Shouldn't You Be in School?. Lemony Snicket
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Название: Shouldn't You Be in School?
Автор: Lemony Snicket
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Учебная литература
Серия: All the Wrong Questions
isbn: 9781780312323
isbn:
“S. Theodora Markson,” announced S. Theodora Markson, “and her associate. We have an appointment.”
“Please wait,” the boy said, without looking up from his typing.
Theodora sat in one chair and I sat in another, near the bookshelf. I took down a book that had been recommended to me by several people I didn’t like.
The swinging door swung, and a tall, neatly dressed woman strode to the desk where the boy was typing and took a few papers from the tall pile. Pinned to her collar was a very shiny gold badge shaped like a lime, and pinned to her face was a smile that shone much less brightly. Theodora stood, but the woman did not look at us or say anything, just retreated back into the busy office. Theodora sat. I tried the book. A man gave his son Jody a pony, and Jody had to promise to take care of it. Then the pony got sick. I could see where this was going and put the book down. It was more pleasant to sit and think what the cloud looked like.
We waited awhile. The boy kept typing and typing and typing and then finally stopped but he was just scratching his elbow and then he was typing again. The tall woman made several trips through the swinging door and back again without looking at us. Theodora took up the book and seemed quite interested in it. I stood up. He might not talk to me, but I would talk to him, so I asked him if it would be much longer.
“I don’t know,” he said, and typed and typed and typed.
“You don’t have to look busy on my account,” I said.
Now he stopped. “I look busy because I am busy.”
“So you say,” I said.
“You don’t have to take my word for it,” the boy said, and pointed to the pile he was making. “Look at what I’m typing if you don’t believe me.”
“I’m not a math tutor,” I said. “I don’t feel the need to check your work.”
“The Department of Education is a very busy office. We’re in charge of every pedagogical institution in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Read about us in the newspaper if you don’t believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“All right then, Snicket.”
I sat down and then stood up again. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s Kellar,” the boy said. “Kellar Haines.”
“Well, Kellar Haines,” I said, “shouldn’t you be in school?”
Kellar had been ready to start typing again, but now he blinked and looked down at his fingers. They were trembling a little bit. “Yes,” he said, and there was something about the way he said it, quiet and sad, that made me see the two of us a little differently.
The door swung open again, and the woman with the lime pin came out and looked at us at last. Then she looked at Kellar Haines. Then she looked behind her and then she smiled nervously and then she began to speak.
“Good morning” is what she said. “I’m Sharon Haines. I work here, which is the Department of Education. Yes, that is what it is.”
“I’m S. Theodora Markson,” said S. Theodora Markson, “and never mind who this is.”
“Lemony Snicket,” I said.
“This is my son Kellar,” Sharon said, “and never mind him, either.”
Sharon gave a little nod to indicate Kellar, and Theodora gave a little nod in my direction. Then they both smiled, Theodora first and Sharon after a few seconds, like a mirror running late.
“Perhaps we should talk in your office,” I said.
“Yes, of course,” Sharon said, leading us to the swinging door, and then she gave a sort of gasp. “No, let’s just sit here, shall we? The Department of Education is very busy today. Very busy. And my desk gives me some kind of medical condition. My tongue swells up if I sit there too long, and I end up talking like my mouth is full of baby mice.”
She sat down between us, and I watched Theodora nodding seriously at Sharon the way one adult has nodded at the nonsense of another adult since the first adult walked on the earth. “I think I have a medical condition, too,” Theodora said. “Lately when I’m driving my roadster I have the peculiar sensation of everything being quieter than it should be.”
“That could be because your helmet covers your ears,” I said.
The two women looked at me the way you look at a leaky pen. I looked down at the floor. There was an ugly rug with ugly triangles on it in an ugly pattern. Underneath, I thought, were the rectangular marks I’d seen in the photograph. I wondered what was covering the floor in the office, on the other side of the flimsy wall. Desks, chairs. Whatever all those muttering people kept in their office.
“Perhaps I’d better tell you about the case,” Sharon said, and she went to her son’s desk and took something out of a drawer. It was a photograph, but we couldn’t see it. It was facedown, and she left it that way in her lap when she sat back down. She sighed and looked behind her. Behind her was a wall. “There is a villain,” she said, “who is putting every schoolchild in town in terrible danger.”
I knew it, I thought.
Sharon gave us a long look. Kellar went type-type-type. “We have had some dealings with such a villain,” I said. “It would probably be best not to say his name.”
“It’s Hangfire,” Theodora explained.
Type-type-stop.
“Hangfire,” Sharon repeated with a frown. “What do you know about him?”
“Not much,” Theodora said. “He’s violent and treacherous. You know the kind of man I mean.”
“Yes, I do,” Sharon said, with a nervous smile. Kellar started typing again. “I had a boyfriend like that in eighth grade.”
“Me too!” Theodora was using a tone of voice I hadn’t heard from her before. I regret to say that I’d have to describe it as a squeal. “He was always saying impolite things about my hair.”
“Well,” Sharon said, “I think it looks nice.”
“Well,” Theodora said, “I think you’re nice.”
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