L. D. Lapinski - Strangeworlds Travel Agency

Strangeworlds Travel Agency

L. D. Lapinski

The Edge of the Ocean

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Aladdin hardcover edition May 2021

Text copyright 2020 by L. D. Lapinski

Jacket illustration copyright 2021 by Matt Rockefeller

Originally published in Great Britain in 2020 by Hodder and Stoughton.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Design by Heather Palisi

Jacket design by Heather Palisi

CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 9781534483514 (hc)

ISBN 9781534483538 (eBook)

FOR JOSEPH

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody.

All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody

no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside.

Inside them theyve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful,

stupid, amazing worlds

Not just one world. Hundreds of them.

Thousands, maybe.

Neil Gaiman, A Game of You

The Sandman: A Game of You 1991 DC Comics. Written by Neil Gaiman.

T here have always been places in our world where magic gathers.

You can see it, if you look close enough. You might see an ancient horse and cart passing down a modern main street; or a cobbled alleyway that people walk into, but never out of. Now and again, you might see it in a personsomeone who looks like theyve stepped straight out of an old photograph. Or, perhaps, someone whose bag seems to hover off the ground catches your eye in a coffee shop. And when you look again they, and their bag, have disappeared.

And, occasionally, you see magic in shops.

Squashed between brand name stores and fancy displays, the shops soaked in magic are never eye-catching, or ostentatious. Their windows are stained with dirt and dust, and sometimes their signs have peeled away so much that it looks as though ghost letters are trying to work their way through. Magic does not wish to be noticed, you see. And most people are happy to pretend it does not exist.

The Strangeworlds Travel Agency was very much like a magical shop should be.

The leaded windows were dirty and cracked. There was peeling paint on the front door and it hardly ever seemed to be open. However, there was one element of the shop that refused to fade into the background: the sign over the window. It was always clearly painted, in silky gold letters embellished with black against a ruby-red background. There was one globe at the beginning of the sign and another at the end. The shop was out of its time, for certain, and yet the name was blazoned for all to see.

In the time between the agency opening almost one hundred and fifty years ago and the summer everything changed, the only thing that altered about the frontage was the globesthey were repainted occasionally, to reflect the shifting borders of various countries.

So, a change was overdue. And it was a new visitor coming into Strangeworlds that ultimately saved the business.

As well as other things.

Jonathan Mercator was working. At least, thats what he would claim to be doing, if you asked him. What he was actually doing was sitting at the shop desk, ankles crossed on the surface as he leaned back in his chair, reading.

A number of open journals lay on the desk beside his shoes, and the sound of several out-of-sync clocks, ticking to their own distinct rhythms, filled the otherwise silent air. Jonathan paid them no attention.

It was going to be, by his standards, a very busy day.

A shadow crossed in front of the large bay window. And then it passed again, this time pausing in the region of the front door. After a moment the door opened, scraping over the swollen floorboards, and a boy came in, curling not so much his lip as his entire face at the sight of the shop interior.

Jonathan raised his eyes over the edge of his novel and watched the boy with interest.

Um The boy looked around. This isnt Games Warehouse, is it?

The interest slipped from Jonathans face like water vanishing through a sieve, and he gazed around in false astonishment. Isnt it? Whatever gave you that idea?

The boy pulled his phone out. Its supposed to be here.

Ah, well then. If your phone says this is the place, it must be correct. Dont trust your own eyes, whatever you do. Jonathan reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and fished out a very small magnifying glass. It was made of a bronze metal, with a thick glass lens. He tossed it at the boy, who caught it uncertainly. Have a good look around, make absolutely certain, why dont you?

Whats this for?

Humor me.

The boy frowned and lifted the magnifying glass to his face. What am I supposed to see? Does this even work? Everythings blurry. He put the glass back on the desk. What sort of place is this? His loud voice was absorbed by the room, so the sound of it fell rather flat.

Jonathan sighed, picking up the magnifying glass and putting it back in his pocket. The sign over the window wasnt enough of a clue? Were a travel agency.

The boy snorted. All right, maybe it does say travelagency over the door, but you dont even have a computer.

Jonathan looked at his desk, before taking his legs off it. As well as the pile of journals, there was a half-drunk mug of tea and a plate with the crumby remains of toast and peanut butter still on it. He put the novel he was reading down, fanned open to save the page. What on earth would I need a computer for?

Er dont you need to book flights? Arrange holidays?

Jonathan smiled. A smile full of secrets. Im not that sort of travel agent.

The boy frowned. What do you do, then?

Jonathan pushed his glasses up his nose and folded his hands, his fingers interlocking like gears.

But he was saved the trouble of answering by the suitcase to his left springing open.

Perhaps, before things become too complicated, we should clarify precisely why this young man was so skeptical about the Strangeworlds Travel Agency.

First of all, the visitor was correct in pointing out that the place was a technological relic. Indeed, the most modern item in Jonathan Mercators possession was a typewriter from the 1960s. He liked to type passive-aggressive notes on it and hide them in library books. The desk the typewriter sat upon wouldnt have been out of place in the office of a Victorian headmaster, and even Jonathans clothes looked old. You got the feeling someone might well have died in some of his tweed suits. They were not the sort of thing youd expect an eighteen-year-old to be wearing.