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Cirque Du Freak, The Saga of Darren Shan, by Darren Shan. A Living Nightmare, book one.
Introduction. 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 mom crazy! 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 guard for almost a month. Going to sleep,
I used to imagine the spider creeping down, crawling in 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 mom 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. Spoiled 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 for my tears. My pet was dead, it
was my fault, and there was nothing I could do about it.
My parents practically hollered the roof down when they found out what I'd done - the tarantula
had cost quite a lot of money. They said I was irresponsible, and from that day on they
never again let me have a pet, not even an ordinary garden spider.
I started with that tale from the past for two reasons. One will become obvious as this
book unfolds. The other reason is: This is a true story.
I don't expect you to believe me - I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't lived it - but
it is. Everything I describe in this book happened, just as I tell it.
The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In
books, the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they
do, because everything works out in the end. They beat the bad guys and put things right
and everything ends up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders.
If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall out
of a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't
care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things
happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.
I just wanted to make that clear before I began.
One more thing: my name isn't really Darren Shan. Everything's true in this book, except
for names. I've had to change them because... well, by the time you get to the end, you'll
understand. I haven't' used any real names, not mine,
my sister's, my friends, or teachers. Nobody's. I'm not even going to tell you the name of
my town or country. I don't dare. Anyway, that's enough of an introduction.
If you're ready, let's begin. If this were a made-up story, it would begin at night,
with a storm blowing and owls hooting and rattling noises under the bed. But this is
a real story, so I have to begin where it really started.
It started in a toilet.