Scarborough Fair and Other Stories Read Free

skittish horse look in his eye he gets when his voice is perfectly calm but he is very worried about something.
    Bert laughed. “This is a good one for these parts. We don’t see much of our tax money going for new roads up here. Save all that for the cities, they do. During the war when asphalt was not to be had for civilians, me old Dad told me they ground up all them mummies the museums had dug up in Egypt and brought over here.”
    â€œUgh!” Cindy said. “
Why?”
    â€œWell, the way Dad told me, the bandages the bodies was wrapped in were coated with something like pitch, and it worked almost as good as the genuine article. So, they recycled them, you might say. Used ‘em as fertilizer too, and to fuel the fires in the trains.”
    Jason glowered. “That’s horrible.”
    â€œPractical, more like,” Bert said, and then added, slyly, “But they do say when you have these wet spells, washouts and the like, it’s them mummies tryin’ to bust their way loose from the roads so’s they can drag their bandagedy arses back t’ Nile.” Jason rolled his eyes and made a spiral motion with his finger by his ear. “I’ll be turning at t’ square.”
    I thanked him and told him we’d get off. We spent the rest of the afternoon helping the hotel staff and a few other able-bodied people taking the now homeless old folks into the various hotels that had agreed to shelter them.
    We finished up about an hour ago and the kids were both tired. They slept through dinner, and we had to make do with the candy and crisps (Brit for potato chips) we bought on the strand. Sorry, Mom. Since little British towns like this one roll up the sidewalks at five, the kids decided to go to bed early. I plan to get us on the first bus out if at all possible, so I’ll go downstairs and call the bus station recording pretty soon to see when we have to get up. Our plane for home leaves day after tomorrow.
    Later.
    When I woke up to go to the bathroom at about midnight, Cindy was gone. I had been having restless dreams of my cats crying for me to come home and seemed to still be hearing them as I woke up. Vaguely, I remembered hearing Cindy arising and the toilet flushing but now the bathroom was dark and her bed still empty.
    I pulled on my own black leather jacket and the sandals and padded down the hall to the communal bathroom. Maybe she’d decided to take a shower or something, I was thinking. But there was no light down the hall and the doors to the loo and the shower room both were dark and empty. My heart stopped. I knew you were going to shoot me, brother, if I lost your little girl. She is so sensible and calm most of the time I forget she’s just a kid and though we are all of us a bit large for anyone other than Hercules to drag off into the bushes, still there were a lot of creeps who prey on young girls, and Cindy is so friendly... I reminded myself of your family’s karate lessons all the way back to our rooms, where I woke up Jason and told him to get dressed, then shucked out of my jacket, pulled on my own socks and shoes, sweater over my night shirt and shrugged back into the jacket.
    Jason, still wearing his sweat-pajamas, padded sleepily to his window, frowning as he gazed out.
    â€œWhat are you
doing?”
I’m afraid I came very close to snarling at him as he returned to my room, still wearing the sweats he had worn to bed.
    He gestured with elbows bent at the waist, hands extended, palms bouncing up and down, telling me to cool it. “I was just
checking
to see if I could see her out the windows,” he said. “But you can’t see anything out there. It’s really foggy. Besides, she’s probably not out there. She probably found someone to talk to.” That was not unlikely, Cindy being your daughter, oh most sociable of brothers, and her garrulous grandpa’s granddaughter. In which case, since except for