The Steps Across the Water by Adam Gopnik

Author:Adam Gopnik [Gopnik, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tundra Book Group
Published: 2010-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Blue looked up at her, terrified. “Don’t tell anyone!” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, please!”

“Tell them what?” Rose puzzled.

“About…all that. The food. Please don’t tell them that I’m keeping food.” He drew close to her. “It’s for my dad. He’s in…” Blue Boghen looked wildly around and then drew close and whispered to her. “He’s in…Central Park.”

Rose of course felt sorry for Blue. It must be very painful to have a father who was homeless and everything, and living in the park.

At that very moment, darkness fell over the block, like a shadow, as though a cloud had eclipsed the sun. Spot stirred in her pocket and let out the saddest, meekest little whine Rose had ever heard.

Rose lifted Spot from her pocket and kissed him right on his tiny little forehead. “It’s okay, Spot. We’ll get you food soon, boy.”

Blue seemed surprised at first. Almost shocked, really. Then he laughed, even though his eyes still looked worried.

“Is he…okay?”

“He’s really hungry,” she began, “and I don’t know what to feed him.” Her voice sounded frantic.

“Rose…that’s a Norky! A purebred Norky! You don’t see one of those every day!”

“Oh!” she said. So that’s what Spot was. A Norky! She loved the sound of it. “Do you think you could spare a tiny bit of those scraps for him?”

“Rose, Norkies don’t eat scraps. They eat—”

Suddenly, a woman screamed in fear. Rose could sense people’s heads shooting up, as though on springs.

She also looked up. There in the sky were two enormous glowing eyes—the cat’s eyes she had seen in the back of the limousine. Only now they filled the sky and seemed to be staring directly at her.

“Surrender the stone!” came a voice directly out of the sky. “Surrender the stone and you may live….” The voice had a silvery, threatening tinkle, like the sound of ten thousand icicles breaking all at once.

“Alma!” Blue’s voice was hushed with wonder. “It is Alma the Ice Queen! But you’re…you’re here, Rose!”

“Surrender the diamond!” the voice intoned. “Surrender the diamond—or watch your city fall!”

All the traffic on U Nork Avenue stopped, the cars screeching to a frightened halt. Rose heard a few crashes in the distance. The men and women on the street fell to their knees with fear.

And then Rose heard her own name being called out of the sky!

“Rose!” the voice cried. “Rose! Leave now! Go home—and go home soon! The end of the city is near! There is no answer! There can never be an answer! There is no answer to be found!”

“Hey! Rose is here! Rose is here!” a man began to call out on the street, where the people cowered in the darkness. “Have no fear! Rose is here!” And he reached to pull her up, so that everyone could see her. “Rose is here! She’s not afraid of you! Rose is here. Rose for U Nork!”

And the crowds on the street, who had fallen to their knees and begun to crouch in fear, slowly stood and went to where Blue held Rose’s hand.

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