Read Online Metal Angel by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online Page B

hell I am doing here then and so am I. All I can say is it feels like I am looking for something. Maybe my mind which it appears I have lost. I think I better stick it out awhile longer and see. Please note new address.
    Bob
    McCardle really couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just give it up and go home. Unless it had something to do with Volos.
    He hadn’t seen the kid for almost a week. Volos had been welcome to stay in the hotel room with him awhile, and he had told the youngster so. But as soon as he felt better, the day after the fever broke, Volos began to pace and sweat. The angel couldn’t stand the feeling of being boxed in.
    â€œI came here to live, Texas! Not to sit within walls.”
    â€œJust stay a couple days longer till I get a chance to show you how not to get hurt!” Really, Texas knew, a person could spend a lifetime trying to show a kid that, and not succeed. Every parent knew that. “Where you going to live if you go? And what on?”
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œHow are you gonna earn your living?”
    It took maybe five minutes of confused conversation before Volos caught on to the human concept of making a living, of exchanging money for shelter and food. Then Texas did not at first comprehend what the kid tried to explain to him, that these concepts did not apply to him.
    â€œI did not imagine myself to eat or sleep.”
    â€œKid, you got to eat and you got to have a place to sleep, or you die!”
    â€œI will die, yes, but not of those things.”
    â€œWhat the hell you think you are, an exception to the rules?”
    â€œYes, that is right. I thought it out. A lifetime will seem very short to me, you see. I did not want to spend it on those things.”
    Only because he had nursed the stranger for three days and had seen how hunger did not affect him was Texas able to understand. “You mean—for you, food is fugging optional? ”
    â€œYes.”
    Texas had been badgering Volos to eat, buying him soups, bread, sliced turkey, fresh fruit, then urging the stuff down him. “Jesus,” he said, his first thought a petty one—he could have been saving his money.
    â€œBut pleasant,” Volos added.
    â€œOh. Well, in that case.” Texas let it go, spurring his thoughts onward. “There’s still gotta be some things you need. Clothes. You can’t wear that same pair of jeans all your life. Bus fare.”
    â€œA guitar,” Volos said.
    â€œRight.” It did not surprise Texas that Volos intended to be a singer. That last night in the hotel he had heard the music of a strange dark angel. Unsleeping, Volos had sung softly to the shadows, and in Texas each note had turned to a bright-colored, yearning dream, making a bittersweet ache stay with him into daylight. It was with him as he spoke, softening his eyes but sharpening his voice.
    â€œSo you need to buy a guitar. They don’t come free. What d’you plan to use for money?”
    And Volos did not respond to his tone, not even with lifted eyebrows, but merely reached into a jeans pocket and pulled out a flower of solid gold.
    So that the kid would not get hassled or cheated, McCardle was the one who went out and pawned the thing. On the way back to the hotel he had an idea and stopped at some of L.A.’s secondhand stores, which were well stocked by California-style upward mobility and by the movie industry. Without too much trouble Texas found what he was looking for: a cloak. When he got to the room he made the kid put it on before he let him leave.
    And handed over the money. He did not keep any for himself, and probably wouldn’t have done so even if the kid had thought to offer him any, which he did not. Volos thanked him, but not, Texas sensed, with any real comprehension of how much Texas had invested in him. But that was all right, if Volos didn’t realize about the money and about the rest of it, the investment that was not money.