City of Lies - Lian Tanner [23]
The boy nodded again.
The man bent over the remaining scraps of paper. Goldie saw his face darken. He swore under his breath. Then, with one quick movement, he spun around and grabbed Spider’s good arm.
The accountant flinched and tried to pull away, but the man held him tightly. “Going on a little trip, Spider?” he growled.
“Y-you know I am, Herro Metz,” stammered Spider. “Y-you gave me permission to visit my mother, who lives down the coast. Just until my arm is healed.”
“Ah, yes, the arm,” said Herro Metz. “Where exactly is it broken?”
“Th-there, Herro.” Spider pointed to a spot below his elbow. “A simple break, nothing too serious. I’ll be back at work before you know it.”
Herro Metz peered at him closely. Then, to Goldie’s surprise, he smiled. “Of course you will,” he said. “I never doubted it.” And he let go of the accountant’s arm.
The crowd sighed. The color began to creep back into Spider’s cheeks. But before he could speak, Herro Metz’s hand lashed out again and grabbed the broken arm—just below the elbow.
Spider was so shocked that it took him a second or two to respond. Then he mumbled, “Ouch.”
It was not even slightly convincing. An angry murmur ran through the crowd. Herro Metz leaned over the young man. “You and I, Spider,” he growled, “need to have a little chat about money. Now!”
As the two of them disappeared into the crowd, Goldie heard Spider’s frightened voice. “I—I was going to pay it back, Herro, really I was. It was just a—a loan.”
The crowd stared after them. One or two people took out coins, as if they wanted their fortunes told. But then they thought better of it and put their money away. Before long they had all wandered off.
Goldie peered at the remaining scraps of paper. The first had a picture of a ship on it. The second said, the greatest escape of.
“How did they know?” she asked the white-haired boy. “All that stuff about the accountant. How did the mice know which bits of paper to pull out?”
The boy smiled shyly but didn’t answer. He whisked the pieces of paper back into the pram, then held out his hand to the mice. They scurried up to perch on his shoulders and head and began to clean themselves, licking their tiny paws and brushing up their whiskers and ears. Every now and then one of them would break off to clean the boy’s ears instead, or to nibble the ragged ends of his hair.
Suddenly, one of them squeaked a warning. A dozen heads shot up. A dozen furry backs bristled.
Goldie turned around. Stalking across the cobblestones, its eyes fixed on the mice, was the gray-spotted cat.
“Go away!” said Goldie, and she stamped her foot.
The cat took no notice of her. Its tail thrashed from side to side. Its teeth chattered. It pressed its scrawny haunches to the ground.…
Then it sprang.
The boy threw up his arms to protect his mice. At the same time, the mice leaped for the safety of the pram. Some of them were quicker than others. The three on the boy’s head waited until the very last minute, as if they couldn’t bear to desert him. By the time they jumped, the cat was already changing direction. It landed squarely on the board across the pram and spread its claws, ready to scoop up the last three mice as they arrived.
But somehow they too managed to change direction. With their feet flailing and their little eyes bulging with fright, they missed the pram altogether and fell onto the cobblestones.
The cat sprang after them, its eyes blazing.
“No!” cried Goldie. And she grabbed Toadspit’s still-folded knife from her pocket and threw it with all her strength.
It hit the cat on the side of the head and stunned it momentarily. The mice raced across the cobblestones and dived into a drain. Before the cat could gather its wits and follow them, the boy threw himself upon it.
“Be careful!” cried Goldie, remembering what had happened to Harrow’s fighting dog.
The boy quickly bent his head and crooned something, and although the cat hissed and yowled, it kept its claws sheathed.