Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

and stray hairs in my poor books.
    Anyway, as you know, I have a very expensive burglar alarm system."
    "Yes, that's extremely reassuring!" Mo's voice sounded relieved. "Thank you, Elinor! I really am most grateful. And if anyone comes knocking at your door in the near future asking about the book, please will you make out you've never heard of it, all right?"
    "Of course. I'd do anything for a good bookbinder, and anyway you're my niece's husband. I really do miss her sometimes, you know. I expect you feel the same. Your daughter seems to be getting along all right without her, though."
    "She hardly remembers her mother," said Mo quietly.
    "Well, that's a blessing, wouldn't you say? Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do. But for them we probably wouldn't know anything for very long. It would all be forgotten: the Trojan War, Columbus, Marco Polo, Shakespeare, all the amazing kings and gods of the past. ." Elinor turned around — and froze.
    "Did I fail to hear you knock?" she asked, staring so angrily that Meggie had to summon up all her courage not to turn around and slip quickly back out into the hallway.
    "How long have you been there, Meggie?" asked Mo.
    29

    Meggie stuck her chin out. "She can see it, but you hide it away from me!" she said. Attack, she knew, is the best form of defense. "You never hid any book from me before! What's so special about this one? Will I go blind if I read it? Will it bite my fingers off? What terrible secrets are there in it that I shouldn't know?"
    "I have my reasons for not showing it to you," replied Mo. He looked very pale. Without another word he went over and tried to lead her to the door, but Meggie tore herself away.
    "Pigheaded, isn't she?" remarked Elinor. "It almost makes me like her! Her mother was just the same, I remember. Come here." She stepped aside and beckoned Meggie over. "Look, you can see there's nothing very exciting about this book, at least not to you. But see for yourself. We're always most likely to believe the evidence of our own eyes. Or doesn't your father agree?" She cast Mo an inquiring glance.
    Mo hesitated, then resigned himself and nodded.
    The book was lying open on the reading desk. It didn't seem particularly old. Meggie knew what really old books looked like. She had seen books in Mo's workshop with their pages spotted like leopard skin and almost as yellow. She remembered one with a binding that had been attacked by woodworms. The traces of their jaws had looked like tiny bullet holes, and Mo had gotten out his book block, carefully fixed the pages back together, then, as he put it, gave them a new dress.
    Such a dress could be made of leather or linen, it might be plain, or Mo might imprint a pattern on it with his tiny decorative stamps.
    This book was bound in linen, silvery green like willow leaves. The edges of the pages were slightly roughened, and the paper was still so pale that every letter stood out clear and black. A narrow red bookmark lay between the open pages. The right-hand page had an illustration on it, showing women in magnificent dresses, a fire-eater, acrobats, and a man who looked like a king.
    Meggie turned the pages. There weren't many illustrations, but the first letter of each chapter was itself a little decorative picture. Animals sat on some of these initial letters, plants twined around others, one F burned bright as fire. The flames looked so real that Meggie touched them with one finger to make sure they weren't hot. The next chapter began with an N. An animal with a furry tail sat perched in the angle between the second and third strokes of the letter. No one saw him slip out of town, read Meggie, but before she could get any further with the story Elinor closed the book in her face.
    "I think that'll do," she said, tucking it under her arm. "Your father's asked me to put this book somewhere safe for him, and so I will."
    Mo took Meggie's hand again, and this time she followed