Chapter Six: Reconnecting
Matt was getting the hang of life at an all-boys boarding school. It had been a tad odd at first but now he knew what he was doing. He got up at 6:45, woke up Artemis—who would have slept until ten if left to his own devices—went down to breakfast by seven, had classes from 7:30-3 with a break for lunch, spent time with Artemis or entertained himself until dinner at six, had a study session with Artemis until nine, and then went to bed to begin the cycle again.
To an observer it wouldn't seem like a very exciting routine but Matt liked it. He loved his lessons which, despite what Artemis had to say about them, were much better than the ones he had had back home. He also loved spending time with Artemis. He could understand why many would find him annoying and arrogant but Matt had too much respect for the boy genius to be annoyed by him. Not only was Artemis clever and knowledgeable he was also brave. Matt didn't know how he would act if he were shot at but it hadn't seemed to bother Artemis at all. Maybe he had been a little frazzled but he had kept his wits about him.
There hadn't been any more kidnapping attempts since the incident at the airport, or if there had been Artemis hadn't mentioned it. Matt hadn't been able to pay very much attention to Artemis's problems between the constant piles of assignments he had and his anxiety over the boys who were constantly bullying him. Thankfully he no longer had to worry about the latter problem, thanks to his black eye Artemis had finally found out about his tormenters and had brought about their effective end.
They were now about a month into the school year. Although Matt was enjoying and doing well in his classes, largely thanks to Artemis, he was still grateful that it was the weekend. Artemis had decided to spend their two days off at home so Matt was going to have to entertain himself.
After breakfast that Saturday morning he was just wondering exactly what he would do that day; he might practice his skateboarding at the local skate-park or maybe he would go into town for the day. He could get some new shirts—his were falling apart a bit—maybe pick up some books, and he had heard there was a popular arcade worth going to.
These thoughts ran through his head as he headed down the hall to his room but they all stopped when he noticed something outside his door. Sitting there, looking perfectly innocent was a letter. This wasn't at all unusual since all the boy's mail was left outside their rooms but Matt got an odd feeling of foreboding looking at it. Warily he picked it up and opened it. The letter inside ran like this:
Salutations Dearest Matthew,
I hope school is treating my "wonderful brother" well. Things around here have been down-right dull. Mum's shooting a commercial for false teeth next week and the highlight of Dad's life right now is the edition of cat-shaped cookies to his bakery's goods.
As for me I'll touring around with my team from October to May. We're sure to be a hit now that we have more members. Anyway, sorry for the short letter Matt, it's almost two in the morning now and I am bloody tired. I'll be sure to write more soon.
Your Loving Brother,
Theodore
Matt breathed a sigh of relief. It was just an ordinary, how-do-you-do, run-of-the-mill, boring letter. He started to fold it up to put it back in the envelope but then he noticed something written on the back.
P.S.
I'll be visiting you this Sunday. I can't wait to see all your little friends.
Oh bloody hell.
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Artemis had indeed wanted to see his parents. It had been a while and he did miss them, but they were not his only reason for wanting to leave school that weekend. Mr. and Mrs. Fowl were currently on a vacation Artemis had insisted they needed in Strasbourg, France, which just happened to be where Signora Ganbale was currently residing.
The matter of retrieving her painting was becoming so simple now that he was almost reluctant to do it, but he couldn't go back on his plans now. He had been informed that Ganbale was visiting Paris for the day and his parents weren't expecting to arrive at the airport for another two hours. He had plenty of time to take the painting, put it somewhere secure and return to mingle with the exiting passengers of the flight he'd said he'd be on.
Butler pulled up the car in an alley next to Ganbale's penthouse. It was far from empty, Artemis knew that there were half-a-dozen servants bustling about it from the employment records he had researched. This many people in the house actually helped his purpose. It meant that most of the security systems would be off. Now all that was left was to get past the people.
He brought down the mirror of their rental to check his face once more before they began. Everything was perfect; it was time to go into action. He got out of the car and looked around, the alley-way was clear. He stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and dove into his act.
Georgiana Reed hated to clean the windows but Madam Ganbale was very particular and she was insistent that she be able to clearly see out of any window at any time. She was about to put her rag to the glass when she noticed something peculiar, there was a young boy lying on the doorstep. She supposed it was just some young hooligan making a nuisance of himself but she knew it would be best to make sure.
It turned out to be a very good thing she did, once she got a good look at him it was obvious that he was not laying on the steps out of disrespect but necessity; the boy had obviously been soundly beaten. Quickly she fetched her fellow maid and sister Eliza and together they carried the poor youth in, laying him out on the living room couch.
"What do you think happened?" Eliza asked her sister in rapid French.
"His clothes seem to be American; my guess is that he a tourist. Someone must have mugged him in the alley. Open the window will you, he needs fresh air."
Eliza quickly complied. "But what else can we do for him?"
"We should call the hospital of course, they will be able to help—," but Georgiana's statement was cut short as she noticed the room was filling with smoke. Immediately the two sisters lost all thoughts of their charge. They only knew the room was on fire and that they needed to get out.
The moment he heard the two maids leave Artemis was bolt upright, he knew he didn't have much time. As he had hoped he had been placed in same front room that held the painting he was after. There hadn't much risk of any other placement, he knew that no matter who found him they wouldn't be carrying him far and according to the house's blueprints this was the room closest to the entrance.
He had planned to weakly request an open window but the maids had thought of it themselves, sometimes it was just too easy. The window had been Butler's signal to throw in the smoke bomb and frighten all unwanted witnesses from the room.
Someone would soon come to rescue the "helpless beaten tourist." He quickly crossed the room to where the painting was rather blatantly hanging, the smoke served to also cover his movements to anyone on the street. He took a second to examine the picture, it depicted a young medieval girl being approached from behind by an old woman coming out of a tree. Artemis rather liked it, perhaps he would get a copy for his room.
Aside from that he saw that almost certainly the original, the paint was obviously old and the brush strokes matched Arthur Rackham's other works. Artemis scanned the painting's frame with the compact security detector that was built into his watch, there were some systems but none were active because it was the middle of the day. Some people could be so foolish about their valuables. He quickly took down the canvas and removed it from its frame. He then rolled it up and carefully placed it in a special compartment in his pants. With all the excitement it would probably be hours before it was missed.
Artemis heard footsteps, it looked like he was about to be "rescued". It was just in time too, the smoke was starting to get to him. He quickly went back to the couch and acted his wounded part again. Two French firemen burst in and helped him out into the street, they asked if he was alright but he feigned dizziness and ignorance of French to wave them off.
Just then Butler pushed through the crowd. "Trevor!" he cried in his best American accent. "Thank goodness you're alright! What happened to you?"
One of the firemen tried to get him to back away in broken English, "Please, go back. We help the boy."
"I think you people have helped him enough already, just look at him! Come on Trevor, I think it's time we got away from all these damn foreigners. We'll find you an American doctor." With that he grabbed Artemis's arm and dragged him through the crowd despite the protests of its members and they were soon on the road again, rapidly returning to the airport.
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The phone rang once and only once before Artemis picked up. Holly was glad to see her favorite mud-boy again even though he seemed to have been beaten to a pulp.
Wait…what?
"What happened to you Fowl? Did one of your enemies finally catch up with you?" Sometimes Holly just radiated with concern. This was not one of those times.
Artemis quirked an eyebrow, "It's a pleasure to see you as well Holly. No, I haven't been beaten, this is merely some costume make-up which was necessary for a recent, eh, performance of mine."
"Nothing criminal I hope."
Artemis paused for a moment but decided to let it pass, "To what do I owe the pleasure of this call? Have you finally gotten a case worth my looking into or are you just hoping to inform me of another lost child incident?"
Holly glared, it seemed Artemis was as charming as ever. "As a matter of fact I do have a case and it's an odd one too. A prosthetic limb manufacturer has gone missing and his daughter is paying us triple salary to find him."
Artemis leaned forward, this sounded interesting. "Tell me the specifics. I haven't much time right now but I'll do what I can."
Holly related the story given to them by Ms. Lunos about her father's disappearance. "Mulch and I spent several days checking her story and trying to find evidence and witnesses. Everything she said seemed to check out and we were trying to figure out who the elf was who had come into their shop when Foaly was finally able to meet us and look at the disk of the encoded hours.
"He had it unlocked in a few minutes but what was there has hardly shed any light on the case. The first segment with the elf and Mamilton in the back room was entirely uninformative, for the hours they were in there they were speaking with some unknown hand code. Foaly is working on decoding it as an extra favor to us." Holly paused with a brief smirk, "I think he's trying to impress Estella.
"Anyway the second encoded segment was where Mamilton was supposedly kidnapped. The amazing thing though is that he wasn't, he pulled a set-up. The video showed him putting his wife's bracelet on the floor and using a clever set of rigging to make several legs from his shop look like there were other people walking beside him as he went out his window. His daughter almost went into hysterics when she saw it, Foaly had to calm her down and take her home.
"I'm at a loss what to do now, I've never had a case this complicated before. Do you have any thoughts?"
Before responding Artemis checked their location, they would be at the airport in a few minutes. There was no time for an in-depth analysis, he would have to keep it short and have Holly call him later.
"It does indeed sound like a complex matter. You'll have to call me again later for a deeper scrutiny but for now I advise that you continue to try to find out who this elf was, Mamilton was obviously trying to run away from him or whoever he represented. As it is obvious that they knew each other already you should also look into the centaur's past. See if there are any skeletons in his closet so to speak."
Holly nodded, "Alright that sounds like a good idea. I'll call you again tonight around nine your time." She was about to say good-bye when a pang of worry set in, "You are doing alright aren't you Artemis? I know haven't been able to call you for a while and all your friends besides Butler are underground. I hope you haven't been too lonely."
Artemis blushed, he was able to deal with harsh emotions but a person having concern over him was still an idea he was adjusting to. "I'm fine, really. I made a new friend at school about a month ago, his name is Matt. I, er, I really need to go now. I'll see you at nine."
Holly got the feeling as the screen went blank that Artemis had felt he couldn't hang up fast enough. She smiled, it was good that he had a friend his own age, and a human one at that. Maybe now he would be able to open up emotionally without all the difficulties he usually put up.
She knew she'd be glad to see that happen.
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Author's Notes: Poor Artemis, nothing is ever easy for him is it? Anyway I am pleased to say that though it has taken six chapters to come about the two main characters of the Artemis Fowl series have finally spoken to each other! Not only that they've managed to connect the two plot lines, I am thrilled.
On a little side-note it seems that Foaly has reason to be happy. He gets to escort the wonderful Ms. Lunos home, though I think she might be a bit to distraught to really notice right now, the poor girl. To those who might be wondering the two centaurs will not be the main features of romance in this story, I just thought it was time Foaly got to be with someone.
I've only seen two stories where he has been paired off. One was with Holly, don't get me started on that, and the other was an OC centaur that I stopped reading about when I saw that she had wings. It sent my Sue-senses tingling. What possible use could a centaur have for wings? Wouldn't the extra hind weight make her sink like a stone? In order for her to be at all capable of flight her wings would have to be huge and then where would she fly? She lives underground.
Enough of that, the point is that there will be another pairing very central to the plot but it won't be appearing for a while. Feel free to guess at it.
On another note congratulations to Zirra Nova and absolute power for being the first two to review twice. By the way an interesting pattern has developed. My first chapter got one review, the second got two, the fourth got four, and the fifth got five. The third only got one but ignore that.
Anyway this took a bit more than a week but I hope you find it worth the wait. It'll probably be about the same time frame for the next chapter. Oh my carpals, I am in such pain.