Read Online The Man Without a Face by ALEXANDER_ - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: ALEXANDER_
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deduction.”
He said it so drily I wanted to laugh. As we stepped from the dark stable into the sunlight I glanced up at him. At that moment he was looking down at me, smiling slightly. It
63
was a nice smile, but I got the full benefit of his burned side. I looked away.
“Go back to the house and start translating where you left off.”
His voice this time was different—so cold I wondered if he had seen me look away from him. I glanced back at him and for a second, just before he turned his face and walked off, I knew he had seen how I felt.
I watched him go over to a tree where he had tied Richard, then I went back to the house and opened up Vergil, wishing he hadn’t seen my reaction quite so plainly. I was a little surprised, too, because one of the compensations of having a stupid look has always been that no one could tell what I was thinking. It used to drive The Hairball back up the tree, because all his students used to tell him how perceptive he was. He’d come home and have his ego inflated a little more by Mother and Gloria, and then he’d turn his radar equipment on me. And I’d just look at him as though he were talking Choctaw and bounce those waves right back at him.
But McLeod was not The Hairball. In fact, I found him puzzling. When he came back in the house it was as though we were back to square one, Vergil on ice, and that’s the way it went for the next week or so. Every now and then he’d say something dry and funny and I’d laugh, and for a minute there we’d be on the same wavelength. I liked him then, I liked him a lot. Then bang! Out of the blue he’d freeze and I’d be back in the tundra.
“Do you like him?” Meg asked in one of our dawn’s- early-light conversations.
By this time Moxie had accepted Meg as a blood relative and was purring as she ran a finger up and down his spine.
“Yes,” I said, rather grudgingly. “He’s okay—at least
64
some of the time.” It was funny, but not even to Meg did I want to say how I felt.
“What’s he like?”
You can see now why I find females tiresome. That’s a very female kind of a question. “How the blazes do I know what he’s like? That’s a stupid question.”
Meg didn’t say anything, which I always find suspicious in women. It usually means they’ve decided to try for another opening.
I was right. Meg said, “Does he like you?”
“Will you cut out the inquisition? What are you anyway—the FBI?”
Still, it was an interesting question, and one to which I hadn’t given any thought. I mean, I’m usually more interested in what I think of people than what they think about me, barring, of course, crucial types like Mother and Gloria where the answer has great bearing on how comfortable I am. Even my stepfathers didn’t trigger me that way. For one thing, I came as a kind of package deal with Mother, which reduced the alternatives: They had to like me—or pretend to. For another, I didn’t care. Besides, if you’re an adolescent, it’s a real challenge to get any member of the older’ generation to admit to plain not liking you. It’s against their principles. For real! You can sweat out weeks of thought on how you can most bug an adult and come up with something really new and gross, and ail you’ll get is understanding. The hairier the act the more you’re called an idealist reacting to an unresponsive society. I mean, it’s frustrating. Joey swears he knows a boy who was so mad when he was asked (politely) to take the garbage out, that he emptied it instead—coffee grounds, melted Jell-O, baby’s upchuck and everything—-right on the new living-room carpet before
65
God and everybody. The first thing that happened was that his father apologized for having been so insensitive to his needs. His mother burst into tears and said it was all her fault, and the next day he got the new bicycle he’d been hankering for. So why bother?
But no imagining could produce an image of McLeod looking
He said it so drily I wanted to laugh. As we stepped from the dark stable into the sunlight I glanced up at him. At that moment he was looking down at me, smiling slightly. It
63
was a nice smile, but I got the full benefit of his burned side. I looked away.
“Go back to the house and start translating where you left off.”
His voice this time was different—so cold I wondered if he had seen me look away from him. I glanced back at him and for a second, just before he turned his face and walked off, I knew he had seen how I felt.
I watched him go over to a tree where he had tied Richard, then I went back to the house and opened up Vergil, wishing he hadn’t seen my reaction quite so plainly. I was a little surprised, too, because one of the compensations of having a stupid look has always been that no one could tell what I was thinking. It used to drive The Hairball back up the tree, because all his students used to tell him how perceptive he was. He’d come home and have his ego inflated a little more by Mother and Gloria, and then he’d turn his radar equipment on me. And I’d just look at him as though he were talking Choctaw and bounce those waves right back at him.
But McLeod was not The Hairball. In fact, I found him puzzling. When he came back in the house it was as though we were back to square one, Vergil on ice, and that’s the way it went for the next week or so. Every now and then he’d say something dry and funny and I’d laugh, and for a minute there we’d be on the same wavelength. I liked him then, I liked him a lot. Then bang! Out of the blue he’d freeze and I’d be back in the tundra.
“Do you like him?” Meg asked in one of our dawn’s- early-light conversations.
By this time Moxie had accepted Meg as a blood relative and was purring as she ran a finger up and down his spine.
“Yes,” I said, rather grudgingly. “He’s okay—at least
64
some of the time.” It was funny, but not even to Meg did I want to say how I felt.
“What’s he like?”
You can see now why I find females tiresome. That’s a very female kind of a question. “How the blazes do I know what he’s like? That’s a stupid question.”
Meg didn’t say anything, which I always find suspicious in women. It usually means they’ve decided to try for another opening.
I was right. Meg said, “Does he like you?”
“Will you cut out the inquisition? What are you anyway—the FBI?”
Still, it was an interesting question, and one to which I hadn’t given any thought. I mean, I’m usually more interested in what I think of people than what they think about me, barring, of course, crucial types like Mother and Gloria where the answer has great bearing on how comfortable I am. Even my stepfathers didn’t trigger me that way. For one thing, I came as a kind of package deal with Mother, which reduced the alternatives: They had to like me—or pretend to. For another, I didn’t care. Besides, if you’re an adolescent, it’s a real challenge to get any member of the older’ generation to admit to plain not liking you. It’s against their principles. For real! You can sweat out weeks of thought on how you can most bug an adult and come up with something really new and gross, and ail you’ll get is understanding. The hairier the act the more you’re called an idealist reacting to an unresponsive society. I mean, it’s frustrating. Joey swears he knows a boy who was so mad when he was asked (politely) to take the garbage out, that he emptied it instead—coffee grounds, melted Jell-O, baby’s upchuck and everything—-right on the new living-room carpet before
65
God and everybody. The first thing that happened was that his father apologized for having been so insensitive to his needs. His mother burst into tears and said it was all her fault, and the next day he got the new bicycle he’d been hankering for. So why bother?
But no imagining could produce an image of McLeod looking
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