Mungo ignored Bud and left the kitchen, making his way to the front door.
“What?” Alex asked. He was seated on the bottom step with Chester. In his hand was a biscuit that he was clearly about to feed to the dog.
“Something isn’t right.”
“Really?” Alex handed the biscuit to Chester, who sprinted off with his treasure. “I don’t sense anything. Mind you, there is that child forever warbling ‘Sing A Song Of Sixpence’ and the scent of a crusty old man who stinks of tobacco. Nothing else seems to be getting through however.”
“Where is everyone?”
“Not here. Just me, you, Bud, and Mr. Dumple,” Alex said.
Mungo felt the tension slide into panic. “Surely you feel it?”
Alex regained his feet, face now serious, which it never was. “No, nothing.”
Mungo grabbed his thick jacket and slid his arms into the sleeves. Alex did the same with his own.
“The children are walking.” Mungo opened the door. “It must be them.”
“Have you felt like this before? I don’t remember you ever telling us about things you sensed.” Alex kept pace with him as he stepped outside. “Are you unwell, Mungo?”
“No, I’m not unwell,” he snapped.
He stepped onto the street and looked around. He saw the rotunda, which had only a few people in it, none of them his people. Mungo started toward the entrance to Crabbett Close with Alex on his heels.
“What are you feeling?”
“Unease.”
“That’s odd for you.”
“I feel unease around you lot all the time—it just doesn’t come on like this,” Mungo said, his eyes going from left to right as he wondered what had sparked the feeling inside him.
“And yet we’re so well-behaved,” Alex said.
Mungo ignored that idiotic statement. He was running by the time he reached the Crabbett Close entrance.
“Which way?”
“How am I to know that?”
Alex shrugged. “You’re the one who has a problem, not me.”
Left.
Mungo headed toward the three shops, one of which wasthe bakery that his family spent a lot of time in, and even more now that it was run by the residents. There was Nitpicks, which he hated, as walking in there made him feel large and clumsy. Then there was Nicholson’s. Something made him stop by the alley that ran behind it. A man stood at the end, near the rear of the shop.
“What?” Alex asked.
“That man looks menacing.”
Alex looked at the man and then at Mungo. “So do you.”
“He’s loitering.”
“Or standing outside taking shelter from the ice-cold weather,” Alex said, blowing into his hands.
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
