A/N: Hello! So this is the first reading chapter. Review and/or PM me with feedback and constructive criticism or ideas. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: All bold text is in the possession of Mr. Anthony Horowitz.

Blunt picked up the first book, entitled Stormbreaker, and began to read.

Funeral Voices

When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.

Alex gave a slight snort. The books had to start on that day.

Alex Rider was woken by the first chime.

"That's you, right?" asked Fox.

Alex rolled his eyes and nodded. Of course it was him. What other Alex would Blunt be bothering.

His eyes flickered open but for a moment he stayed completely still in his bed, lying on his back with his head resting on the pillow. He heard a bedroom door and a creak of wood as somebody went downstairs.

"Good observation," Wolf muttered with a scowl.

Alex didn't like Wolf very much. He looked like he was ready to kill somebody and that made Alex uneasy.

The bell rang a second time and he looked at the alarm clock glowing beside him. 3.02am. There was a rattle as someone slid the security chain off the front door.

"Probably somebody there to give the spoiled brat money," Wolf grumbled.

Alex narrowed his eyes at Wolf. Wolf had no idea what he was talking about.

He rolled out of bed and walked over to the open window, his bare feet pressing down the carpet pile. The moonlight spilled onto his chest and shoulders. Alex was fourteen,

Wolf began to snicker a little bit, followed by Eagle. Fox gave them a reproaching look.

already well built, with the body of an athlete.

His hair, cut short apart from two thick strands hanging over his forehead, was fair.

His eyes were brown and serious.

"Like they've seen too much," muttered Jack so only Alex could hear her. He smiled and gave her hand a light squeezed.

For a moment he stood silently, half-hidden in the shadow, looking out. There was a police car parked outside. From his second-floor window Alex could see the black ID number on the roof and the caps of two men who were standing in front of the door. The porch light went on and, at the same time, the door opened.

"Who died?" Snaked asked Alex.

"You'll see."

"Mrs. Rider?"

"No. I'm the housekeeper. What is it? What's happened?"

"This is the home of Mr Ian Rider?"

"Yes."

"I wonder if we could come in..."

"Was he your dad?" Fox asked.

"No, my uncle."

Fox wondered where Alex's parents were. Wolf was thinking the same thing, but then he decided that they were probably at some vacation house in the Caribbean.

And Alex already knew.

He knew from the way the police stood there, awkward and unhappy. But he also knew from the tone of their voices. Funeral voices ... that was how he would describe them later. The sort of voices people use when they come to tell you someone close to you has died.

"Oh," Eagle said.

"Did you just realize...? Idiot," Wolf grumbled.

He went to his door and opened it. He could hear the two policemen talking down the hall, but only some of the words reached him.

"...a car accident... called the ambulance... intensive care... nothing anyone could do... so sorry."

"The worst words to say," Alex said.

"What?" Asked Fox.

"The worst thing to say when someone you are talking to has just found out their loved one died. The most empty words on Earth. I'm sorry."

It was only hours later, sitting in the kitchen, watching as the grey light of morning bled through the west London streets, that Alex could try and make sense of what had happened. His uncle - Ian Rider - was dead.

Driving home, his car had been hit by a lorry at Old Street round-about and he had been killed almost instantly. He hadn't been wearing a seat-belt, the police said. Otherwise, he might have had a chance.

Alex thought of the man who had been his only relation for as long as he could remember. He had never known his own parents.

They had died in an accident, that one a plane crash, a few weeks after he had been born.

"I'm-" Fox stopped himself, remembering what Alex had said earlier. "Er- that's horrible."

Alex gave him a small grateful smile. Fox seemed like the most accepting out of all of the four men.

Wolf was caught by surprise. Maybe this brat isn't such a brat after all.

Blunt sat blankly, probably thinking about how inconvenient it was for John and Ian Rider to have died.

He had been brought up by his father's brother (never "uncle" - Ian Rider hated that word) and had spent most of his fourteen years in the same terraced house in Chelsea, London, between the King's Road and the river. But it was only now Alex realized just how little he knew about the man.

"Were you not close or..." Fox let his sentence trail off.

"I dunno. We were friendly."

"Nonsense! Ian cared about you a lot Alex!" Jack chided.

"Yeah, I suppose so."

Fox was shocked by how distant and depressed Alex was for merely a fourteen year old. When he was fourteen, he was bouncing off the walls.

A banker.

People said Alex looked quite like him. Ian Rider was always traveling. A quiet, private man who liked good wine, classical music and books. Who didn't seem to have any girlfriends...in fact he didn't have any friends at all. He had kept himself fit, had never smoked and had dressed expensively. But that wasn't enough. That wasn't a picture of a life. It was only a thumbnail sketch.

"Are you all right, Alex?" A young woman had come into the room.

"That's me!" Jack exclaimed excitedly. She had wondered if she would be mentioned.

She was in her late twenties, a sprawl of red hair and a round, boyish face.

Jack frowned at this.

Jack Starbright was American. She had come to London as a student seven years ago, rented a room in the house - in return for light housework and baby-sitting duties - and had stayed on to become housekeeper and one of Alex's closest friends.

Jack smiled. She was touched that Alex thought so highly of her.

Sometimes he wondered what Jack was short for. Jackie? Jacqueline?

"Ew. NO way."

Neither of them suited her and although he had once asked, she had never said.

Alex nodded. "What do you think will happen?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"To the house. To me. To you."

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I guess Ian will have made a will. He'll have left instructions."

"Maybe we should look in his office."

"Yes. But not today, Alex. Let's take it one step at a time."

"Sensible," Mrs. Jones said while giving Blunt an accusing look.

Ian's office was a room running the full length of the house, high up at the top. It was the only room that was always locked - Alex had only been in there three or four times, never on his own. When he was younger, he had fantasized that there might have been something strange up there; a time machine or a UFO.

"Definitely a MI6 agent," Wolf muttered. "That still believes in UFO's."

Alex glared at Wolf. He'd been a kid at the time. He wanted to say something but that would just lead to a fight.

But it was only an office with a desk, a couple of filing cabinets, shelves full of papers and books. Bank stuff - that's what Ian said. Even so, Alex wanted to go up there now. Because it had never been allowed.

"The police said he wasn't wearing his seatbelt." Alex turned to look at Jack.

She nodded. "Yes. That's what they said."

"Doesn't that seem strange to you? You know how careful he was. He always wore his seat-belt. He wouldn't even drive me around the corner without making me put mine on."

"Awwwww. Littwl Alwex needs his uncy to put hwis seatbwelt on. So cute!"

Alex wanted to rip this guy's head off. He didn't know him.

Jack thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, it's strange," she said. "But that must have been the way it was. Why would the police have lied?"

The day dragged on. Alex hadn't gone to school even though, secretly, he had wanted to. He would have preferred to escape back into normal life - the clang of the bell, the crowds of familiar faces - instead of sitting there, trapped inside the house.

But he had to be there for the visitors who came throughout the morning and the rest of the afternoon.

There were five of them. A solicitor who knew nothing about a will but seemed to have been charged with organizing the funeral. A funeral director who had been recommended by the solicitor. A vicar - tall, elderly - who seemed disappointed that Alex didn't look more upset. A neighbor from across the road - how did she even know that anyone had died? And finally a man from the bank.

Alex glared at Blunt. He hated him. Right after he had lost his uncle, he tells him that either he goes to an orphanage or goes on an extremely dangerous mission. He didn't want to do that. He wanted to be a normal teenager.

"All of us at the Royal & General are deeply shocked," he said.

He was in his thirties, wearing a polyester suit with a Marks & Spencer tie. He had the sort of face you forgot even while you were looking at it, and had introduced himself as Crawley, from Personnel. "But if there's anything we can do..."

"What will happen?" Alex asked for the second time that day.

"You don't have to worry," Crawley said. "The bank will take care of everything. That's my job. You leave everything to me."

"Did such a great job too," Alex muttered just loud enough for everybody to hear.

Fox glared at Blunt and said, "What did you do? He's just a kid!"

"A very useful kid," Blunt corrected with a knowing smirk.

The day passed. Alex killed a couple of hours in the evening playing his Nintendo 64 - and then felt vaguely guilty when Jack caught him at it.

But what else was he to do? Later she took him to Burger King. He was glad to get out of the house, but the two of them barely spoke. Alex assumed Jack would have to go back to America. She certainly couldn't stay in London for ever. So who would look after him? By law, he was still too young to look after himself. His whole looked so uncertain that he preferred not to talk about it. He preferred not to talk at all.

"Just like Ian after John died," Mrs. Jones muttered to herself. She had always had a close bond with the Rider family.

And then the day of the funeral arrived and Alex found himself dressed in a dark jacket, preparing to leave in a black car that had come from nowhere, surrounded by people he had never met. Ian Rider was buried in the Brompton Cemetery on the Fulham Road, just in the shadow of Chelsea football ground, and Alex knew where he would have preferred to be on that Wednesday afternoon. About thirty people turned up but he hardly recognized any of them. A grave had been dug close to the lane that ran the length of the cemetery and as the service began, a black Rolls-Royce drew up, the back door opened and a man got out. Alex watched him as he walked forward and stopped. Overhead, a plane coming in to land at Heathrow momentarily blotted out the sun. Alex shivered. There was something about the new arrival that made his skin crawl.

Blunt had recognized that Alex had good instincts and was reassured that Alex would make a fine agent for him.

And yet the man was ordinary to look at. Grey suit, grey hair, grey lips and grey eyes. His face was expressionless, the eyes behind the square, gunmetal spectacles completely empty. Perhaps that was what disturbed Alex. Whoever this man was, he seemed to have less life than anyone in the cemetery. Above or below ground.

Blunt pursed his lips at this comment, but otherwise seemed unaffected. He hadn't expected Alex to like him, but he had expected a little respect from the boy at least.

Someone tapped Alex on the shoulder and he turned around to see Mr Crawley leaning over him. "That's Mr Blunt," the personnel manager whispered. "He's the chairman of the bank."

The four men turned to Blunt and snorted. Bank manager seemed a suiting job for a man so heartless and plain.

Alex's eyes travelled past Blunt and over to the Rolls-Royce. Two more men had come with him, one of them the driver. They were wearing identical suits and, although it wasn't a particularly bright day, sunglasses. Both of them were watching the funeral with the same grim faces. Alex looked from them to Blunt and then to the other people who had come to the cemetery. Had they really known Ian Rider? Why had he never met any of them before? And why did he find it so difficult to believe that any of them really worked for a bank?

Maybe his instincts are a little too good, Blunt thought.

"...a good man, a patriotic man. He will be missed."
The vicar had finished his grave-side address. His choice of words struck Alex as odd. Patriotic? That meant he loved his country. But as far as Alex knew, Ian Rider had barely spent any time in it. Certainly he had never been one for waving the Union Jack. He looked round, hoping to find Jack, but instead saw that Blunt was making his way towards him, stepping carefully round the grave.

"You must be Alex." The chairman was only a little taller than him. Close to, his skin was strangely unreal. It could have been made of plastic. "My name is Alan Blunt," he said. "Your uncle spoke often about you."

"That's funny," Alex said. "He never mentioned you."

Wolf, Eagle, Fox, and Snake all laughed at that. The boy had nerve talking to Blunt that way.

"We'll miss him. He was a good man."

"What was he good at?" Alex asked. "He never talked about his work."

Suddenly Crawley was there.

"You people creep me out. It's like you're constantly spying on us," Jack said exasperated.

"Your uncle was Overseas Finance Manager, Alex," he said. "He was responsible for our foreign branches. You must have known that."

"I know he travelled a lot," Alex said. "And I know he was very careful. About things like seat belts."

"Well, sadly he wasn't careful enough." Blunt's eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his spectacles, layered into his own and for a moment Alex felt himself pinned down, like an insect under a microscope. "I hope we'll meet again," Blunt went on. He tapped the side of his face with a single grey finger. "Yes..." Then he turned and went back to his car.

It was as he was getting into the Rolls-Royce that it happened. The driver leaned across to open the back door and his jacket fell open, revealing the shirt underneath. And not just the shirt. The man was wearing a leather holster with an automatic pistol strapped inside. Alex saw it, even as the man, realizing what had happened, quickly straightened up and pulled the jacket across his chest. Blunt had seen it too. He turned back and looked again at Alex. Something very close to an emotion slithered over his face. Then he got into the car, the door closed and he was gone.

"Gasp! Blunt with and emotion!" Eagle said sarcastically, but then coughed uncomfortably under Blunt's gaze.

A gun at a funeral. Why? Why would bank managers carry guns?

"Let's get out of here." Suddenly Jack was at his side. "Cemeteries give me the creeps."

"Yes. And quite a few creeps have turned up," Alex muttered.

The same group began to laugh again. Snake was thinking. Maybe Alex isn't such an ignorant brat after all.

They slipped away quietly and went home. The car that had taken them to the funeral was still waiting, but they preferred the open air. The walk took them fifteen minutes. As they turned the corner into their street, Alex noticed a removal van parked in front of the house, the words STRYKER & SON painted on its side.

"What's that doing...?" he began.

At the same moment, the van shot off, its wheels skidding over the surface of the road.

Alex said nothing as Jack unlocked the door and let them in, but while she went to the kitchen to make some tea, he looked quickly round the house. A letter that had been on the hall table now lay on the carpet. A door that had been half-open was now closed. Tiny details, but Alex's eyes missed nothing. Somebody had been in the house. He was almost sure of it.

Everybody seemed impressed. No normal person would ever notice such trivial things as that.

But he wasn't certain until he got to the top floor. The door to the office which had always, always been locked, was unlocked now. Alex opened it and went in. The room was empty. Ian Rider had gone and so had everything else. The desk drawers, the cupboards, the shelves... anything that might have told him about the dead man's work had been taken.

"Alex...!" Jack was calling to him from downstairs.

Alex took one last look around the forbidden room, wondering again about the man who had once worked there. Then he closed the door and went back down.

"Well then. That's the end of the chapter. Who would like to read the next chapter. I'm afraid my throat is a bit dry." Mr. Blunt said.

"I'll read, sir," offered Mrs. Jones as the rest of the group gave Blunt a curious look.