Free Uchenna's Apples by Diane Duane Page A

making a face. “Oh well,” she said, “everybody gets to be stupid once.”
    “Our classmates? Sometimes more than once. Let’s go down to the Office. Podge and Rodge are on.”
    In the kitchen, Uchenna’s mam and dad were dishing out takeaway. Uchenna sniffed as she and Emer passed through, and didn’t immediately catch the scent of anything she couldn’t live without for an hour or so. “Chenna?” her dad said. “You two going to sit down?”
    “In a while, Daddy,” Uchenna said, and she and Emer kept going.
    “They’re gonna eat it all,” Emer said as they came out into the dark and cool of the back yard.
    “Not a chance,” Uchenna said, unlocking the door of the Back Office. “There’s another whole bag of stuff on the counter that they haven’t even unpacked yet. My dad doesn’t know how to feed anything smaller than a software intervention team…”
    The went in and shut the Office door, and Uchenna turned on the little battery-powered table lamp so they could find her cache of junk food, crisps mostly, and break out a one-quart bottle of red lemonade, which having been out here was cool enough to drink without ice. Uchenna turned on the TV, fiddled with its little antenna for a few moments until RTÉ 2 came in as well as it ever did out here, and the two of them settled down among the piles of cushions and stuffed animals and started stuffing their faces.
    The screen lit up with the images of a couple of puppets who looked like round-faced and slightly sinister country guys, sitting in an candlelit cottage and having a funny and somewhat rude talk with some young black-leather-clad celebrity who was passing through Ireland and didn’t believe that appearing with Podge and Rodge would permanently damage his career. “Who is that?” Emer said.
    “No idea. Some kind of rock star?” Uchenna said. “The guys in U2 keep inviting them over. Kill that light, would you Eames? We don’t need it.”
    Emer shut the table light off, and the two of them leaned back and ate crisps and laughed at Podge and Rodge, and the rock-star-or-whoever, who didn’t seem to understand that the puppets, the human host, and the studio crew were all making fun of him. “I feel sorry for the guy,” Uchenna said after a while.
    “Who? The rock guy?”
    “No, the one under the table, making the puppets go.”
    “It has to be two guys,” Emer said. “Those are real hands working all of theirs. Look, four of them.”
    Uchenna looked at the wooden table on the set and shook her head. “Must be really tight in there,” she said. “Boy, you think we smell bad after PE, imagine how they —”
    Something went BANG! on the roof right over their heads.
    The two girls froze, staring at each other.
    On the TV, Podge said something rude, and Rodge and the rock star and the audience all laughed. But it all suddenly seemed a long way away. The hair was standing up all over Uchenna in shock, and Emer’s face was a study in fear.
    BANG! And this time the sound happened directly above them, on the roof right over the spot where they were sitting.
    “What is that?!” Emer whispered.
    Uchenna shook her head. “Did you hear anything else?” she whispered back. “An engine? A car?”
    Emer shook her head, her eyes wide. “I told you—”
    “Don’t freak,” Uchenna whispered. “Let’s just take a look.”
    “I don’t know—”
    Uchenna patted her pocket. “Come on. We see anything we don’t like, we call the house and my dad right comes out.”
    Emer hesitated. Then she said, very softly, “Okay. Can you open that door and not have it make any noise?”
    “You better believe it,” Uchenna said, “because sometimes I sneak out here at night.” She grinned.
    They got up and moved very softly toward the door, leaving the TV running: though Uchenna grabbed its remote and turned it down about halfway as she got ready to open the door. “You set?” she whispered.
    Emer nodded.
    Uchenna eased the door open, peered