Messenger - Lois Lowry [6]
***
Deep in the thick undergrowth near the clearing, at the edge of Leader's puzzled awareness, a small green frog ate an insect it had caught with its sticky, fastdarting tongue. Squatting, it moved its protruding eyes around, trying to sense more insects to devour. Finding nothing, it hopped away. One back leg was oddly stiff but the frog barely noticed.
3
"If we had a Gaming Machine," Matty commented in a studied, offhand manner, "our evenings would never be boring."
"You think our evenings are boring, Matty? I thought you enjoyed our reading together."
Seer laughed, and corrected himself. "Sorry. I meant your reading to me, Matty, and my listening. It's my favorite time of day."
Matty shrugged. "No, I like reading to you, Seer. But I meant it's not exciting."
"Well, we should choose a different book, perhaps. That last one—I've forgotten its name, Matty—was a little slow-going. Moby Dick. That was the one."
"It was okay," Matty conceded. "But it was too long."
"Well, ask at the library for something that would move along more quickly."
"Did I explain to you how a Gaming Machine works, Seer? It moves very quickly."
The blind man chuckled. He had heard it all before, many times. "Run out to the garden and get a head of lettuce, Matty, while I finish cleaning the fish. Then you can make a salad while the fish cooks."
"And also," Matty continued in a loud voice as he headed for the garden just beyond the door, "it would be a nice end to a meal. Something sweet. Sort of a dessert. I did tell you, didn't I, how the Gaming Machine gives you a candy when you win?"
"See if there's a nice ripe tomato while you're out there getting the lettuce. A sweet one," Seer suggested in an amused voice.
"You might get a peppermint," Matty went on, "or a gumdrop, or maybe something they call a sourball." Beside the back step he reached into the vegetable garden and uprooted a small head of lettuce. As an afterthought, he pinched a cucumber loose from its vine nearby, and pulled some leaves from a clump of basil. Back in the kitchen, he put the salad things in the sink and halfheartedly began to wash them.
"Sourballs come in different colors, and each color is a flavor," he announced, "but I suppose that wouldn't interest you."
Matty sighed. He looked around. Even though he knew the blind man wouldn't see his gesture, he pointed to the nearby wall, which was decorated by a colorful wall-hanging, a gift from the blind man's talented daughter. Matty stood often before it, looking carefully at the intricate embroidered tapestry depicting a large thick forest separating two small villages far from each other. It was the geography of his own life, and that of the blind man, for they had both moved from that place to this other, with great difficulty.
"The Gaming Machine could stand right there," he decided. "It would be very convenient. Extremely convenient," he added, aware that the blind man liked it when he exercised his vocabulary.
Seer went to the sink, moved the washed lettuce to the side, and began to rinse the cleaned salmon steaks. "And so we would give up—or maybe even trade away—reading, and music, in exchange for the extreme excitement of pulling a handle and watching sourballs spit forth from a mechanical device?" he asked.
Put that way, Matty thought, the Gaming Machine didn't actually seem such a good trade. "Well," he said, "it's fun."
"Fun," the blind man repeated. "Is the stove ready? And the pan?"
Matty looked at the stove. "In a minute," he said. He stirred the burning wood a bit so that the fire flared. Then he placed the oiled pan on top. "I'll do the fish," he said, "if you fix the salad.
"I brought some basil in, too," he added, with a grin, "just because you're such a salad perfectionist. It's right there beside the lettuce." He watched while the blind man's deft hands found the basil and tore the leaves into the wooden bowl.
Then Matty took