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One evening, she was washing dishes and her little brother was drying them.
Michael hated drying dishes, which meant he did a lousy job of it. It also
meant he looked for any excuse not to dry them. Even talking with his sister
was better than doing what he was supposed to do especially if he could annoy
her. He did his best, saying, "You haven't heard from your boyfriend lately."
Lucy was washing a big serving platter. Mother would get upset if she smashed
it over Michael's head. Too bad, she thought. She looked down her nose at him
instead. "I haven't got a boyfriend," she said loftily.
"You know the one I mean the guy from that place with the neat electronics."
Michael was going to take over Father's shop one of these days (if I don't
strangle him first, Lucy thought). He'd already learned a lot about the things
Father repaired.
What he'd learned about people, on the other hand, would fit on a pinhead, and
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a little pinhead at that. Lucy sometimes thought he was a little pinhead. She
said, "Paul's not my boyfriend. You'd better remember that.
And you'd better remember he got Father out of jail, so you don't want to make
rude remarks about him.
You do want to dry that platter. Don't just stick it in the drainer."
Michael made a face at her. He dried the platter, but wanting to was a
different story. Then he made another face, not the same one this time. "If
he's not your boyfriend, what is he?"
"He's none of your business, that's what," Lucy snapped. Michael grinned. He'd
made her angry, which won him a point. For a little while, Lucy was hotter
than the water in the sink. Then she said, "He's just a friend. That's not the
same as a boyfriend. You'll find out what the difference is when you get
bigger."
Her brother made yet another face, one both disgusting and disgusted. At ten,
he was sure girls were poisonous. He was sure he'd feel that way forever, too.
He wasn't as smart as he thought he was. He wasn't smart enough to realize he
wasn't as smart as he thought he was, either.
When he stopped making gagging and choking noises to go with the horrible
face, he said, "If he's just a friend, how come he never comes over here?"
Because it might bring the Feldgendarmerie down on him. Because it might bring
the Feldgendarmerie
down on us, too. Lucy smiled sweetly. "Because then he might meet you, and
he'd never want anything to do with me again after that."
"You're mean!" Michael could dish it out better than he could take it. He
fired the big gun: "Mommy!"
"What's going on?" Mother called from the living room. A warning note rang in
her voice.
Michael's explanation differed from Lucy's by about 180 degrees. They both got
louder and louder, trying to shout each other down. Michael snapped the towel
at Lucy. That could have hurt, but he missed. She splashed him with dishwater.
He screeched so shrilly, even dogs would have had trouble hearing him.
"What's going on?" Mother said again, this time from the doorway. Again, the
stories she heard might have happened on two different planets. She set her
hands on her hips. "That will be enough from both of you.
One more peep from this kitchen out of either one of you and you'll both be
sorry."
Lucy finished washing the dishes. Michael finished drying them. They made
faces and sent rude gestures at each other till they were done. Neither said a
thing. They got their messages across just the same.
When Lucy came out of the kitchen, her father looked out from behind his
newspaper. That was enough to make her stop in surprise. Once he started
looking at the paper, he was usually gone till he got done. Then he surprised
her again by saying her name.
"What is it, Father?" she asked.
"What do you know about Curious Notions?" Charlie Woo asked in turn. "Will
they be opening up again? I
want more of a chance to find out how they do what they do."
I know how they do what they do. They bring things in somehow from another
world. No wonder you couldn't figure out how their gadgets work. But Lucy
didn't think she could tell him that. He might believe it.
He knew those gadgets weren't like any this world made. They hit him the same
way Paul's claim to come from Thirty-third Avenue in the Sunset District hit
her. They didn't fit. They didn't fit. But the reason they didn't fit was
Paul's secret. And he'd made it very plain that he wished she didn't know it,
let alone anyone else.
She might have told her father anyway, except for one other thing. Paul had
also made it very plain that knowing his secret was dangerous. If he hadn't,
what had happened to him and to his father and to Curious
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Notions would have. Lucy didn't want her father to know the secret because it
might be dangerous to him.
The Germans had already jailed him once just for being near the edges of it.
So all she said was, "I don't think they're going to be opening up again any
time soon. The Feldgendarmerie let Mr. Gomes go, but they haven't let him get
back to work."
"I wonder why not," her father said. "If they want to catch him doing
something, they should give him the chance to do it. If they leave the place
closed, they'll never find out what he was up to."
Lucy blinked. She hadn't thought of it like that. Most of the time, it would
have made good sense. But one of the things Mr. Gomes could do or she supposed
he could was disappear from this world and go back to his own. And if he did,
how could the Feldgen-darmerie go after him?
"I didn't know you could think like a Feldgendarmerie man," she said.
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