CHAPTER ONE: Och, Danny Boy!

It was the first morning of the summer holidays, and the sun shone gleefully through the bedroom window of one Artemis Fowl Jr., as he lay face down and spreadeagled on his expansive mattress. Birds twittered incessantly in the trees, candyfloss clouds scudded across the blue suede sky, and kids from the local village were already up and about, playfully shoplifting jacknives and lighters from the local Co-Op.

Artemis dozed happily in peace, enjoying the rest.

"Artemis! Artemiiiiiiis!" Mrs Fowl howled from eight floors below, expertly ruining another perfect morning. "Get up! Artemis! Your breakfast is cold...! Oh, the sonofa- Artemis! Come downstairs right this minute!"

Artemis was, of course, awake. Now. He lay there for a couple of seconds, without responding.

"Juliet. Juliet!" The shouting continued.

"Yezz Mezz' Fowl?"

"Can ya go get Artemis?"

"'Kay."

Juliet sniffed, blew her nose on her sleeve, and began tromping snottily up the long mahogany staircase.

Artemis, sensing her approach, groaned softly and covered his head with a pink eiderdown pillow. Cat-like, Juliet smashed her way through the door, hobbled over to the bed, tripped on a novelty 007 lava lamp, flew- screaming hoarsely- across the room, her foot gliding cleanly through an Apple Mac monitor and face colliding with the bed post, accompanied by a sickening crunch. Squeaking, Artemis pulled the duvet over himself, curled up in a little ball and hid.

"Artebis," wheezed the nasally-challenged Juliet, shaking the stricken computer off her leg and staggering over to the four-poster, "Your bmother says ya gotta get ub now. Artebis?"

She pulled the covers off him.

"Gaah! Gerroff!"

"Cobe on Arty, we're havig breakfast."

"Go away! You're infectious!"

"Aww, dat's sweet Arty," Juliet said, coughing phlegm onto the milk-white carpet and snorting.

Artemis opened his eyes and beheld the face of his current bodyguard, his lifelong friend and companion, one who had saved his life a thousand times and required nothing (but money) in return. She looked like death. He sighed and sat up, picking some clothes from off the floor.

"Fine. See you downstairs." He began to get changed.

A while passed.

"Uh… Juliet?"

"Yehz Mazzr Fowl?"

"Do you mind?"

"No… Oh, sorry Artebis!" she gurgled, blushing, and left.

The thirteen year old boy had the decency to wait until he heard her plummet back down the stairs. He then frantically sprayed the entire storey of his house with anti-bacterial air freshener. A bit paranoid, but hey, it was as good a time as any.

After a good half-hour of preening and striking masculine poses in his floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and getting dressed, Artemis dragged himself down fourteen flights of stairs to the breakfast-room, where his beloved parents sat at the table, reading the newspaper. (Obviously, they had half each.) His father was wearing a casual checked shirt, white jacket and stained Chinos. His prosthetic leg sat curled up on his lap. Artemis Senior (ironically) was very attached to it, and treated it more like a family pet than a titanium appendage. Fairy magic was, of course, the reason for his most recently developed little foibles, but obviously, his son had no idea. He suspected substance abuse.

"Good morning, son!" Mr. Fowl chirped happily.

"It is, is it?" questioned Artemis, staring hard at his father.

"Of course! It's the first day of your summer holidays, and now we get to spend the next eight weeks with our most favourite son in the whole wide world! Ever!"

There was a pause.

"Good morning, mother." Artemis took a seat next to her at the head of the light oak table.

"Hmmm?" She looked up from the paper. "Oh, ciao dawhling."

Artemis' mother sat up straight in her throne-like chair, resplendent in her FCUK lime-green jogger-top, four sizes too small, complemented lavishly with a NYC baseball cap on backwards, creased pink miniskirt, red fishnet tights and maroon platform trainers with little flashing lights, plastic fingernails and make-up a centimetre deep. Her gelled and peroxide-blonde hair hung in dainty ringlets around hoop earrings the size of dinner plates. She shoved a plate of scrambled egg and bacon towards him. "Hurry up an' eat it babe, it's already as appetising as toenail risotto."

Artemis sighed and took a weak bite into a strand of bacon. He shuddered. "Why, it's delicious mother how do you do it well that was just divine but I think I'm full now auf wiedersehen bye bye see you later maybe." He thwacked the plate away and hastily rose to his feet. Then he glanced at his scowling mother. He smiled nervously. "… If that's all right with you, of course."

"No!" She growled, "Siddown!"

"Yes'm."

"Right," she wheezed, taking a heavy drag on her tattered dogend,'cause there's summen' I gots ta tells ya. A new member ah staff is arriving here today. Her name is Marie Souzie, and she's come all the way from France, so yous better be a gennelman to her, okay? I hired her as your personal maid and au pair, cause it's obvious from lookin atcha you're already beyond the redemption of parental love."

"What! B-But… After all those other girls!"

"Yeah yeah, but THEY were all top secret FBI agents/psychopaths who were hellbent on witnessing your long, drawn-out and agonising demise…."

Artemis was clenching his little fists under the table so hard his manicured nails almost drew blood. This was mostly indignant rage, but also desolation. His mother was never like this before his father had returned from hospital in Helsinki, on an apparently permanent sugar high. Artemis' theory was that, now her husband had lightened up a bit, Angeline reckoned that they qualified as one of those hip, funky, nouveau riche families, like the Beckhams- and she began to behave accordingly. She had even adopted a poorly-pronounced American accent, something like that of a New York talent shark. "This one's gotta be different." She coughed.

"Yes, mother. But do you really feel it necessary to employ yet another foreign woman, whom we know nothing about, and give her free reign of our house and your beloved, and more importantly, only child?"

"Huh?"

"Well, of the last eight young ladies it was your bright idea to recruit, not one of them wasn't a beautiful young teenage assassin whose parents had both conveniently perished in a car accident that she was too young to remember and who acted all sweet and innocent until I got a crush on her and then lured me to a deserted building in the middle of nowhere or to the top of a famous landmark to challenge me to a final showdown with those stupid curvy ninja swords or whatever and I beat her with my newfound stupid-ninja-sword-wielding powers, o-or she confesses her undying love for me and proposes to me at which point Butler throws her off a pier. And another thing! ALL of those girls were named Mary S-"

"So? Shaddap, babe, take a breath before your head goes blue."

Artemis did so.

"I wan' you ta show her around, let her know where everythin' is, kapeish? Friendly like. She'll be here any minute. Oh, for God's sake!" At this point, Angeline Fowl grabbed her husband by his only ankle and yanked him off the table, where he'd been dancing the polka with his left leg for the last ten minutes, singing "Danny Boy" in as near to an Irish-sounding voice as he could possibly get.

"Ow. Ye didnae hav'ta do that, did ye? Violence ain't the answer ya know, lassie."

"Father, how many times must I remind you? You are not- and have never been- a Scotsman."

The doorbell rang.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading this far! Should I continue with this? It's kinda stupid... Please review, and tell me what I should do with it. Please. Sob I CAN'T MAKE DECISIONS ON MY OWN!

Fave Quote That I Will Never Ever Change (so far) "Father... You are not- and have never been- a Scotsman." Meee hee hee. Cracks me up every time. I'm so sad.