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

and lace, on corsets and frock coatsand masks and wings. I wait and watch while they all go in. Then I wait and watch all the stragglers, too. Only when it’s clear that Trish is not among them do I rise, whistle for Rosco to follow, and head back to the Diggers’ House.
    I’m crossing the street and thinking about a bath (for Rosco, too—that candy smell is
strong
) when I hear the sound of shouting behind me. Someone is flying out of The Ferret like a bat out of hell—all arms and legs and long silver dreads, the tails of his long coat flapping behind him.
    “Wait!” he’s calling, apparently at me. He’s breathing hard as he catches up. A hafling, tall and peculiar-looking, wanting to know: “Are you Mr. Fix-It?”
    I look down at my T-shirt, where the words are written in boldface type across my chest.
    “You fixed my birds, man! You saved my show! You’ve got to come back and let me buy you a drink!” Now he’s pulling me by the arm, back toward The Ferret—while Rosco, my steadfast protector, merely turns obligingly and heads back to the club. “You’ve got to come see the show,” the tall kid insists as he steers me past The Ferret’s bouncers, past the Queen of Elfland, and past the club’s owner, Farrel Din. “But we’ve got to hustle,” he tells me, pushing through the crowd, “because I’m on in, like, five minutes.…”
    *   *   *
     
    “So you wouldn’t believe what happened!” Trish said. “He opens my bag and goes, ‘Crunchings and munchings?’ ”
    “Oh, noooo!” a blue-haired girl screamed happily. “You mean like Gurgi?!”
    “
Just
like Gurgi,” Trish said.
    “So what happened?”
    “He disappeared.”
    “Poof?”
    “Not
poof.
More like—I dunno, like when you take your baby brother to the mall and you turn to look at a store window, and the next thing you know they’re on the loudspeaker going, ‘Will the sister of a little boy in the striped shirt please come to the information desk?’ Only there’s no information desk here, is there?”
    The girl shook her head.
    “Who’s Gurgi?” asked the guy sitting next to her in the Mumford & Sons T-shirt.
    “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a book. You noobs don’t read.”
    “We do, too! Who said we don’t read? I’ve read Harry Potter, like, five times!”
    “Oh, yeah, and what else? I bet you’ve read whole screens’ worth of text. Like, ‘U R 4 me, imho.’ ” Laughing, the girl drew the letters with her finger on his chest, and they rolled onto the floor together.
    Trish looked around for Cam and Seal. They were slow-dancing to a guy playing music in a corner of the room. It looked like he was running a violin bow across an upside-down saw. Maybe he was. It sounded weird. But they looked so happy. Kind of like Mom and Dad, when they thought the kids were in bed and their favorite song came on the radio … Oh god, were they still all right? What if she never saw them again—
    “May I have this dance?”
    It was him. The Harvard guy. Wearing incredibly ugly pants and a Star Trek T-shirt, but still. Smiling at her with that beautiful smile.
    “Um, I don’t dance,” she said. “Not like that.”
    “That’s good.” He sat down next to her. “Neither do I. I just thought it was a great opening line. You know, like in the movies. I’ve never tried a line like that. But I thought, ‘I’m in Bordertown.What do I have to lose?’ ” He held out his hand. “I’m Anush. I mean, I guess you know that already, but I’m being extra polite tonight.”
    Was he
flirting
with her? Or just being nice?
    “Trish,” she said, shaking his hand. Oops. “But my name here is Tara.”
    “That’s a pretty name.” His eyes were so dark, his lashes so thick.
    “Why didn’t
you
pick a new name?”
    “Well, I wanted Legolas or Gwydion, but …” He shrugged and grinned. She understood.
    “Can I ask you something?” Trish said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but … where are you