The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer [24]
“D’Arvit!” swore Mulch, blinking concrete flakes from his eyes with long dwarf lashes. He reached up, rapping a knuckle against the flat surface.
“Five or six inches, I reckon,” he said to no one, or so he thought. “Should be no problem.”
Mulch backed up, compacting the earth behind him. He was about to employ a maneuver known in dwarf culture as the cyclone. This move was generally used for emergency escapes or for impressing dwarf females. He jammed the unbreakable LEP helmet over his wild hair, drawing his knees to his chin.
“I wish you could see this, ladies,” he muttered, allowing the gas in his insides to build. He had swallowed a lot of air in the past few minutes, and now individual bubbles were merging to form an increasingly difficult-to-contain tube of pressure.
“A few more seconds,” grunted Mulch, the pressure bringing a glow to his cheeks.
Mulch crossed his arms over his chest, drew in his beard hair, and released the pent-up wind.
The result was spectacular and would have earned Mulch the girlfriend of his choice, if anyone had been around to see it. If you imagine the tunnel to be the neck of a champagne bottle, then Mulch was the cork. He shot up that passageway at over a hundred miles per hour, spinning like a top. Ordinarily when bone meets concrete, the concrete wins, but Mulch’s head was protected by a stolen fairy Lower Elements Police helmet. These helmets are made from a virtually indestructible polymer.
Mulch punched through the basement floor in a flurry of concrete dust and spinning limbs. The dust was whipped into a dozen mini-whirlwinds by his jet stream. His momentum took him a full six feet into the air before he flopped to the floor, and lay there panting. The cyclone took a lot out of a person. Who said crime was easy?
After a quick breather, Mulch sat up and re-hinged his jaw. He would have liked a longer rest but there could be cameras pointed at him right now. There was probably a scrambler on the helmet, but technology had never been his strong point. He needed to nab the tiara, and escape underground.
He stood, shaking a few lumps of clay from his bum flap, and took a quick look around. There were no telltale red lights winking on CCTV cameras. There were no safety-deposit boxes for valuable artifacts. There wasn’t even a particularly secure door. It seemed an odd place for a priceless tiara to be stored even for one night. Humans were inclined to protect their treasures, especially from other humans.
Something winked at him from the darkness. Something that gathered in and reflected the minuscule amount of light available in the base-ment. There was a plinth among the statues, storage crates, and mini-skyscrapers of stacked chairs. And atop the plinth was a tiara, and the spectacular blue diamond at its center glittered even in almost total darkness.
Mulch burped in surprise. The Mud Men had left Fei Fei’s tiara out in the open? Not likely. This must be a setup.
He approached the plinth cautiously, wary of any traps on the ground. But there was nothing, no motion sensors, no laser eyes. Nothing. Mulch’s instinct screamed at him to flee, but his curiosity pulled him toward the tiara like a swordfish on a line.
“Moron,” he said to himself, or so he thought. “Get out while you can. Nothing good can come of this.” But the tiara was magnificent. Mesmerizing.
Mulch ignored his misgivings about the situation, admiring the jeweled item in front of him.
“Not half bad,” he said, or maybe it was. The dwarf leaned closer.
The stones had an unnatural sheen to them. Oily. Not clean like real gems. And the gold was too shiny. Nothing a human eye would notice. But gold is life to a dwarf. It is in their blood and dreams. Mulch lifted the tiara. It was too light. A tiara of this size should weigh at least two pounds.
There