Free Ghost Boy by Iain Lawrence Page B

child.”
    Samuel’s hands clenched into fists; Tina looked utterly shocked. The Gypsy Magda trembled all over, and Harold the Ghost—who had never fought back in his life—said, “No one touched your child.”
    He surprised even himself. His fingers were shaking under the table, and his eyes jittered madly behind his glasses. When he was nervous or frightened he could hardly see, and now the room and the woman blurred around him.
    â€œWhat’s she going to make of you?” the woman demanded. “A midget and a monkey man. An old witch and a boy like a ghost. What’s she going to make of you?”
    â€œFriends?” said Harold.
    Tina clapped her hands. “Yeah!” she said triumphantly. “We were making
friends
, that’s all.”
    Samuel’s fists opened and closed. The heels of his hands pushed at the table’s edge. “I think we’d better go,” he said.
    The woman laughed. “You’re goddamn right you better go.” The child was crying hysterically, almost climbing up her mother’s skirt. “Go on, then. Get out of here.”
    Harold started to rise. But Samuel leaned across the table and pressed him back. “I changed my mind. We’ll stay,” he said. “The boy has to eat.”
    The Gypsy Magda stiffened. “The old man is coming on.”
    A door latch clicked. Footsteps echoed in the building. They grew louder, a heavy step. Harold pulled his glasses off and pressed at his eyes. He wanted so badly to see.
    There were batwing doors behind the counter, and they swung open as the cook came through. He wore a battered fedora that was cracked down the middle like an egg. “What’s all the noise?” he said. “What in tarnation is going on out here?”
    The woman was staring down at the Gypsy Magda. The child still cried against her, blubbering now, “We were talking. We were only talking, Mom.”
    The cook put his hands on his hips. “You go on to the back, Betty,” he said, ushering her away. Then his hands went into his pockets. “You’re all with the circus, are you?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” said Samuel.
    He shook his head. “Fifty years I been here and never saw a freak, and all of a sudden you’re coming like flies to the butter.”
    â€œThe storm split us up,” said Samuel. “It washed out a couple of bridges.”
    â€œYou ask me, freaks belong in a tent.” The cook sucked air through his teeth. “If I looked like you, I wouldn’t be showing myself to no one, but that’s me and you’re you. I guess you’ve gone and frightened the daylights out of that little girl. So, here’s what I’ll do, and it’s just what I told that other al-bye-no.”
    He rubbed his cheek, then scratched at his head through the slit in his hat. “I’ll give you sandwiches, coffee, whatever you want. But you can’t eat ’em here. What if someone respectable comes in? What would happen then?”
    He rocked forward, and he smiled. He actually smiled. “So you just tell me what you want and then clear on out of here. I’ll bring it to your truck, but you’ll pay for it now, see.”
    He hauled out a little pad from his back pocket, a stub of pencil that he licked with his tongue. “Now let’s see your money.” He shouted at Samuel. “Do you understand English? Huh? Do you have any dough?”
    Samuel looked sadly at the table.
    â€œCan’t he talk?”
    â€œSure he can,” said Tina.
    â€œThen what does he want? Ask him what he wants.” And he added with a sneer, “Little lady.”
    Tina touched Samuel’s hand. There was an awful, beaten look about her, a look of sadness and despair. She said, “You order, Samuel. I don’t care what I get.” Samuel looked back at her, and his eyes were wet. The Gypsy Magda sat shrunken into her scarves, her