Driving Blind
Page 26
Then, soaked through, and laughing, I ducked and ran all the way back to my hotel.
Fee Fie Foe Fum
The postman came melting along the sidewalk in the hot summer sun, his nose dripping, his fingers wet on his full leather pouch. “Let’s see. Next house is Barton’s. Three letters. One for Thomas Q., one for his wife, Liddy, and one for old Grandma. Is she still alive? How they do hang on.”
He slid the letters in the box and froze.
A lion roared.
He stepped back, eyes wide.
The screen door sang open on its taut spring. “Morning, Ralph.”
“Morning, Mrs. Barton. Just heard your pet lion.”
“What?”
“Lion. In your kitchen.”
She listened. “Oh, that? Our Garburator. You know: garbage disposal unit.”
“Your husband buy it?”
“Right. You men and your machines. That thing’ll eat anything, bones and all.”
?
??Careful. It might eat you.”
“No. I’m a lion-tamer.” She laughed, and listened. “Hey, it does sound like a lion.”
“A hungry one. Well, so long.”
He drifted off into the hot morning.
Liddy ran upstairs with the letters.
“Grandma?” She tapped on a door. “Letter for you.”
The door was silent.
“Grandma? You in there?”
After a long pause, a dry-wicker voice replied, “Yep.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” chanted the old one, hid away.
“You’ve been in there all morning.”
“I might be here all year,” snapped Grandma.
Liddy tried the knob. “You’ve locked the door.”
“Well, so I have!”
“You coming down to lunch, Grandma?”