Small Steps - Louis Sachar [63]
“W-were you scared?” asked Ginny.
“It all happened so fast. I just reacted. When I think about it now, I get scared.”
“Me too,” said Ginny. Her eyes moistened, and she dabbed them with her Golden Gate Bridge scarf.
It felt oddly normal to be back in Austin. “You want to sign my cast?” he asked Ginny.
“Yes.”
It was Sunday. They were sitting in his half of the duplex. It was impossible for them to take their usual walk. The street was filled with news vans and camera crews.
Armpit’s mother had had to shoo away a number of reporters, local and national.
“He doesn’t want to be interviewed!” he’d heard her say. “Why won’t you respect his wishes?”
It was nice to hear his mother use the word “respect” when talking about him. But then again, it wasn’t every mother’s son whose picture was on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the country, usually with the word “hero” somewhere in the headline.
Most of the articles had their facts wrong. According to the Austin paper, Kaira had given him a key to her room, and he had come up for a romantic rendezvous when he discovered she was under attack. An all-news network reported that he was in bed with Kaira when the attack occurred.
What must have happened, he came to realize, was that Fred had left the door to her suite open when he rushed in to save her after returning from his wild-goose chase.
“Does Kaira know you saved her life?” asked Ginny.
“I guess somebody must have told her,” Armpit said. “And it’s on the news.”
“She should call you.”
“She will when she gets better. She’s in bad shape.”
The doorbell rang.
His mother threw up her hands. “Why won’t they leave you alone?” She sounded exasperated, but Armpit could tell she loved every minute of it.
“I told you people— Oh.” She turned to Armpit and told him a police officer wanted to speak to him.
Detective Debbie Newberg put away her badge as she stepped inside. “Hi, Ginny.”
“Hi,” said Ginny.
“I need to speak to Theodore alone, if you don’t mind.”
If Armpit’s mother was surprised by any of this, she didn’t show it. Armpit figured nothing surprised her anymore.
“C’mon, Ginny, let’s see how many people take our picture,” Armpit’s mother said. She took Ginny by the hand and led her outside.
Detective Newberg joined Armpit on the sofa. “You’re quite the hero,” she said. Her cheeks flushed pink.
Armpit shrugged.
“I just wanted to let you know I’ve been assigned to another case. I told my superiors that all my leads had dried up. And really, for just two counterfeit tickets, it isn’t worth the resources.”
“So you’re not going to try to find the ticket scalper?”
Detective Newberg shook her head.
“I see,” said Armpit, trying to sound as if the matter was of little importance to him, but a little bit of a smile slipped out despite his efforts. He never had a very good poker face.
“Can I sign your cast?”
“Uh, sure.”
He gave her the same marker Ginny had used.
Detective Newberg held his cast as she prepared to write. “So do you want it to Theodore, or to Armpit?”
“Uh . . .”
If this was a test he had just failed it.
She winked at him. “Don’t worry. Like I said, case closed.”
“So how’d you find out? Did Felix tell you?”
“Felix? He knew?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “No, I just put two and two together and came up with four.”
He always knew she would. “I really didn’t know the tickets were counterfeit,” he said.
“Oh, I figured that, too. The man who bought the real tickets told me that X-Ray had been reluctant to sell them because he’d promised them to a friend. At the time I thought it was just X-Ray trying to jack him around, but then it hit me . . . you were the friend.”
“X-Ray’s really not a bad guy,” said Armpit.
“He’d be all right if he just learned to keep his mouth shut,” said Detective Newberg.
He watched her sign her name. “I always liked you,” he told her. “I thought you were really cool, and smart, and I really felt bad about lying to you and everything.”
Detective Newberg looked up and smiled. “No harm, no foul,” she said, then dotted the “i” in her name.
Kaira opened her eyes