Welcome to Bordertown by Ellen Kushner, Holly Black (editors) Page A

cleaned and gutted the weird-looking Mad Riverfish. All the hopes, all the disappointments … the things she’d given up, and the things she’d loved …
    “I was class valedictorian! I was on the honor roll! I got the best SAT scores Milltown High had ever had!”
    “Oh, wise and noble princess,” said Gurgi encouragingly.
    “I’m not a princess. I guess I thought I was, but I’m not. I’m just an assistant pig-keeper, Gurgi.”
    “No, no! Noble princess must fill her head with dreamings and schemings.”
    “But I did that. And look where it got me. Even in Milltown, we don’t have fish scales all over our hands.”
    “Noble princess is on a great quest for things—um, for thinking and blinking!”
    She looked around her. “This isn’t turning out to be much of an adventure. Maybe I’d better just go home and see if I can get my old job back. At least at Denny’s we don’t have to clean our own fish.”
    “Noble princess is full of yearnings and learnings.”
    “Maybe it was my essay.” It was such a relief to say it all out loud to someone, even if it was only Gurgi. “Maybe Harvard hated my essay. Or maybe they want all their applicants to already know French and classical music. Maybe refilling the ketchup bottles doesn’t count as an extracurricular activity. Or babysitting your baby brother. Oh, Gurgi …” she sighed sadly. Maybe she shouldn’t have started thinking about it, after all.
    When he touched her hand with his pale, skinny one, she only flinched for a second from the dry, inhuman touch. “Dreamings and schemings,” he whispered in his funny little voice. “Yearnings and learnings. Almost as good as crunchings and munchings!”
    Trish smiled a watery smile. “I dunno about that. Right now I’m pretty hungry. And look, it’s getting late. The sun will be setting soon. Let’s collect our pay and go get ourselves a really good dinner!”
    “Yes, yes! Noble princess collects, and Gurgi eats!”
    “Or better yet, I’ll bring you with me to this party I’m going to, at the Chimera. There might be food there. Maybe I should bring some fish.…”
    Paid for their labor with fish and coin, they set out together, the two companions. Some wharf rats laughed and pointed at them, but nobody came near. The sun was setting low over the river behind them, making beautiful colors in the sky above.
    As they passed through the Old City Wall into Soho, the shadows deepened. It wasn’t that cold, but Gurgi started shivering. Trish stopped and reached into her backpack. She didn’t really want to put her only sweatshirt on the hairy creature—he smelled kind of like a wet dog—but what else could she do?
    When she turned around again, he was gone.
    *   *   *
     
    I fall asleep, lulled by the harps, and when I wake, someone is sitting beside me. For a moment, seeing only a dark shape against the sun, I think that it might be Trish—but no, it’s a wild-looking girl, maybe ten or twelve, rubbing Rosco’s hairy belly. He’s lolling on his back, looking just about as foolish as an old black hound can look.
    “Hey, that’s my dog,” I say. I don’t know why, since this is obvious.
    “No,” the kid tells me, frowning, “you’re his boy.”
    “Same difference.”
    “No, it isn’t.”
    The girl has crazy brown hair, pointy ears, and dusky skin with a silvery sheen. She is feeding biscuits to my idiot hound, and I hope that they don’t make him sick.
    “He doesn’t like smelling like cherries,” she informs me.
    “He doesn’t?” I answer, humoring the kid.
    She rises, brushes the crumbs from her jeans, then turns herserious little face to me. “He says to ask Ms. Wu for the one that smells like apples. He says to tell you that he’ll like that better.” Then she gives me a crooked, gap-toothed smile. “And don’t worry. You’ll find it.”
    “Apple-scented salve?” I ask, confused.
    “Whatever you’re looking for. I have to go now. My mama is waiting.