The Fowl Twins. Eoin Colfer

Twins. My brother Myles is here too, and we’re home alone. We’ll be with you in a minute – we’re down in the safe room because of the sonic boom. I’m so glad the EMP didn’t kill your helicopter.’

      Beckett’s statement contained basically every scrap of information that Myles had wanted to keep secret.

      ‘Gracias,’ said the unexpected nun. ‘I shall await your arrival.’

      Beckett was hopping with excitement. ‘Myles, it’s a nun with a helicopter! You hardly ever see that. This is the start of our first real adventure. It has to be – I can feel it in my elbows.’

      Beckett often felt things in his elbows, which he claimed were psychic. He sometimes pointed them at cookie jars to see if there were cookies inside, which Myles had never considered much of a challenge, as one of NANNI’s robot arms filled the kitchen containers as soon as their smart sensors informed the network they were empty.

      ‘Beck, with no disrespect to your extrasensory elbows,’ said Myles, ‘why don’t we stay calm and stick to the plan? If we can stay, we stay, but, if we go, remember the story.’

      Beckett tapped his forehead. ‘It’s all in here, brother. Angry Hamster in the Dimension of Fire.’

      ‘No, Beck!’ snapped Myles. ‘Not that story.’

      ‘Ha!’ said Beckett. ‘You snapped at me. I win.’

      Myles counted up to ninety-seven in prime numbers to calm himself. One of Beckett’s pleasures in life was teasing his brother until he snapped. It was unfair, really, as it was very difficult to tell the difference between a Beckett who genuinely didn’t know something and a Beckett who was pretending not to know something.

      ‘Ha-ha,’ said Myles, without a shred of humour. ‘You got me. You’re the big comedian, and I’m just Myles the dunce. But, in my defence, I am trying to keep us alive and out of an army cell.’

      Beckett relented and hugged his brother. ‘Okay, Myles. I’ll lay off this time, because you have no sense of humour when you’re stressed. Let’s go upstairs and you can lecture this nun.’

      Myles had to admit that sounded wonderful.

      A new person to lecture.

      As eager as Myles Fowl was to debate, argue with and deliver a monologue to the mysterious nun, he was determined to take his time reaching the front door. It is always a good idea to keep potential enemies waiting, he knew, as they are more likely to expose their real selves if they become impatient. Beckett was not aware of this tactic, and so Myles had to literally hold him back by hanging on to his belt loops. And thus Beckett dragged his brother along in his wake as a mule might drag a cart.

      They passed through the reinforced steel door and climbed the narrow stairwell of polished concrete to the main living area, an open-plan quadrangle marked on three sides with glass walls that were threaded with a conductive mesh, which served both to maintain the integrity of the Faraday cage and reinforce the windows. The reclaimed wooden floors were strewn with rugs, the placement of which might seem random to the untrained eye, but they were actually carefully laid out in accordance with the Ba Zhi school of feng shui. The space was dominated by a driftwood table and a rough stone fireplace that ran on recycled pellets. But the main feature of the villa was the panoramic view of Dublin Bay that it afforded the residents. Myles could remember visiting the island with his father before construction of the villa began.

      ‘Criminal masterminds are always drawn to islands,’ Artemis Fowl Senior had said. ‘All the greats have them. Colonel Hootencamp had Flint Island. Hans Hørteknut had Spider Island, which was more of a glacier, I suppose. Ishi Myishi, the malignant inventor, has an island in the Japanese archipelago. And now we have Dalkey Island.’

      And Myles had asked, ‘Are we criminal masterminds, Father?’

      His father did not answer for half a minute, and Myles got the feeling that he was choosing his words carefully.

      ‘No, son,’ he said eventually. ‘But sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.’

      This, Myles knew, was a metaphor, and as a scientist he felt obliged to dissect it.

      ‘Fire being analogous to crime,’ he said. ‘So, if I take your meaning correctly, you are saying that on occasion the only way to defeat a criminal is to turn his own methods against him.’

      Artemis Senior had laughed and tousled his son’s hair. ‘I’m just thinking out loud, son. The Fowls are out of that game. Now why don’t we forget I ever mentioned criminal masterminds and just enjoy the view?’

      A view that was utterly ignored by Myles now as he attempted to slow his energetic brother’s trip to their front door. He felt confident that once they reached the door he would be able to argue legal precedent through the intercom with the waiting nun until the cows came home – or at least until he could fill his parents in on the situation. The problem would be how to contain Beckett.

      As it happened, this problem never materialised. When they reached the front door, it was already open. The nun had stepped from the rescue basket and was closing her fingers over a hockey-puck-size device strapped to her palm.

      ‘There you are, chicos,’ said the nun. ‘The door simply opened of its own accord. Increíble, no?’

      Incredible indeed, thought Myles. This nun may not be as virtuous as her clothing suggests.

      The woman at Villa Éco’s front door was indeed a nun, but her habit was a little more stylish than one would usually associate with the various religious orders. She was dressed in a simple black linen smock that could have indicated that she liked Star Wars films or had just discovered an amazing young designer. The smock was cinched with a wide satin belt that nodded towards ancient Japanese culture. Her hair was too golden to be natural and was arranged in that bouffant style known in salons as 1980s Newsreader, on top of which perched a veil of black polyester secured with a jewelled hatpin.

      ‘Buenas tardes, chicos,’ she said. ‘I am Sister Jeronima Gonzalez-Ramos de Zárate of Bilbao.’

      Beckett didn’t hear anything after the first name.

      ‘Geronimo-o-o!’ he cried enthusiastically, throwing up his arms.

      ‘No, niño,’ said the nun patiently. ‘Jeronima, not Geronimo.’

      Beckett altered his cry appropriately. ‘Jeronima-a-a!’ and segued into a couple of blunt questions: ‘Sister, why are you red? And why do you smell funny?’

      Jeronima smiled indulgently. These were the questions that most people wished to ask but would not. ‘You see, chico, my skin has the slight tinge because of my order: the Sisters of the Rose. We stain our flesh red with a non-toxic aniline dye solution to demonstrate our devotion to Mary, the rose without thorns. And the odour is from the dye. It is like the almonds, no?’

      ‘It is like the almonds, yes!’ said Beckett. ‘I love it. Can I stain my skin, Myles?’

      ‘No, brother,’ said Myles, smiling. ‘Not until you are eighteen.’

      Myles was less smiley in his attitude towards the nun.

      ‘Sister Jeronima,’ he said, ‘it would seem that you have broken into our home.’

      Jeronima joined her hands as though she might pray. ‘I am a nun. I would never do this. As I think I said, the door was open. Perhaps your EMP affected the locks, no?’

      Myles was glad the rose-coloured nun had lied. At least he knew where they stood now.

      ‘You are, at the very least, trespassing on private property,’ he countered.

      Jeronima waved his point away as though it were a pesky mosquito. ‘I do not answer to your country’s estúpido laws.’

      ‘I see,’ said