Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The by Maurice Gee Page B

take them off women as old as that? (except his father). When she picked up a cat on the back porch and rubbed her face on it the way its fur sloped, that was more the sort of thing she should do. It was a skinny cat with blue eyes and a ratty tail and it stretched its legs and put out its claws, which got caught in herdress. ‘Little devil,’ she said, dropping it by her feet. ‘Do you have a cat?’
    ‘Mum’s got one. It dribbles on her pillow. It’s pretty old.’
    ‘And Belinda’s got a dog, hasn’t she? What sort is that?’
    ‘A kind of dachshund corgi cross. Its stomach rubs on the ground when it walks. She reckons she’s going to take it to the vet and get it put down.’
    ‘I’m sure she’s just saying that.’
    ‘You don’t know Bel. She says’– he put on her voice – ‘ “You can’t argue with necessity.” ’
    Mrs Sangster laughed. ‘Poor dog.’
    ‘It has to get its anal glands squeezed all the time.’
    ‘Well, one doesn’t keep pets unless one can cope with their little ways. Come in, Duncan. Go in there, in the sitting room. What would you like to drink?’
    ‘What have you got?’
    ‘Tea. Coffee. Fruit juice. Ginger ale.’
    ‘I’ll have ginger ale.’
    He felt he was on a picnic.
    Norma poured a glass of ginger ale and, to be companionable, a glass of apple juice topped up with soda. She found it interesting that Duncan, after his suspicious start, had relaxed so much. Josie complained that he gave only one word answers or a shrug, and asked no questions, made no observations. (He was, she said, like a robot or an android – then blushed and shivered, remembering, Norma guessed, that plastic-seeming skin that stretched over so much of him.) But here he was chattering and grinning and making jokes. There was more to it than just her skill in drawing young people out. He seemed to recognize that he was safe – and Norma understood she had taken on a job. Really she had meant just to be kind but kindness had a way of trapping one. She was pleased he liked her though – and found her amusing. He had his share of masculine contempt.
    Ginger ale slopped on to her fingers. Why did one top things up for males, as though they had a right to extra shares? She tipped a half inch off his glass, wiped her hand on the sink-cloth, and went into the sitting room, where he was standing, hands on hips, looking about.
    ‘Nice room.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Lots of books.’
    ‘If you see any that you’d like to borrow …’
    ‘Got plenty at home.’
    ‘Do you read novels?’
    ‘Read anything. Bel’s the only one who’s got any stories.
Sweet Valley High
.’ He grinned – and again she felt a lurch of fear and pain at the surgical work round his mouth. ‘ “Roger Barrett has always had a hopeless crush on glamorous, wealthy Lila Fowler. The only attention Lila ever pays him, though, is to make fun of him in front of her friends. But why shouldn’t she, he thinks. After all, he’s clumsy and shy and works secretly as a janitor after school.” ’
    ‘I’m surprised at Belinda.’
    ‘ “Elizabeth Wakefield is stunned when Nicholas Morrow asks her for a date. A newcomer to Sweet Valley, Nicholas is fabulously wealthy and extremely handsome –” ’
    ‘Yes, I get the picture. You read those to fill your head up, do you?’
    ‘Good as anything else. “Has Elizabeth found a new love?” “Can Roger melt Lila’s icy heart?” ’
    ‘I’m glad it amuses you.’
    ‘Stell reckons Belinda’s rotting her brain.’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘Me? It’s words, that’s all. Hey, you’ve got some incense. Mum uses this stuff.’
    ‘Do you like the smell?’ She gave up waiting for him to take his drink and put it on the coffee-table. ‘We can have some if you like.’
    ‘Aladdin’s Dream. Mum’s got Perfumed Garden. And Bam Bam Bhole. That’s from India.’
    Chatter, she thought, he’s like a three-year-old just learned to speak. ‘Shall we have some Lemon-grass?