"Which theory do you like?" I asked the boy.
"Theory?" he asked.
"Of history."
"Um." His eyes darted to Lucas. "I dunno. Memorizing a bunch of names seems a lot easier."
"Not according to your grades, I bet," I said. He grinned.
"It's not as much fun," he said.
"Admitting history is fun? Lucas, what have you done to him?" I called. He put his head around a shelf, smiled at me, and went back to his browsing.
"I guess..." the boy said slowly, "I mean. I've got to learn the names and dates for school. So I might as well do that. But I can remember them if I know other stuff about them, you know? They're more real."
"They're stories," I agreed.
"Yeah."
"Does Lucas like history?" I asked mischievously.
"I think so," the boy answered.
"What kind?"
"I can hear you, you know," Lucas called from the back, where he was adventuring into Horror and True Crime.
"Well, you won't talk," I answered. That earned me a soft laugh as he emerged into an aisle, still keeping the edge of a shelf between himself and the open space around the counter.
"I like stories," he said. "I don't mind if the books aren't completely true. A little truth in a lot of lies makes for the best stories, I've found."
"Try telling Mr. Blake that," the boy muttered.
"Which reminds me that we should go," Lucas said, tipping his head at the doorway. "Come on."
"Man," the boy whined, but stood and shouldered his bag, following Lucas like a puppy. "Where're we going?"
"Out to the river."
"What for?"
"What do you think?"
"Biology class," the boy said.
"Come along. See you, Christopher," he added.
"You know where to find me," I said, and gestured to the rest of the shop.
Lucas nodded to me, and I watched him put a hand on the boy's shoulder as they left. I stayed, surveying the shop and thinking about what Lucas had said.
I'm not so blind to my own nature that I can't admit impure motives. Information is power in a little town, and I was a keeper of information. As much as I didn't want people talking about Lucas, that made the tidbits I could get out of him all the more valuable.
But also I just plain...wanted him to like me. I liked seeing him in my shop. The only way I really knew to make people like me was to give them information. There's a reason I sell books for a living.
I went into the back room and picked up a trade catalog, the kind I was sent five or six times a year by various publishers as an encouragement to order from them. I opened it and began paging through it, waiting for something to catch my eye. When it did, I smiled and set down the catalog to make a phone call.
Chapter THREE
It wasn't long before Low Ferry was in the full grip of autumn weather. A few days after Jacob's father's birthday we even lost power briefly. High winds, probably; they sometimes knocked down wires or blew debris into the energy transformer. I brought my bed-roll out from the closet and spread it out near the fireplace, then lit a fire and settled down to sleep in the reflected glow of its warmth.
I almost thought the winter had begun, then – well, it was definitely coming – but the windstorm wasn't quite the start of it. When the power came on the next morning it was to a heavy blanket of humidity lying on the town, making everyone wish for rain to break it up.
We could feel that there was something brewing, especially those who had lived in Low Ferry a long time. It was the last calm before what promised to be a terrific thunderstorm, and it wasn't a true calm at all.
Not even the children stopped in the bookshop anymore. Having been raised in the Low Ferry, they knew instinctively what was in the air and they didn't want to be caught out in the storm. Those that could go home did, and those whose parents didn't want them home alone found friends to spend the afternoon with. Even the boy was usually with his friends now as they hurried down the street, though sometimes he paused and glanced my way.
I wondered how his lessons were going and whether he was causing trouble in school yet because of his growing awareness that teachers did not know everything. I wondered how the walk from The Pines, along the rutted dirt road, was treating Lucas. It was hard to go outside when the air was too thick to breathe.
The humidity lasted past three days, then four, stretching for a full week. Tempers ran short. The owner of the grocery store punched the chef at the cafe, in a matter of honor apparently concerning the price of milk. A couple of the farmers fired up old land feuds, though thankfully none of them involved rifles, just sharp remarks and one slightly vandalized tractor.
Paula fired her store assistant and the poor young man's mother came around and shouted at her until they were both hoarse and I had to intercede. Paula and I sat and drank coffee in my store and talked about how some people in Low Ferry weren't as safe as we were – how sometimes kids were the ones working to support the whole family. She grudgingly gave him his job back, but they snapped and snarled at each other a lot. I privately thought an air-conditioner would have solved most of their problems.
Nolan and Michael got into some kind of fight, too – some said over the fickle Sandra, some said because Michael was saying nasty things about Nolan's sister. Apparently there was a subsection of the town that thought Michael might be dating said sister. Sandra seemed to keep out of it, which didn't always give people a good opinion of her, either.
Jacob faithfully brought me the news, and Charles just as faithfully showed up a few days later to tell me why I shouldn't tell anyone any of it. Paula commented on every rumor with a dry wit that made her brief visits to the shop a pleasure.
The boy actually came into my bookshop on a Saturday, which was a miracle in itself, and as he browsed the racks he told me that all his teachers were arguing with each other over matters of discipline. He bought nine comic books.
"Trying to corner the market?" I asked, as he laid the thick stack of comics on my counter. "The investment isn't worth it, y'know. Comic books are a renewable resource."
"Everyone gave me money," he said, producing the entire amount in small change.