Read Online Bradbury, Ray - SSC 09 by The Small Assassin (v2.1) - Free Book Online

until the valley was enclosed and
only the sky was clear and untouched and blue.
                 “Two
days, maybe three,” said Joseph, turning to Marie.
                 “Two
days! Can’t he fix it so we can just go on to the next town and have the rest
done there?”
                 Joseph
asked the man. The man replied.
                 Joseph
said to his wife, “No, he’ll have to do the entire job.”
                 “Why,
that’s silly, it’s so silly, he doesn’t either, he doesn’t really have to do it
all, you tell him that, Joe, tell him that, he can hurry and fix it—”
                 The
two men ignored her. They were talking earnestly again.
                  
                 This
time it was all in very slow motion. The unpacking of the
suitcases. He did his own, she left hers by the
door.
                 “I
don’t need anything,” she said, leaving it locked.
                 “You’ll
need your nightgown,” he said.
                 “I’ll
sleep naked,” she said.
                 “Well,
it isn’t my fault,” he said. “That damned car.”
                 “You
can go down and watch them work on it, later,” she said. She sat on the edge of
the bed. They were in a new room. She had refused to return to their old room.
She said she couldn’t stand it. She wanted a new room so it would seem they
were in a new hotel in a new city . So this was a new room, with a view of the alley and the sewer system
instead of the plaza and the drum-box trees. “You go down and supervise the
work, Joe. If you don’t, you know they’ll take weeks!” She looked at him. “You
should be down there now, instead of standing around.”
                 “I’ll
go down,” he said.
                 “I’ll
go down with you. I want to buy some magazines.”
                 “You
won’t find any American magazines in a town like this.”
                 “I
can look, can’t I?”
                 “Besides,
we haven’t much money,” he said. “I don’t want to have to wire my bank. It
takes a god-awful time and it’s not worth the bother.”
                 “I
can at least have my magazines,” she said.
                 “Maybe
one or two,” he said.
                 “As
many as I want,” she said, feverishly, on the bed.
                 “For
God’s sake, you’ve got a million magazines in the car now, Posts, Collier’s, Mercury, Atlantic Monthlys ,
Barnaby, Superman ! You haven’t read half of the
articles.”
                 “But
they’re not new,” she said. “They’re not new, I’ve looked at them and after you’ve looked at a thing, I don’t know—”
                 “Try
reading them instead of looking at them,” he said.
                 As
they came downstairs night was in the plaza.
                 “Give
me a few pesos,” she said, and he gave her some. “Teach me to say about
magazines in Spanish,” she said.
                 “ Quiero una publicacion Americano,” he said, walking swiftly.
                 She
repeated it, stumblingly, and laughed. “Thanks.”
                 He
went on ahead to the mechanic’s shop, and she turned in at the nearest Farmacia Botica , and
all the magazines racked before her there were alien colors and alien names.
She read the titles with swift moves of her eyes and looked at the old man
behind the counter. “Do you have American magazine?” she asked in English,
embarrassed to use the Spanish words.
                 The
old man stared at her.
                 “ Habla Ingles?” she asked.
                 “No, senorita. ”
                 She
tried to think of the right words. “ Quiero — no!” She stopped. She started