The boy was small for his age

“Heck, all my old man’s friends in the biz talk worse stuff than shitload. So does my old man.” “Not when he knows you’re around.” [20] Fric cocked his head. “Are you calling my dad a hypocrite?” “If I ever call your dad such a thing, I’ll cut my tongue out.” “The evil wizard in this book would use it in a potion. One of his most difficult tasks is to find the tongue of an honest man.” “What makes you think I’m honest?” “Get real. You’ve got a triple shitload of honesty.” “What’re you going to do if Mrs. McBee hears you using words like that?” “She’s somewhere else.” “Oh, she is?” Ethan asked, suggesting that he knew something regarding Mrs. McBee’s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he’d been more discreet. Unable to repress a guilty expression, Fric sat up straight and surveyed the library. The boy was small for his age, and thin. At times, glimpsed from a distance as he walked along one of the vast halls or across a room scaled for kings and their entourages, he seemed almost wispy. “I think she has secret passages,” Fric whispered. “You know, pathways in the walls.” “Mrs. McBee?” The boy nodded. “We’ve lived here six years, but she’s been here forever.” Mrs. McBee and Mr. McBee—both in their middle fifties—had been employed by the previous owner of the property and had stayed on at the request of the Face. “It’s hard to picture Mrs. McBee skulking about in the walls,” said Ethan. “She’s not exactly a dastardly sort.” “But if she was dastardly,” Fric said hopefully, “things would be more interesting around here.” Unlike his father’s golden locks, which with a shake of the head always fell perfectly into place, Fric’s brown mop achieved perpetual disarray. Here was hair that foiled brushes and broke good combs.