Discovering the Future

Chapter 8- Chapter 3 (Part 3)

Disclaimer: I don't own Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

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Kev was out running an errand, and because asking one of his drunken regulars to chaperone me seemed like a bad idea, I went into the nearest shop to ask someone who was at least gainfully employed. The door read FISHMONGER. I pushed it open to find myself cowering before a bearded giant in a blood-soaked apron.

"You're a fish-murderer!" Claire and Olive cried.

He left off decapitating fish to glare at me, dripping cleaver in hand, and I vowed never again to discriminate against the intoxicated.

Victor snorted. "Wise choice, man."

"What the hell for?" he growled when I told him where I wanted to go. "Nothing over there but bogland and barmy weather."

"Should we be offended by that description?" Horace asked.

I explained about my grandfather and the children's home. He frowned at me, then leaned over the counter to cast a doubtful glance at my shoes.

"I s'pose Dylan ain't too busy to take you," he said, pointing his cleaver at a kid about my age who was arranging fish in a freezer case, "but you'll be wantin' proper footwear. Wouldn't do to let you go in them trainers--mud'll suck 'em right off!"

Hugh shrugged and nodded. "Pretty accurate description."

"Really?" I said. "Are you sure?"

"No, he's just lying to piss you off," Enoch said.

"Dylan! Fetch our man here a pair of Wellingtons!"

The kid groaned and made a big show of slowly closing the freezer case and cleaning his hands before slouching over to a wall of shelves packed with dry goods.

"I hate dramatic people!" Horace said, shaking his head.

Everyone looked at him.

"What?"

"Just so happens we've got some good sturdy boots on offer," the fishmonger said. "Buy one get none free!" He burst out laughing and slammed his cleaver on a salmon, its head shooting across the blood-slicked counter to land perfectly in a little guillotine bucket.

"But it wasn't even funny," Bronwyn said.

I fished the emergency money Dad had given me from my pocket, figuring that a little extortion was a small price to pay to find the woman I'd crossed the Atlantic to meet.

"Well, when you put it that way," Hugh said.

I left the shop wearing a pair of rubber boots so large my sneakers fit inside and so heavy it was difficult to keep up with my begrudging guide.

"So, do you go to school on the island?" I asked Dylan, scurrying to catch up. I was genuinely curious--what was living here like for someone my age?

"It's different," Millard said.

He muttered the name of a town on the mainland.

"What is that, an hour each way by ferry?"

"Yup."

And that was it.

"He's talkative," Bronwyn said.

He responded to further attempts at conversation with even fewer syllables--which is to say, none--

"He sounds like you, Enoch!" Claire said, smiling.