How To Avoid Death On A Daily Basis: Book One Read Online Free Page A

you’d think I’d be used to it.
     
    Then again, maybe that’s why it unnerves me so much. If you get angry back they turn up the volume, no bass, all treble. If you try to speak gently, they get mad because you aren’t taking them seriously. Back in the 1950s you could slap a screaming woman and she’d thank you for calming her down. Try that these days and you might get a slightly different response.
     
    “I don’t know what you’re so pissed at me for, I don’t think you’re a loser. If I don’t seem sociable it’s just because I find it difficult to talk to people, especially in big groups. I’m going to look around. If you want to come, nobody’s stopping you.”
     
    I walked out the door with Maurice and the two girls falling in behind. Ceiling-staring guy got up and shuffled after us. Was this really my party? I had to ditch these losers as soon as possible.

10. Welcome to Probet
     
    Outside, the road, more a dusty track, led in only one direction. Buildings ahead of us looked all the same. Wooden shacks of one storey. Noise and smells drifted towards us as we approached. It was hard to identify either.
     
    “My name’s Claire, by the way,” said the girl with the big nose. “This is Flossie.”
     
    I turned to look at the plump red-head. “Really?”
     
    “Oh ah, not really,” she said in the broadest Brummie accent I’d ever heard. “Actually, it’s Victoria but everybody’s always called me that since I were a babby.”
     
    “I’m Colin and this is Maurice.”
     
    “Hello, ladies.” Maurice smiled inanely.
     
    I looked over to our fifth member, who was walking a few steps behind us with his hands behind his back and a tremendous interest in the sky. “What about you? Got a name?”
     
    “Dudley Fenderson III.” The voice that came out of his mouth was so posh it sounded like the sort of voice you put on to mock posh people. He was quite tall, had a receding hairline even though he couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, and no chin to speak of, so he definitely could be a member of the aristocracy. Or, perhaps he had chosen this new stage to reinvent himself.
     
    Introductions done, we turned a corner and the main thoroughfare appeared in front of us. The whole town couldn’t have been more than a dozen shacks. Various stores lined either side of the main street.
     
    The first was a blacksmith’s, a large open area with a roof over it and an intense fire burning in the middle. A variety of metalware hung on all sides. Weapons, armour pieces, pots and pans. A heavy-built man pounded away on an anvil with an enormous hammer.
     
    “Go over and speak to him,” I said to Maurice.
     
    “About what?”
     
    “I don’t know, the price of stuff.”
     
    It turned out nobody wanted to talk to the blacksmith. Having a party made up of the socially awkward and chronically shy clearly had some drawbacks. In fact, it had nothing but drawbacks.
     
    The idea of being unable to ask a question of someone in a shop, a person who’s there to sell stuff, may seem ridiculous. But that means you’ve never experienced the fear . The inexplicable paralysis when you have to speak to someone official on the phone or attract the attention of a sales assistant in a shoe shop.
     
    You could walk up to the nearest person and say, “Hey, I’d like to try this in a size nine, please,” but you don’t. You wait to be noticed, waving a shoe about, hoping someone offers to help.
     
    If you have no idea what I’m talking about, congratulations, you’re a well-adjusted member of society.
     
    I steeled myself to do what had to be done, went over what I would ask in my head, and then walked purposefully towards the smithy. The others followed, but at a distance where they could pretend they had nothing to do with me.
     
    “Excuse me? Hello?” Sweat ran down the back of my neck.
     
    The blacksmith was completely bald, but with a huge walrus moustache. He wore a heavy leather apron