“Uh, I don’t remember.” “I’ll scare you up something. I don’t suppose you can pay for it?” She looked at him sharply.
“I’m not hungry. Mother Shaum, is the Sisu still in port?”
“Huh? I don’t know. Yes, I do; she is — a couple of her boys were in earlier tonight. Why?”
“I’ve got to get a message to her skipper. I’ve got to see him, I’ve just got to!”
She gave a moan of utter exasperation. “First he wakes a decent working woman out of her first sleep of the night, he plants himself on her at rare risk to her life and limb and license. He’s filthy dirty and scratched and bloody and no doubt will be using my clean towels with laundry prices the way they are. He hasn’t eaten and can’t pay for his tucker . . . and now he adds insult to injury by demanding that I run errands for him!”
“I’m not hungry . . . and it doesn’t matter whether I wash or not. But I’ve got to see Captain Krausa.”
“Don’t be giving me orders in my own bedroom. Overgrown and unspanked, you are, if I knew that old scamp you lived with. You’ll have to wait until one of the Sisu’s lads shows up later in the day, so’s I can get a note out to the Captain.” She turned toward the door. “Water’s in the jug, towel’s on the rack. Mind you get clean.” She left.
Washing did feel good and Thorby found astringent powder on her dressing table, dusted his scratches. She came back, slapped two slices of bread with a generous slab of meat between them in front of him, added a bowl of milk, left without speaking. Thorby hadn’t thought that it was possible to eat, with Pop dead, but found that it was — he had quit worrying when he first saw Mother Shaum.
She came back. “Gulp that last bite and in you go. The word is they’re going to search every house.”
“Huh? Then I’ll get out and run for it.”
“Shut up and do as I say. In you go now.”
“In where?”
“In there,” she answered, pointing.
“In that?” It was a built-in window seat and chest, in a corner; its shortcoming lay in its size, it being as wide as a man but less than a third as long. “I don’t think I can fold up that small.”
“And that’s just what the snoopies will think. Hurry.” She lifted the lid, dug out some clothing, lifted the far end of the box at the wall adjoining the next room as if it were a sash, and disclosed thereby that a hole went on through the wall. “Scoot your legs through — and don’t think you are the only one who has ever needed to lie quiet.”
Thorby got into the box, slid his legs through the hole, lay back; the lid when closed would be a few inches above his face. Mother Shaum threw clothing on top of him, concealing him. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Mother Shaum? Is he really dead?”
Her voice became almost gentle. “He is, lad. A great shame it is, too.”
“You’re sure?”
“I was bothered by the same doubt, knowing him so well. So I took a walk down to the pylon to see. He is. But I can tell you this, lad, he’s got a grin on his face like he’d outsmarted them . . . and he had, too. They don’t like it when a man doesn’t wait to be questioned.” She sighed again. “Cry now, if you need, but be quiet. If you hear anyone, don’t even breathe.”
The lid slammed. Thorby wondered whether he would be able to breathe at all, but found that there must be air holes; it was stuffy but bearable. He turned his head to get his nose clear of cloth resting on it.
Then he did cry, after which he went to sleep.
He was awakened by voices and footsteps, recalled where he was barely in time to keep from sitting up. The lid above his face opened, and then slammed, making his ears ring; a man’s voice called out, “Nothing in this room, Sarge!”