They had stood on that corner all day trying to sell their measly six oranges. Most people who passed by pretended they didn’t hear Amelia calling “
Oranges! Oranges for sale!”
A few looked at them with great pitiful faces and shook their heads sadly. But so far only one man had bought an orange.
    Still, Amelia smiled prettily and called out “
Oranges! Oranges for sale!”
every time someone walked by, which was all the time. Maisie wished Amelia would shut up. She wished she could be somewhere warm and dry, with Felix and the Zifftwins.
Somewhere
, she thought sadly,
like Elm Medona.
    A fancy-looking woman, in a pale blue dress with so many petticoats beneath it that her bottom half swung to and fro like a big bell, hurried down the street. She carried so many packages that Maisie could only see her hat (also blue, though a darker shade than the dress), some curly brown bangs, and eyes peeking nervously over the smallest, highest package.
    Of course it had started to rain, and the mud grew muddier. The woman had an umbrella hooked over her arm, but she had too many packages to reach it.
    As she neared Maisie and Amelia, who quickly called “Oranges! Oranges for sale!” as if the woman could hold one more thing, her foot slipped in the slick mud and all of her packages went flying everywhere.
    Maisie started to gather them, for they had been flung quite far from the woman, who miraculously remained standing.
    “Oh dear!” the woman said, and stomped her foot.
    She was wearing very peculiar-looking shoes.
    Maisie handed her the packages she had