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"That was some storm. Did you see it?" Lea
asked.
"No. What was it like?"
"Armageddon. How was the ballet?"
"Twee. Cute. The girls wore short skirts, the
men wore tights. Total yawn. Charlotte loved it. I think
the timpani were out of tune."
"Don't you just hate that?" The mix of sympathy
and sarcasm in her voice was judged to perfection.
"What are you doing tomorrow evening?"
"Homework. Not much else. I think we have a French
test on Tuesday but that'll be easy. Why?"
"Want to come over and work on the computer?"
"OK," she agreed, cheerfully. Her transmission
died for a moment. Obviously she had let go of the transmit
button. Then her voice came back on the tiny speaker.
"Hey, look, I have to go. My Dad's calling. See
you at school tomorrow. Over and out."
"Call if you need to. I'll keep the radio with
me."
Frustrated that the phone wasn't working, Michael glanced
around the room. Rather absently he took a book from
the shelf over the nightstand and then put it back.
He cranked the handle on the torch for a while, to keep
it going, and then wandered listlessly over to the window.
It was just the wrong night for a power cut. There was
no moon at all and he could not identify houses, not
even the houses he knew. There was just the eerie glow
of candles glimpsed through windows, and sometimes a
strange, elongated, flickering shadow.
Just one house, the one he had seen before, seemed
to have bright lights, and Michael was irked that he
couldn't work out which one it was, or even which street
it was on. Perhaps it had a generator. It occurred to
him that he might take bearings from landmarks he could
identify, but there were none. He walked backwards,
away from the window to the opposite side of the room,
keeping his gaze on the house, and was pleased to find
that he could still see it.
Picking up the torch, he searched in a drawer. An aunt
had given him a birthday present of office supplies.
It was eccentric gift, but unexpectedly useful. There
were ring binders, pads of paper, highlighters, staplers,
staple removers. And there was also a box of self-adhesive
circles with the centres punched out. They were supposed
to reinforce the holes in punched paper but Michael
had never bothered to use them.
Carefully he peeled one from the waxed backing film
and stuck it onto the window pane. He grabbed a pencil,
crossed to the back of the room again and stood with
his back against the wall. He moved a little to the
left, bent his knees slightly, and took a sighting on
the house. Perfect. From that exact position, the lights
were visible through the centre of the circle stuck
to the window. He lay the pencil under his right ear,
part of it pressed against his cheek, part against the
area of his skull behind the ear, and pushed it back
until it touched the wallpaper. Then he moved away and
shone the torch towards the wall. There was a discreet
but clear mark on the wallpaper.
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