"Come down and introduce yourself to Alan,Da," she said. "You're not the voice of God, so you can bloody well turnup and show your face."
"No more sass, gel, or it will go very hard for you," said thevoice. The accent was like Marci's squared, thick as oatmeal,liqueur-thick. Nearly incomprehensible, but the voice was kind and smartand patient, too.
"You'll have a hard time giving me any licks from the top of the stairs,Da, and Alan looks like he's going to die if you don't at least comedown and say hello."
Alan blushed furiously. "You can come down whenever you like, sir," hesaid. "That's all right."
"That's mighty generous of you, young sir," said the voice. "Aye. Butbefore I come down, tell me, are your intentions toward my daughterhonorable?"
His cheeks grew even hotter, and his ears felt like they were meltingwith embarrassment. "Yes, sir," he said in a small voice.
"He's a dreadful pervert, Da," Marci said. "You should see the things hetries, you'd kill him, you would." She grinned foxish and punched him inthe shoulder. He sank into the cushions, face suddenly drained of blood.
"*What*?" roared the voice, and there was a clatter of slippers on theneutral carpet of the stairs. Alan didn't want to look but found that hecouldn't help himself, his head inexorably turned toward the sound,until a pair of thick legs hove into sight, whereupon Marci leapt intohis lap and threw her arms around his neck.
"Ge'orff me, pervert!" she said, as she began to cover his face indarting, pecking kisses.
He went rigid and tried to sink all the way into the sofa.
"All right, all right, that's enough of that," her father said. Marcistood and dusted herself off. Alan stared at his knees.
"She's horrible, isn't she?" said the voice, and a great, thick handappeared in his field of vision. He shook it tentatively, noting theheavy class ring and the thin, plain wedding band. He looked up slowly.
Marci's father was short but powerfully built, like the wrestlers on theother kids' lunchboxes at school. He had a shock of curly black hairthat was flecked with dandruff, and a thick bristling mustache that madehim look very fierce, though his eyes were gentle and bookish behindthick glasses. He was wearing wool trousers and a cable-knit sweaterthat was unraveling at the elbows.
"Pleased to meet you, Albert," he said. They shook hands gravely. "I'vebeen after her to unpack those books since we moved here. You could comeby tomorrow afternoon and help, if you'd like -- I think it's the onlyway I'll get herself to stir her lazy bottom to do some chores aroundhere."
"Oh, *Da*!" Marci said. "Who cooks around here? Who does the laundry?"
"The take-away pizza man does the majority of the cooking, daughter. Andas for laundry, the last time I checked, there were two weeks' worth oflaundry to do."
"Da," she said in a sweet voice, "I love you Da," she said, wrapping herarms around his trim waist.
"You see what I have to put up with?" her father said, snatching her upand dangling her by her ankles.
She flailed her arms about and made outraged choking noises while heswung her back and forth like a pendulum, releasing her at the top ofone arc so that she flopped onto the sofa in a tangle of thin limbs.
"It's a madhouse around here," her father continued as Marci rightedherself, knocking Alan in the temple with a tennis shoe, "but what canyou do? Once she's a little bigger, I can put her to work in the mines,and then I'll have a little peace around here." He sat down on anoverstuffed armchair with a fussy antimacassar.
"He's got a huge life-insurance policy," Marci saidconspiratorially. "I'm just waiting for him to kick the bucket and thenI'm going to retire."
"Oh, aye," her father said. "Retire. Your life is an awful one, itis. Junior high is a terrible hardship, I know."
Alan found himself grinning.
"What's so funny?" Marci said, punching him in the shoulder.
"You two are," he said, grabbing her arm and then digging his fingersinto her tummy, doubling her over with tickles.
#
There were *twelve* boxes of books. The damp in the basement hadsoftened the cartons to cottage-cheese mush, and the back covers of thebottom layer of paperbacks were soft as felt. To Alan, these seemedunremarkable -- all paper under the mountain looked like this after aweek or two, even if Doug didn't get to it -- but Marci was heartbroken.
"My books, my lovely books, they're roont!" she said, as they piled themon the living room carpet.
"They're fine," Alan said. "They'll dry out a little wobbly, but they'llbe fine. We'll just spread the damp ones out on the rug and shelve therest."
And that's what they did, book after book -- old books, hardcover books,board-back kids' books, new paperbacks, dozens of green- andorange-spined Penguin paperbacks. He fondled them, smelled them. Somesmelled of fish and chips, and some smelled of road dust, and somesmelled of Marci, and they had dog ears where she'd stopped and cracksin their spines where she'd bent them around. They fell open to pagesthat had her favorite passages. He felt wobbly and drunk as he touchedeach one in turn.
"Have you read all of these?" Alan asked as he shifted the JohnMortimers down one shelf to make room for the Ed McBains.
"Naw," she said, punching him in the shoulder. "What's the point of abunch of books you've already read?"
#
She caught him in the schoolyard on Monday and dragged him by one earout to the marshy part. She pinned him down and straddled his chest andtickled him with one hand so that he cried out and used the other handto drum a finger across his lips, so that his cries came out "bibble."
Once he'd bucked her off, they kissed for a little while, then shegrabbed hold of one of his nipples and twisted.
"All right," she said. "Enough torture. When do I get to meet yourfamily?"
"You can't," he said, writhing on the pine needles, which worked theirway up the back of his shirt and pricked him across his lower back,feeling like the bristles of a hairbrush.
"Oh, I can, and I will," she said. She twisted harder.
He slapped her hand away. "My family is really weird," he said. "Myparents don't really ever go out. They're not like other people. Theydon't talk." All of it true.
"They're mute?"
"No, but they don't talk."
"They don't talk much, or they don't talk at all?" She pronounced ita-tall.
"Not at all."
"How did you and your brothers learn to talk, then?"
"Neighbors." Still true. The golems lived in the neighboring caves. "Andmy father, a little." True.
"So you have neighbors who visit you?" she asked, a triumphant gleam inher eye.
*Damn*. "No, we visit them." Lying now. Sweat on the shag of hair over his ears, which felt like they had coals pressed to them.
"When you were a baby?"
"No, my grandparents took care of me when I was a baby." Deeper. "Butthey died." Bottoming out now.
"I don't believe you," she said, and he saw tears glisten in hereyes. "You're too embarrassed to introduce me to your family."
"That's not it." He thought fast. "My brother. David. He's not well. Hehas a brain tumor. We think he'll probably die. That's why he doesn'tcome to school. And it makes him act funny. He hits people, saysterrible things." Mixing truth with lies was a *lot* easier. "He shoutsand hurts people and he's the reason I can't ever have friends over. Notuntil he dies."
Her eyes narrowed. "If that's a lie," she said, "it's a terrible one. MyMa died of cancer, and it's not something anyone should make fun of. So,it better not be a lie."
"It's not a lie," he said, mustering a tear. "My brother David, we don'tknow how long he'll live, but it won't be long. He acts like a monster,so it's hard to love him, but we all try."
She rocked back onto her haunches. "It's true, then?" she asked softly.
He nodded miserably.
"Let's say no more about it, then," she said. She took his hand andtraced hieroglyphs on his palm with the ragged edges of her chewed-upfingernails.
The recess bell rang and they headed ba
ck to school. They were about toleave the marshland when something hard hit Alan in the back of thehead. He spun around and saw a small, sharp rock skitter into the grass,saw Davey's face contorted with rage, lips pulled all the way back offhis teeth, half-hidden in the boughs of a tree, winding up to throwanother