Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

toward him, her pen and book in hand, Jake decided to play a trick on her and popped the Babblegum into his mouth. “There you are!” she said.
    “ Jambo!” he answered in greeting.
    “What?”
    “Nafurahi kukuona. Jina langu ni Jake.”
    She stared at him, brow furrowed.
    He took the gum out of his mouth, laughing. “My name is Jake,” he informed her, holding up the chewed gum. “Babblegum. Want to try it?”
    She grimaced at his chewed gum, shook her head at him, and muttered “daftling,” just as her tiny brown Norwich terrier stuck his head out of the satchel on her shoulder and growled at the “Moving Pictures.”
    “ Calm down, Teddy, they’re not real. If you’re done speaking whatever language that was—”
    “Swahili. Kind of spicy. Cayenne pepper maybe?”
    “—I wanted to show you something,” she continued, ignoring him. “Have a look at this!” Dani opened the Norway tour book she had bought with her earnings in the shop aboard the massive luxury steam-liner on which they had sailed over from England.
    Proudly, she showed him all the famous names scribbled on the overleaf.
    Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Jules Verne…
    “I’m collecting all their autographs in one book! This is going to be worth a lot o’ money someday, wait and see.”
    “Brilliant,” Jake murmured, glancing at her in surprise.
    She lifted her chin, her green eyes glowing with satisfaction. “It is rather brilliant of me, ain’t it?”
    Clearly , one month in their new, easy life among the aristocrats was not enough to erase from her memory how they had struggled to survive in the rough rookery neighborhood.
    Dani had sold apples in Covent Garden Market before both their situations had so drastically improved, and it seemed she still thought like a wee businesswoman. Jake couldn’t help but admire her for it, even though Great-Great Aunt Ramona would have sniffed in disdain. Trade, after all, wasn’t considered very aristocratic. Nevertheless, the rookery lass was a survivor.
    Like him.
    “Did you finish unpacking your trunk?” he asked, sparing her the Swahili. A traveling trunk, in itself, was still a novelty to them both, considering this was their first-ever holiday anywhere.
    Dani nodded eagerly, tucking her book away. “Miss Helena’s still in the dormitory arranging our rooms and pressing our gowns for the Welcome Dinner. She said me and Isabelle could come and have a look at the inventions.”
    “Where is Isabelle, anyway ?” Jake glanced around curiously for his elder cousin.
    “Oh, she felt sorry for young Mr. Tesla.” Dani gave him an arch look. “Poor thing! He’s so shy, he can barely speak to people. You know how Isabelle likes to put others at ease. Well, she got him talkin’ about electricity, then nothing could shut ’im up. I couldn’t take it anymore, but she couldn’t get away. You know our Isabelle. She didn’t want to be rude.”
    Jake laughed heartily, glad he never had that problem.
    “ Last I saw her, she was letting him rig her up to some contraption that measures the electrical waves comin’ out of your head.”
    “Isabelle’s got electricity coming out of her head? Well, that explains a lot,” he drawled.
    “We all do, you glock-wit.” Dani glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “You should let Mr. Tesla measure your brain waves, too, Jake. You really should, considering the talents that run in your family—”
    “No, ” he cut her off.
    “As a contributi on to science! Your brain waves, and maybe the ones from your fingers, too. I’ve heard you say you think it’s some sort of electrical energy that flows out of your hands when you…you know.”
    “Absolutely not.” Jake shook his head stubbornly. “ Aunt Ramona warned me not to let these eggheads know what I can do, or they’ll take me for a lab rat. Izzy, too, to say nothing of Henry and Helena. If they learn about our abilities, they’ll be tryin’ to dissect