Un Lun Dun

After a moment, the main doors opened, and a short, dark, round-faced girl with an extremely determined expression entered. She was carrying a red umbrella.

Elizabeth Rawley stared at her. The girl eyed her back.

Murgatroyed emitted a strangled sound. “You!” he screamed. He pointed with crooked fingers. The girl held up a hand and looked at her watch.

“Was hoping we’d catch you,” she said. “Ten seconds.” After a moment, she said, “Five.”

It was that many seconds to nine o’clock.

An alarm bell sounded. The noise of machinery began to approach. In the corner of the room, a red light came on.

The elevator hadn’t worked for days. The noise of gears came closer.

There was a bing as the lift crossed through the membrane between worlds, and arrived. The door opened. “Hey, you lot!” the girl called happily. “You cleared the elevator shaft! I knew you could.”

Elizabeth Rawley stared.

Stepping out of the elevator came a big man in an antiquated London Transport uniform. He wore a conductor’s ticket machine and carried a copper rod. Beside him was a man wearing printed paper, with needles and pins for hair.

There was a boy with them, a pale boy in flickering clothes. And leaping out from behind them…Was that a dustbin? With arms and legs? And stern eyes glinting from under its lid?

Rawley took it all in.

Murgatroyd drew his gun and aimed it at the girl. There was a shot, and the ping of a ricochet. The girl held her umbrella before her.

The agents raised their pistols. The conductor leapt out with a flurry of fists and feet, and the sound of crackling and bursts of sparks. Bodyguards tumbled to the floor unconscious. The dustbin somersaulted and, with a frenetic succession of windmill kicks, laid out a line of men and women.

The girl spun her umbrella so fast it looked as if it were the umbrella pulling her. She smacked weapons effortlessly out of several agents’ hands.

Elizabeth Rawley stared in shock. In less than three seconds, most of her staff were incapacitated.

“I’ll kill you!” Murgatroyd spat, and fired again.

The girl spun, and blocked with the umbrella, then swung like a truncheon. It caught Murgatroyd under his chin, and sent him soaring. He sailed backwards, over Rawley’s desk, crashed into the wall behind her, and slid to the floor, groaning.

The dustbin handsprung over Rawley’s desk and stood with one foot on Murgatroyd. The conductor stood poised, ready to strike. The boy and the pin-headed man ran to the door, checked it, and wedged it closed.

The girl stepped closer and stared into the minister’s eyes. She jumped up and landed on the desk. She twirled the umbrella, stretched like a fencer with it pointed directly at Rawley’s throat.

“Minister,” said the girl. “We need to talk.”

Glossary

Bin / Dustbin: Trash can / garbage can.

Bog off: Go away.

Bollard: A little post to divert traffic on a road; a traffic cone.

Class-mark: The numbers on the side of a library book.

Climbing frame: A jungle gym.

Comprehensive: A school for children aged 11 to 16 or 18.

Do a bunk: Run away.

Estate: Several big apartment blocks— a housing project.

Git: Unpleasant person.

Knackered: Exhausted.

Lairy: Cheeky and aggressive.

Manky: Disgusting.

Minging: Dirty/smelly/unpleasant.

Mobile: Short for “mobile phone”— a cell phone.

Nutter: Somebody acting crazy.

Quite: When Americans say something is “quite good/bad/etc.,” you mean it is “very” good/bad/etc. When Brits say it, we sometimes mean it in just the same way— but then sometimes we mean something is only “fairly,” or “moderately,” or “kind-of-but-not-extremely” good/bad/etc. It can be confusing.

Rubbish: Trash / garbage.

Rum: Strange.

Sarky: Sarcastic.

Scrum: A confused situation involving lots of people.

Shtum: Silent.

Soft (“Don’t be soft”): Foolish.

Take the Michael: Mock, make fun of.

Tarmac: What they make airport runways out of, but we use it to describe normal roads, too.

Tower block: Big apartment block.

Yonks: A long time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHINA MIÉVILLE is a two-time wi

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