Elizabeth Moon by Lunar Activity

Author:Lunar Activity
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Two hours later Leonard was wondering if jail wouldn’t have been easier. That’s when Hank helped him into his own clothes and passed him out the back door of Martial Arts Supreme and into the back door of Lila’s Dance Academy. He had heard only a little of the hissed conversation between Hank and Cathy, the senior instructor.

“You want me to what?”

“Just till my classes are over—”

“What about my classes? I’ve got all those little girls …”

“He’s not gonna bother your little girls. He’s not that kind— “

“Oh ho!”

“Nor that kind either. Just … let him do your books or something, okay?” Cathy stared at him; Leonard was too miserable to do more than stare back.

“Can you?” she asked. “Do books, I mean?”

“Yes,” he said. He had, after all, hoped for that transfer to inventory, and he had made a 97 on his final in basic accounting practices last summer. So when the shrill voices discovered a man in Cathy’s office, and demanded to know who it was in there, he heard her explain that it was an accountant. By then he was deep in the intricacies of Cathy’s private system: she didn’t trust the computer, and had a duplicate set of figures kept in an old spiral notebook. He looked up from time to time, out the window of the tiny office, to see spindly girls teetering on tiptoe. As the afternoon went on, the girls got taller and less spindly.

He expected Hank to come back, but when Cathy took a supper break (no classes from 5:30 to 7:00, she explained) she handed him over to Alicia, the music saleswoman.

“Just for supper,” Cathy said severely. “Alicia will bring you back around nine.” By this time Leonard could hardly move, let alone resist. He was almost too tired to be frightened—at least he hadn’t thought about the police, or the jail, or the crabworms, or the cancer while Hank was folding him into impossible shapes and yelling at him to jump or twist or move faster. And Cathy’s bookkeeping had demanded all his attention since then. Alicia’s eyes twinkled behind her thick glasses.

“I thought you were in some kind of trouble,” she said, leading the way along the alley behind the shopping center. “Looking out the window every second at that police car … and you didn’t know anything about music at all.”

“I do,” said Leonard, stung. She was old enough to be his mother, if not his grandmother, and she walked so fast he was breathless. Whatever she had a bandage on her knee for didn’t slow her down at all. “I know your door chime does that opening from Beethoven.”

Alicia gave him a smile over her shoulder. “That’s something. Did you have that in school?” Leonard nodded at her back, unable to speak, and she went on as if he’d answered aloud. “You’ve probably never heard anything but those little snippets they give school kids. We’ll take care of that.” Leonard thought of the torture she’d inflicted on his ears in the music store and shuddered.

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