Cruel Zinc Melodies

47

I went to my special side door. No way a lowlife like me could walk in through the front. There are maybe fifteen Royals who enjoy that privilege.

Snootiness doesn’t keep us lesser beings out. If we’re armed with the silver key.

The old soldier watching the door was new. He didn’t know me, either. But he liked my coat. I could tell. And he was old pals with the dead king on the chunk of silver I passed him. He didn’t even speak. He just closed his eyes as a stray gust whiffed into the library. Probably planning an outing with his old pal, King Whoever.

I headed for the rare books, not sneaking. Hardly anyone visited them, though Lindalee always enjoyed their company.

For a moment I feared I might feel guilty about how I’d treated Lindalee. Maybe even about how I’d treat her now, considering I was fenced in by Tinnie.

Curses! This was worse than the hives. I was breaking out all over in abad case of growing up. And wasn’t worried about finding a cure.

I took a wrong turn. In the sense that I rounded a stack and buried my beautiful honker in the brown sweater armoring the belly of a familiar ogre. Wool on an ogre? Yes. This big boy looked like the male equivalent of the librarian stereotype. He even wore reading glasses, which are expensive. Even when their lens don’t have to be custom-ground.

The ogre didn’t move. There was no way around him. He had an acre of foot at the end of each tree trunk of a leg. The outsides of those lapped against the bases of the stacks to either hand.

In the real world ogre expressions are easily read. There is snarling while they sleep. And there’s snarling as they try to rip bits off of you. They don’t stand around looking at you like the unexpected rat dropping that just surfaced in the porridge.

That’s what this one did. He stared. Then he stared some more, upper lip rising in a sneer. He did nothing else but breathe. And take up space.

I apologized for my clumsiness and stepped back.

With my nose in brown wool I was too close to handle easily. I did him a favor by opening the range. He took advantage, latching on to various limbs. In seconds I was back in the weather, floundering in nasty slush, my spiffy borrowed coat all wet, filthy, and torn. Poindexter the literary ogre was back inside. Through the open doorway I heard him suffer harpy shrieks because he had been too gentle.

That wasn’t Lindalee being shrill. That was her boss. A lovable spinster—for whom they invented the word ‘‘harridan’’ because nothing already out of the forge was harsh enough to fit. She never did like me.

The man I’d reunited with his dead pal stuck his head outside, curious to see how far I had flown before splash-down. He looked guilty round the edges. Like he might have operated some kind of silent alarm.

So much for a cerebral line of investigation.

What now?