Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius by Kevin J. Anderson Page B

newspaper that he wouldn’t have noticed a placard fastened to Verne’s chest.   Sophie, sharp-eyed and attuned to her son’s moods, might have detected something in his manner, but she did not comment on it.
    His younger brother Paul mercifully fell asleep.   As the boy snored, Verne crept about the room in the moonlight, gathering the possessions he insisted on taking with him:   copies of Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Last of the Mohicans , as well as Ivanhoe and The Pirate .   Over the past two years, Verne and Nemo had shared those novels, since Jacques Nemo had not been able to afford books.  
    Verne took a bound, blank journal along with several lead pencils so that he could record his experiences and observations.   Someday they might be useful to him when he was a respected chronicler of his own adventures. . . .
    As the hours crawled by, he tossed and turned, eager but also terrified.   That afternoon he had marched down to the docks to look at the Coralie , a fine and magnificent ship.   The brig had a full crew and a full cargo hold.   Captain Grant had been on many extended ocean voyages before.   All things considered, Verne had nothing to worry about.
    Long after his parents were abed, he crept down the flight of stairs, wearing only his nightshirt.   He tiptoed to the window where his father kept the telescope pointed toward the clockface of the monastery.   Verne peered into the eyepiece, focused, and waited for the moon to emerge from behind a gauzy cloud so that he could read the hands on the dial.
    Verne still had an hour to get dressed and make his way down to L’Homme aux Trois Malices .   Stumbling about, tripping on his shoelaces, he dressed without lighting a candle or turning up the gas.   Paul continued to sleep with little-boy snores, suspecting nothing.   Verne’s heart-strings tugged at him, and he thought again of how much he was leaving behind . . . but he raised his chin and counted the wonderful things he would experience instead.
    Aboard the Coralie he would find a new life, and he couldn’t wait for that adventure to begin. . . .
    #
    Verne tiptoed along the evening-moist streets, carrying his sack of belongings over one shoulder.   Wharf rats scuttled away from him into the dank alleys, where he heard women giggling and men grunting.   He must have looked like a cutpurse creeping along.   He was afraid he would be arrested as a vagrant or malicious prankster.  
    The Coralie would depart with the outgoing tide and travel some thirty miles down the Loire to Paimboeuf on the seacoast.   There, she would take on more crew and exchange some of her cargo before Captain Grant pointed the bowsprit out into the wild Atlantic.
    Ahead, L’Homme aux Trois Malices welcomed travelers with a glow of orange light from half-shuttered windows.   A droning hum of laughter and music came from inside.   Verne looked up at the sign hanging above the inn door, depicting a well-dressed man surrounded by a woman, a monkey, and a parrot.   It was like no place his father had ever taken him, too noisy, too smelly.
    As he hesitated at the door, Nemo stepped out of the shadows.   “I wondered if you would come, Jules.”
    “I told you I would.”   Verne swallowed a defensive tone.   “I promised.”
    “I know -- but still, I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Nemo said with a smile.   “Come on, I’ve talked to the innkeeper.   My father used to know him, and as a good luck gesture, he’s buying us each a flagon of Breton ale.   I bet you’ve never had any of that in a goblet at your dinner table.   Let’s go have a toast.”
    Uncertain, Verne followed his friend into the smoky room full of strangers and odd human odors, greasy cooking and sour old drink.   The thick rafters were stained with soot.   Someone was playing a squeezebox and singing off-key.   Others howled and laughed, pounding on tables.   Some played cards.   A few, dead drunk, snored in their