[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

awe.  How did you ?
 The twenty minutes, he says.  I
walked really fast. But even so, I couldn t
have done it if that crazy guy with the eye
patch wasn t such a fan of you. I got the
definite feeling that he wouldn t have let
the silver out the door for anyone but
you.
 Well, there is one other person. My
best friend. We go there a lot. Imrich s
kind of protective of us.
 You think? He gave me this ten-
second silent stare, and I m pretty sure
that if my intentions weren t honorable,
my face would have melted.
Hmm. I hope his intentions aren t too
honorable. Wait. Or do I? I hope his
intentions are mildly dishonorable, and
extend to kissing, and that s all. For now.
 I m glad your face didn t melt. Because
you ll need it for kissing.
 Me, too. Would you like some tea?
 More than words can say.
There s a little ladder at the end of the
pier and I climb down first and scramble
into the boat, trying not to set it rocking
and spill the tea. I m light, anyway, so it
doesn t move too much until Mik climbs
down after me.
 So the tea s from Poison, I say,
which makes sense. It is right around the
corner.  What about the boat?
 Well. Mik pours tea into my cup. It s
still steaming, thank god.  Let s just say,
we should probably keep it tied up where
it is.
My first mouthful of tea is heaven, and
the warmth of the cup in my numb hands
is, too.  I see. So we don t have
permission to be here.
 Not exactly. I only had twenty
minutes. I was kind of scrambling. Cake?
Cake. As subject changes go, it s a
good one. I hesitate for the tiniest instant,
though, because my brain gets on this
hamster wheel of concern over the
likelihood of imminent kissing. To eat or
not to eat, that is the question: whether
 tis Nobler in the stomach to suffer the
Slings and Arrows of outrageous Hunger
(while keeping mouthparts in pristine
kissing condition) or to take Spoon
against a Slice of cake, and
 Yes, please, my stomach pipes up.
And Mik opens the bakery box to reveal a
small, whole Sacher torte, its chocolate
so dark it looks black. Chocolate. Thank
god. If he d brought a non-chocolate
cake, I would have had to give him a
demerit. We have no forks or plates, only
our teaspoons, so we eat with those, me
making the first divot in the cake s smooth
surface  a dainty fairylike bite that is
really not my usual MO  and holy hell
the chocolate is so intense and pure it
should be named an element and given a
spot on the periodic table. It would be
Ch, which isn t even taken.
The boat sways softly, and my feet are
freezing, but the tea warms me from the
inside, and each little jolt of Mik eye
contact triggers a minor blush that warms
my face, so I m doing okay (so much
more than okay), even though it s
February in Prague and only crazy people
would sit in a rowboat eating cake in a
snowstorm.
Because: oh. The snow s coming down
thicker now. We both look up and around,
like: huh. It s falling in great downy
billows, and when it hits the water it
melts like sugar in coffee. It would be
very sweet coffee, because it s a lot of
sugar. On the rooftops and dock  and
even on the cake  it s piling up.
It s Mik who makes the decision to
ignore it.  So, are you from Prague? he
asks me, looking at me with this
determination to not notice the blizzard.
He takes another bite of cake.
I take another bite, too. And another
gulp of hot tea.  
eský Krumlov. You?
 Here. Vinohrady. My family still lives
there, but I m in Nove Mesto now.
We re both acting like we re at a table
in a cafe, as normal as can be.  I live in
Hrad%0Å„any, I tell him,  with a vampiric
great-aunt.
And this totally normal conversation
unspools from there, covering the basics:
family, siblings, school, favorite
composers, favorite movies, favorite
wood (for carving puppets), the
prehistory of the sandwich, and whether
the ancient Romans got their togas caught
in the spokes of their unicycles.
Okay, so it starts out totally normal
and takes a turn. On account of the ice
orb.
Ah, yes, the ice orb.
See, while I m not paying attention to it
 because, hello, I m paying attention to
the beautiful boy who serenaded me and
brought me cake  I guess it rolls up to
rest against the hot teapot and& melts,
and& yields up its message.
Ready or not.
Him
11 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]