Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [95]
“Hello there,” he said in a fake-sounding English accent. “What’s your name?”
Kylie leaned back in her chair and looked up at him. “Kylie.”
The professor raised an eyebrow. His face was angular, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Under the character makeup, Lee could see that he was young, probably in his early thirties.
“Kylie? What kind of a name is that?” he barked hoarsely. Lee wondered if his voice was overworked from talking over the music and the din of the customers, or if it was naturally raspy.
“It’s a nice name,” Kylie replied, thrusting her chin forward in a challenge.
“A nice name? A nice name?” the professor bellowed. “Did you hear that?” he said, addressing a nearby table, occupied by a family with towheaded, pink-cheeked children. “What do you think?” he said, descending on one of the boys, a stout lad in a green Pokemon T-shirt. “Do you think Kylie is a nice name?”
The boy blinked and looked at his mother, a plump woman with a face as innocent as a cornfield. She looked embarrassed. She gave a weak little smile and poked at her penne primavera.
“Well?” the actor demanded. “Speak up, boy!”
“Uh, sure—I guess,” the boy said at last.
“You guess? Could you be any more indecisive?” The professor looked at Kylie. “Looks like I didn’t pick a very brave lad to defend you.”
The boy looked at Kylie, who laughed. Relieved, he smiled. “Yes, it’s a nice name!” he declared, crossing his arms over his plump chest.
“I don’t know what’s happening to our young people today,” the professor lamented in exaggerated tones, pulling out a plastic scalpel from the pocket of his lab coat. “Maybe I should dissect one of you to find out, eh? What do you think?” he asked Kylie. “Should we cut up your friend here and see what makes him tick? What do you say?”
“No, leave him alone!” she answered, trying to grab the scalpel, but the professor was quicker. Moving out of range, he replaced the instrument, ran a hand through his fright wig of a hairdo, muttering to himself as he moved on to the next table.
“Young people today,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t know.”
Kylie smiled at the boy and then leaned her head on Lee’s arm. “He’s funny. I’m hungry. Can I have chicken nuggets?”
“You can have whatever you want.”
“You won’t tell Fiona?”
Lee leaned in and whispered in his niece’s ear.
“She won’t hear it from me.”
Kylie picked up her silverware and began drumming on the tabletop.
“Chic-ken nug-gets, chic-ken nug-gets.”
The mother at the next table shot a look at them, disapproval stamped on her bland face.
Lee wrested the fork and knife from Kylie.
“Look, the show is starting,” he said.
The lights around the stage flickered, and a puff of white steam shot up from the fog machine as the slab bearing the body of Frankenstein’s monster rose up from its underground home. The whirr of the hydraulic lift was drowned out by the thundering bass line of the music piped through the sound system loudspeakers. Colored strobe lights danced across the monster’s inert form, slashing through the haze of stage fog, cutting it with long ribbons of yellow and blue shimmer.
The music was replaced by the equally loud voice of the MC.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen and everything in between, it’s showtime! Please direct your attention to our stage at the front of the restaurant.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Kylie said.
“Okay. Hurry back or you’ll miss the show.”
She slid down from her chair and headed toward the back of the restaurant. Lee watched her until she turned the corner into the foyer. He considered following her, but didn’t want to embarrass her. Kylie was only six, but she was stubborn and independent, and resented being fussed over.
When the waiter