Free The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter Page B

the
thunk
of something hitting the floor.
    “I think we should leave,” Max whispered.
    “Nonsense,” Lucia said, her voice full of excitement. “He asked about a body. Here’s murder at least!”
    “He’s a taxidermist. He meant an animal’s body, I’m sure,” Max said.
    There was the sharp snap of a lock being turned, and the door was yanked open by a great boulder of a man holding a knife with a long leather strap on the bottom. The front of his body was covered with a slick black apron,and his hair, which was a strawberry blond color, was tied back in a tight braid that reached his shoulder blades. He had a powerful nose and a chin that looked like it could hammer a nail into concrete. If he were wearing an iron helmet, Lucia mused, he would look just like a Viking.
    “Well, what do you want?” He swung his knife by its leather strap and tucked it in his back pocket, which thrilled Lucia, since it made him look more like a Viking than ever. Otto and Max, however, had stepped back a pace when he swung the knife.
    “My brother was just admiring your cat,” Lucia said, nodding toward Otto.
    “My cat?” he said, perplexed.
    “The one in the window,” Lucia said.
    The man looked. “Oh, him.” His expression softened a little, which only meant that he looked slightly less likely to smash someone on the head with a crowbar. “You in the market for a cat, mate?” he asked Otto.
    Otto blinked and looked away.
    “Doesn’t he talk?” the man asked Lucia.
    “No,” Lucia said.
    “Good. I reckon most people have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”
    “He was admiring his toes, really,” Lucia said.
    “Yeah? Well, he ought to!” the man nodded. “He’s got twenty-five of them.”
    “Twenty-one,” Max corrected.
    The man cocked his massive head to one side and surveyed Max contemptuously. “What are you, an accountant?”
    “Eight on the right front, five on the left, and four each on the back. That’s twenty-one,” Max said.
    “Yeah? And what about the fifth leg?” the man said.
    The Hardscrabbles eyed the man with disappointment. They never enjoyed it when adults playfully lied to them. The adults always think they’re being amusing and imaginative, just like children. But kids never lie playfully. They lie as if their lives depended on it.
    “Thank you, good night,” Lucia said, and they began to turn away.
    “Hang on,” the man said, and he ducked back into the store. They watched as he reached into the window and roughly scooped up the cat, who responded to the treatment with a yowl of reproach. The man reappeared at the door and held the cat out, one thick butcher hand cupping the cat’s armpits.
    “What do you call this then?” He flicked two fingers at a strange appendage hanging off of the cat’s left hind leg. The children stepped in closer for a better look. Indeed, it did appear to be the bottom portion of a cat’s leg, claws and all. A price tag had been ignominiously attached to the thing by a string, with twenty pounds scrawled on it.
    Lucia snorted, her nostrils flaring out especially wide. “It’s a trick,” she said. “You’ve attached it.”
    “Damn you for saying so!!” he cried (in your head, those words sounded very fierce, didn’t they? On account of the double exclamation points and the “damn.” But really, he said them with less anger than you just imagined).
    “Actually, Lucia, it’s real,” Max said, his fingers examining the cat’s appendage.
    “Of course it’s real! Why wouldn’t it be?” the man said.
    “The wild boar’s tusks aren’t,” Lucia said.
    Here, the man (his name is Saint George, so let’s just call him that. I don’t want to keep saying “the man” when I know he will be in this book for a while). Here, Saint George realized he was dealing with some shrewd children. He didn’t bother denying the wild boar’s tusks. Instead, he pointed up at the sign in front of the store.
    “It says taxidermy and curiosities,