Part 2 (2/2)
Bryony hugs it to her chest as she heads for the counter and Jill, but she's halfway up the Religion aisle when a man accosts her. ”That's a bit babyish for you, isn't it? More than a bit. What's the appeal? Come on, you can show me.”
”I'm supposed to take it to mummy, Dad.”
Agnes is confronting the boys. ”Tell me the truth, now. You wrote all that, didn't you?”
”We never,” the lanky boy protests. ”It was on the floor.”
”We haven't even got a pen.” 41 ”Search us if you don't believe us.”
”You're not allowed to touch us. Anyway, he wouldn't have a pen. He can't write.”
”Neither can you either.”
”Never said I could.”
”Give over saying I can't, then.”
These are among the words they shout, together with a selection of the ones they were previously uttering. Agnes has told them twice that it's enough when Jake trots over, lowering his broad chubby freckled face and blinking lashes Agnes would be proud to sport. ”Let's be polite, lads,” he urges. ”Ladies present. Other children too.”
The duo gape at him. ”Why are you talking like that? Are you a queer?” is most of what the lanky boy responds.
”That's what I am and proud of it. Now that'll have to be all, I'm afraid. Out of here till you remember how to behave.”
The boys stare at the hands he stretches out to usher them. ”Keep your filthy paws off,” the squat boy warns, which Agnes suspects he overheard his mother say except for an extra word or perhaps that too.
”We'll say you tried to come up us, you dirty peedo,” the lanky boy adds and much else in between.
Agnes sups Bryony's answers into the hip pocket of her dress and grabs the boys by a shoulder each. ”There won't be much point in saying that about me, will there? Come along now or--was The boys duck out of her grasp and dash through Psychology. ”You touched us. You've had it now,” one cries with embellishments as they fling books from the top shelves in their wake. Jake sprints after them, leaping over Jung, but they've fled the shop. Staff aren't supposed to pursue miscreants once they're out of the exit, since Texts isn't insured against whatever might happen next, and so he trudges back to Agnes. ”I'll put them straight,” he says.
A nearby mother looks askance at that. While Jake 42 retrieves the books as if they're injured birds and somehow his fault, Agnes picks up the boys' answer sheets. Their sole contents are drawings she would be embarra.s.sed to see on a wall. She stuffs them in the pocket she has taken Bryony's sheet from and collects the rest. Bryony has outdone them by half a dozen answers and returns in time to see it. 'This young lady is the winner,” Agnes says, displaying the evidence.
The others straggle off to find their parents. She's about to take Bryony to receive her prize when Woody darts out of the exit to the staffroom. ”Why were you after those boys, Jake?”
The nearby mother lets her wordless agreement with his doubts be heard as Jake holds up a textbook with a broken spine. ”They were being stinky-mouthed,” he says. ”I chased them out and here's their revenge.”
”There's too much damage in this store.”
Woody sounds so accusing it's no wonder Jake refrains from exhibiting the other ruined volumes. Agnes is willing the confrontation to finish when the mother steers her young daughter over to Woody. ”Are you the manager?” she demands.
”That's me, ma'am. How may I help?”
”We thought there was going to be a compet.i.tion.”
”It's my impression we had one. I'm sorry if you missed it, but I'm sure there'll be--was An even sterner woman shoves one of her sons at him at the end of either arm. ”Aren't you meant not to let staff or their relatives play?”
”I don't believe the store has a specific policy on that, but I'd think--was ”Then you should,” she objects, and gives her sons a ventriloquistic shake. ”Tell him what you told us.”
All three children start to clamour, but the girl's shrillness triumphs. ”The one who won's mummy works here.”
”And you said the organiser took her answers and hid them, didn't you?” her mother prompts. 43 It's to protect Bryony as much as herself that Agnes says ”I didn't hide the answers. I just looked after them while Bryony was kind enough to take a damaged book to the counter.”
”More damage? Good G.o.d,” Woody says, frowning at Jake while the boys' mother mutters ”I'll bet she looked after them.”
”I'm sorry if there's been a misunderstanding.” Agnes a.s.sumes Woody is about to defend her until he adds ”If you'd like to take your children to the counter they can all have prizes. That includes anyone who was in this half of the quiz.”
As the mothers and their undeserving tribe head for the counter, he motions Jake over. ”Maybe you could work on not being quite so obvious around children,” he says low.
”Unless you're straight, you mean.”
”That's kind of unreasonable, wouldn't you say? You know we're an equal opportunity employer.”
”I'll try and be surrept.i.tious all the same, shall I?” As though he's indulging himself one last time, Jake says more loudly ”Kids aren't my meat, by the way.”
Woody stares at him before following the parade to the counter, and Agnes grows aware of Jill's daughter. ”Come with me, Bryony. You're still the winner. Let's make sure you get your prize.”
Jill is having some trouble with issuing vouchers while Woody observes. Perhaps she's distracted by the sight of her ex-husband and Connie at the end of Erotica. ”Don't tell me, it'll come to me,” Connie is saying to him. ”Orient/Occident, that's where you work.”
”And you were one of the party in leather.”
”Keep some of my secrets,” she murmurs, touching a finger to his lips and another to her own. ”So can I help you with anything?”
”I'm just here to pick up a little girl when she's collected her prize.”
”Lucky little girl.” 44 Agnes sees Jill swallow a retort and tries to distract her, but all she can bring to her suddenly sluggish mind is ”Don't forget Bryony, Jill.”
”You'll have to wait your turn, Bryony. Other people are.”
”She was going to,” Agnes feels bound to point out as she signs on at a till. She's placating one of the mothers with a voucher when the parent of the set of boys turns on Woody. ”Are we going to have to come back?”
”Not unless you care to, ma'am. We hope you will.”
”Your a.s.sistant doesn't seem to want to give them their prizes.”
Jill keeps her glare on the register. ”There's something wrong with this.”
When Agnes glances along the counter she sees no recognisable symbols on Jill's screen, just fragments like a scattering of flimsy bones. Perhaps that's the fault of the angle she's viewing it from, because Woody cancels the transaction and signs on and swiftly endorses the vouchers. ”Can we get videos?” one boy begs.
”Our vouchers are good for anything we sell, ma'am.”
”They don't read much,” the mother confesses.
”We wouldn't have known that, would we, mummy?” Bryony says not quite under her breath.
Jill scarcely grins, but Woody's silence feels like a sudden fog. He pa.s.ses Bryony's voucher to her as Connie heads upstairs, leaving Bryony's father to venture to the counter. ”I'll take Bry to choose her prize, shall I?” he suggests to Jill.
”I'm sure she's more than capable of choosing for herself.”
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