Free Dusssie by Nancy Springer Page B

Styrofoam, he was so light. On his feet, he stood unsteadily, still hugging his right arm with his left hand. I made myself calm down. “We’d better get you to a doctor,” I said.
    â€œI’ll go to my own doctor. In the morning.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œCould you walk me home, Dusie? I can walk, if we take it slow. Just keep me company, that’s my girl. And please, tell me how you got your snakes.”
    So I did. As we slowfooted along the dark streets I told him the whole story, because he wanted to know and because having him by me felt so good. I’d never had a grandfather, but talking to him, I felt like now I did. I told him about waking up with the worst bad hair day of all time. I told him what I’d found out about my mother. I told him about meeting the Sisterhood in Central Park. I even told him I could hear my snakes thinking in my head. I told him—well, I told him everything. Even about Troy.
    â€œI heard about that boy on the news. So that’s what happened to him!” Cy murmured.
    â€œIt’s all my fault,” I said. My crying had quieted as we walked and I talked, but now I start sniffling again.
    â€œNot at all,” he said firmly. “It was an accident.”
    â€œBut if I told the hospital or anybody—”
    â€œBetter not do that. I agree with your mother; they would not understand. Officialdom lacks imagination.”
    â€œBut I feel like a criminal.”
    â€œYou’re not.” He hobbled along clutching his hurt arm, his face tight with pain, yet he was able to give me a look like a blessing. “Dusie, you’re a nice girl with your heart in the right place, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero. You saved my life. Those boys would have killed me.”
    I shivered. “You should have just given them your wallet.”
    â€œI couldn’t do that.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be right.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI know, I know. But I’m eighty-seven years old. If I can’t stand up for what’s right by now, when can I?”
    â€œYou’re crazy,” I told him.
    â€œMost of my friends would agree with you.” He tried to smile, but winced with pain.
    â€œWe ought to get you a taxi,” I said. “Or an ambulance.”
    â€œIt’s not far now.”
    His apartment was only a block down the street from mine. He fished his keys out of his pocket, but his hand shook, and he let me open the door. Inside, he collapsed in a chair. That’s all there was, one big old recliner and a table with a lamp and a radio. The rest was all books, shelves and shelves and piles and piles of books. Books towering on the sofa, books stacked on the countertops in the tiny kitchen.
    â€œWhere’s the phone?” I asked. “We should call somebody.”
    â€œThere’s nobody to call, Dusie.”
    â€œYou don’t have kids around here?”
    â€œMy children predeceased me. If you can help me rig up a sling, I’ll be fine.”
    I barely heard him, because I was figuring out that he’d had kids but they were dead, that was what predeceased meant. Ow. Owww, that must have hurt. I said, “We should call your doctor, at least.”
    â€œYou can try. The telephone is by the microwave.”
    I wondered whether there were books in the nuker, too. I found the cordless phone in its cradle behind a pile of Rudyard Kipling novels, along with a notepad, a pencil cup, and a list of emergency phone numbers. He was organized enough. I noticed the books were kind of stacked by topic or author. Robert Frost in the refrigerator, maybe, and Robert Burns in the oven. I dialed the doctor and got the answering service; an operator said she’d have the doctor call back.
    I found the bathroom—yeah, he had stacks of books in there, too, all along the walls and around the toilet—and I grabbed a big, thin beach towel for a