The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) Read Free

athlete,” said Danny. “I’m a runner.”
    Lieder stood there, looking angry, but hesitating.
    “I have to stay light if I’m going to be fast,” said Danny.
    “You’re either on the team or you’re not.” Lieder glanced into the house, then faced Danny again, looking like he wanted a fight after all.
    Danny could see that Lieder wanted to yell at him. Something was keeping him quiet. There was someone in the house he didn’t want to wake. Or someone he didn’t want hearing him yell at a kid.
    “Listen, Mr. Lieder,” said Danny. “I want to do my bit for the team. But I won’t belong to you. You just timed me. If the speed you clocked for me is good enough for me to compete, then I’ll compete for you. I’ll listen to your advice and I’ll try to get better. I’ll try to get stronger and build up stamina. Stuff that makes sense. But you don’t control what I eat, and you don’t control my time. I come to practice when I can, but when I can’t, I don’t, no questions asked.”
    “Then forget it,” said Lieder. “I don’t need a defiant little asshole like you.”
    “Your call,” said Danny. “I offered, and you turned me down. Now I don’t have to hear any more complaints from Mr. Massey.”
    “You didn’t offer shit,” said Lieder, getting even quieter as he took a step down from the door. “If you’re on the team, then you have to play by the same rules as the other kids.”
    So Lieder still wanted him. Danny must have been pretty fast.
    “I can see how you wouldn’t want to have one student getting special treatment,” said Danny. “But I don’t have any choice. My time isn’t my own. I sometimes have to pick up and be somewhere. It’s not my call, and I don’t want to have to put up with crap about it if I miss practice.”
    “So go, then. Thanks for waking me up, you little prick.”
    “Cool,” said Danny. He turned away, headed back to the street.
    “You haven’t heard the last of this,” said Lieder.
    Danny turned around and came right back up to the porch. “Yes I have,” said Danny.
    “You’re a student. Unless your parents provide you with a note for each and every absence, you aren’t going to get away with disappearing whenever you want.”
    “I stay throughout the school day,” said Danny. “I don’t miss classes. But before and after school, there’s stuff I have to do. I offered to share that time with the track team, as much as I can. That wasn’t enough for you. I get it—I even agree with you. I shouldn’t be on the team. But that’s it. No more crap about it. I let you time me and you didn’t want me enough to take me on the only terms on which I’m available.”
    “Who the hell do you think you are?” asked Lieder, the bully in him at last coming out, his voice rising. “You sound like you think you’re some world-class star, negotiating with a pro team. You’re a minor, and a student, and the law says you belong in school, and the school says I’m a teacher with authority over you.”
    “What is it?” asked a weak voice from behind Lieder. A woman’s voice—barely. It was such a husky whisper that it would have been hard to tell, if Lieder hadn’t whirled around, revealing a little old woman in the doorway.
    A small woman—just the right size for bullying, thought Danny.
    But no, Lieder had been trying not to disturb her. And now that Danny looked closely, he saw that the woman wasn’t old, just faded and sagging. Not his mother, as he had first supposed. Nor was she small—or at least, she wasn’t short. Average height, and since Lieder was no giant, they looked about right together as man and wife. Except that she was wasting away. Something was seriously wrong with her, her robe hung on her as if she were a child wearing a woman’s dress.
    Cancer, thought Danny. At home Lieder deals with a wife dying of cancer or something just as bad. Then he comes to school and takes it out on the kids.
    On Danny’s tall and skinny