Cirque Du Freak. Darren Shan
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CIRQUE DU FREAK
THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN
BOOK 1
CIRQUE DU FREAK
THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN
BOOK 1
First published in Great Britain by Collins in 2000
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THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN BOOK 1: CIRQUE DU FREAK. Text copyright © 2000 Darren Shan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780006754169
Ebook Edition © February 2011 ISBN: 9780007435272
Version: 2019-03-06
Madam Octa’s on the web… and so is Darren Shan!
For all things freaky, check out the official
Darren Shan website at www.darrenshan.com
This freakish show could never have gone public but for
the efforts of my hard-working laboratory assistants:
Biddy & Liam – ‘The Gruesome Twosome’
‘Diabolical’ Domenica de Rosa
‘Growling’ Gillie Russell
Emma ‘The Exterminator’ Schlesinger
and
‘Lord of the Crimson Night’ – Christopher Little
Thanks are also due to my feasting companions:
the Horrible Creatures of HarperCollins. And the ghoulish
pupils of Askeaton Primary School (and others) who served as
willing guinea pigs and braved nightmares to make this book
as tight, dark and chilling as possible.
Contents
Copyright
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Other Books in the Series The Saga of Darren Shan
I’VE ALWAYS been fascinated by spiders. I used to collect them when I was younger. I’d spend hours rooting through the dusty old shed at the bottom of our garden, hunting the cobwebs for lurking eight-legged predators. When I found one, I’d bring it in and let it loose in my bedroom.
It used to drive my mum mad!
Usually, the spider would slip away after no more than a day or two, never to be seen again, but sometimes they hung around longer. I had one who made a cobweb above my bed and stood sentry for almost a month. Going to sleep, I used to imagine the spider creeping down, crawling into my mouth, sliding down my throat and laying loads of eggs in my belly. The baby spiders would hatch after a while and eat me alive, from the inside out.
I loved being scared when I was little.
When I was nine, my mum and dad gave me a small tarantula. It wasn’t poisonous or very big, but it was the greatest gift I’d ever received. I played with that spider almost every waking hour of the day. Gave it all sorts of treats: flies and cockroaches and tiny worms. Spoilt it rotten.
Then, one day, I did something stupid. I’d been watching a cartoon in which one of the characters was sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. No harm came to him. He squeezed out of the bag, dusty and dirty and mad as hell. It was very funny.
So funny, I tried it myself. With the tarantula.
Needless to say, things didn’t happen quite like they did in the cartoon. The spider was ripped to pieces. I cried a lot, but it was too late