Read Online Welcome to Bordertown by Ellen Kushner, Holly Black (editors) - Free Book Online

stompin’, jumpin’, blowin’, wailin’ new nation, hip to the cool groove of liberty.…”
    Trish had never heard anything like it. She laughed so hard she could barely understand the words. Not everyone was laughing; some were swaying and snapping their fingers, as if Lord Buckley were playing jazz music—and in a way he was. But it felt so good to be somewhere that people jumped up on chairs and did crazy things. It felt good to have people who were glad to see her.
    “Where’s the apple wine?” she asked, and Cam said, “Right this way!”
    *   *   *
     
    Anush picked himself up off the sidewalk.
    His T-shirt smelled of wet dog. His loose trousers fit around his waist, just barely, and they ended right below his knees. He’d have to go home—but where was home? His elfin lover had silks waiting for him, and an invitation to a party with all the Lords of Elfland. She also, unfortunately, had the keys to his own Plum Street apartment in the pocket of his jeans, hanging in her cupboard.
    He made a few furtive steps down the street. Okay, fine. He was himself again. Barefoot, but okay. Down the street there were shops with lights on, colored lights, art installations. Clothes piled into boxes and racks outside one, just a tantalizing few feet away. Did he dare?
    “Take one, Leave one,” declared a hand-lettered cardboard sign, right on the box. Above it: “If you don’t want these, who does?” and “In with the Old, out with the New!”
    He could see why the stuff was in boxes outside the shop. Who in their right mind would want a pair of bright green slacks with little blue whales printed on them? Or a T-shirt featuring a giant white cartoon kitten saying “Hello!”? The pants would fit him, though. And at the bottom of the box he found a Star Trek T-shirt that wasn’t too bad.
    Farewell, Harvard. He laid his old, doggy-smelling shirt on top of the pile. Anush Gupta was an honorable man.
    Two kids with instrument cases went past him. Then one turned back. “Ooooh! Is that Hello Kitty? I can’t believe that’s in the swap box!”
    “Dude, cool threads!”
    “Are you going to the Chimera?”
    No
, he started to say,
I’m going to Dragon’s Tooth Hill with the elf babe of my dreams to do anthropological research.
    But then he realized he wasn’t. Not tonight.
    Tonight he didn’t want to be the observer, standing to the side trying to get others to reveal something. Tonight he wanted to stop trying. Tonight he wanted to be among his own kind.
    *   *   *
     
    I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here now. They say that time is funny here on the Border, even when there
aren’t
big thirteen-year gaps, and maybe that’s the reason my days are blurring into each other, suspended in a kind of timeless limbo. Still no Trish. No leads. No fresh ideas. If I wasn’t so
cussedly
stubborn
(Uncle Bud’s words), I’d admit defeat, turn tail, and leave. Bordertown is too big. Thirteen years is too long. My folks need me too much back home.
    But Uncle Bud is right: I
am
cussedly stubborn, and I’m not ready to give up just yet. This town is a puzzle I’ve not yet cracked, an engine whose pieces I’m still learning to fit together. I keep my spirits up by setting myself little daily challenges: to memorize the street map of Soho, for instance, or to learn to tell time by the crazy Mock Avenue Clock, or to figure out how spellboxes run (and, okay, I’m still working on that last one).
    One challenge involves The Dancing Ferret. I stop there every evening on my way home—I seem to have grown addicted to a Border brew called Piskies Peri, which The Ferret keeps on tap—and I’m determined to make that snooty elfin waitress smile at me, just once. I use my very best manners: I call her “ma’am,” and I always overtip. She just looks down her nose, flicks back her green hair, and walks off like the Queen of Elfland.
    Tonight, a small breakthrough. She plunks down my glass of peri soon