in killer-rain die. I just meantâ¦whatever it was I used to mean when I said stuff like that. He slapped the hat on my head, then cruelly tightened the hood of the raincoat.
I was outraged by the horror and shame of it, but I couldnât say anything, could I? Yes I could! I loosened the hood from my mouth and scabby chin.
âWell, what are we going to do about our hands?â I said.
I only said that to point out the pointlessness of it all, not so heâd go and get dishwashing gloves for us both.
He dangled them in front of me.
âIf youâd rather not,â he said, âwe can both stay home and die of thirst.â
I did feel that was somewhat unnecessarily brutal, but I put the awful gloves on and retightened the hood of the raincoat. The less you could see of my face, the less likely itâd be that someone would recognize meâwith any luck. Simon handed me Momâs massive umbrella.
âIâm not putting it up,â I mumbled through the raincoat.
âRight,â said Simon. âBut if I say you need to, you do it.â
ââK,â I mumbled.
We marched back out the gate, and he opened the trunk of the car and handed me the shopping bags; you know, those big âgreenâ long-lasting ones people useââbecause they fit so well in the back of a car,â Ronnie said, meaning there was nothing eco about them.
âSo you do what I say, when I say, young lady.â
âYes,â I said. It came out all loud and wobbly, so it sounded about a micro-millimeter off a yee-haa yesâ¦but, truth is, I was scared.
It was baking hot, and I was sweating by the time weâd walked about three steps. When we got to the alleyway that led from right by our house into town, I was sweating even moreâand I got more scared.
What you might need to know at this point is that Dartbridge is basically the hippie capital of the universe. It is drowning in tie-dye and organic vegetables. People walk barefoot through the streets not because they are poor, but because they want a closer connection to the Earth (despite the fact that thereâs a ton of asphalt on top of it). Even the graffiti, which looks kind of cool, is hippie; this squiggly symbol for peace gets spray-painted everywhere. Dartbridge, Ronnie said, was âa place so laid-back it was practically comatose.â
Below the alarms and the sirens and the car horns, you could hearâ¦not just shouts and screams, but the sound of thingsâglassâsmashing.
âIs it a riot?â I asked.
Iâd seen stuff like that on TV before. It happened in other countries mainly, but also in the UK when people were annoyed about stuff the government was doingâwhich Ronnie said would happen a lot more often if people knew what was really going on.
âA riot in Dartbridge? I donât think so,â said Simon. âPeople are just panicking a little, I guess.â
We didnât go the way weâd usually go, straight into town via the library parking lot. Simon went to the right, along the back road, South Street. Fine by me, because I didnât want to go anywhere near The George. Not so fine wasâ¦there was a guy slumped up against a wall. He looked as if heâd just fallen asleep there, like a drunk guy might, snoozing in the sun.
âDonât look,â said Simon, but I did.
He wasnât snoozing. His face was all bloody, and his eyes were gone, holes where they should have been. I didnât know it then, but thatâs what birds do, peck out the pieces that are easiest to get their beaks into. Nice.
In all my life, up until the day before, Iâd never seen a dead person. Not counting the parking-lot peopleâwhich I didnât like to do, because I hadnât actually seen them die, had I? Like Caspar, it had to be possible that theyâd be OKâIâd now seen four dead bodies. Four .
Ha ha ha. Thatâs pretty funny, huh? Do
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
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Brenda Sinclair
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