to paste up before realizing that if she was going to find a blue pencil, she would have to get one from Carole.
She didn't want to face the secretary, was afraid to face her. Her hands were shaking slightly, and for some absurd reason she felt guilty, as though she had done something wrong, but she forced herself to walk around the partition to the front office.
Carole smiled sweetly at her. 'Oh, hello, honI didn't know you were here.'
'I uh, was in the back,' Sue lied. 'Pasting up. I was wondering if you have a blue correction pencil I could use.'
'Why sure.' Carole opened her middle drawer, took out a pencil, and handed it to Sue, who took it with trembling fingers. 'By the way, a man stopped by with an item for 'Upcoming Events.' ' She handed Sue a pink 'While You Were Out' note. 'He said to give him a call.'
Sue nodded. 'Thanks.' She walked quickly back be hind the modular wall into the newsroom. She vowed to herself that she would not be intimidated by the secretary's bigotry, that she would not allow the old woman's attitude to dictate her actions or affect her in any way.
But she was still shaking as she went into the back room and started to proof the front page.
Sue felt drained by the time she arrived at the restaurant. She wanted to go into the back and talk to her grand mother, but before she even reached the cash register her mother was walking toward her, motioning toward theta ble where John was busily writing on a mimeographed worksheet. 'I want you to help your brother with his homework.'
Sue did not even feel like arguing. She dropped her notebook on the table. 'Fine,' she said in English.
She pulled up a chair and sat down. John, seated opposite her, papers fanned out before him, textbooks piled near his elbow, looked up. 'I don't need your help,' he said.
'Mother wants me to help you. I don't want to.' 'Why do I have to do homework today anyway? It's Friday. Why can't I just do it Sunday and take today and tomorrow off?.'
'Talk to them.'
'They don't understand anything.'
'Tough.' Sue leaned forward to look at his worksheet.
'What do you need help with?'
'I told you. Nothing.'
'Then why did Mother tell me to help you?'
'Because they're fighting and they don't want you to go back there.
We're not supposed to know.'
Sue listened. Sure enough, she could hear the low, angry tones of a hushed argument coming from the kitchen. 'What are they fighting about?' she asked.
'The menus.' '
'What about the menus?
'Who knows? Who cares?'
Sue sighed, leaning back in her chair. She wished some times that she and John were closer. She wished she could talk to him, seriously talk to him. But they'd never had that sort of relationship; she'd never been the patient, understanding older sister, he'd never been the adoring younger brother, and it was too late for them to change now. Their roles were set, the confines of their relation ship clear
E Had he been acting differently lately? That was something she had not been able to determine. Her grand mother and parents had been closely watching him also, she knew, and although none of them had discussed it, all of them had been tiptoeing around him, treating him as they would someone with a fatal disease. Maybe he sensed it, maybe he could tell.
Maybe that's why he was so angry.
Influenced.
John pushed his paper across the table toward her, spinning it around.
'Okay,' he said. 'Number five. See if you can figure it out.'
Sue looked down at the worksheet, read the question, a simple geometry problem, and turned the paper sideways between them so they could both look at it. She leaned forward over the table and explained to him how to figure it out.
He sat back in his chair, frowned at her. ''Ya tsa may,' he said.
She hit his shoulder. 'Shut up. Your breath's worse than mine.'
'He won't want to kiss you.' 'Who?' 'The editor.'
She shook her head. 'Don't be stupid.' John grinned. 'You like him, huh?' Sue reddened. 'Knock it off.' 'I'm telling Father.' 'Telling him what?'
'That you like that old guy.' 'He's not that old.' 'See? I'm telling.'
She pushed the paper across the table at him. 'Fine.
Do your own homework. I hope you fail.'
'I didn't want your help anyway.'
She walked around the register, into the kitchen. Her parents were still arguing, but they shut up the second she came through the door.
She opened the refrigerator, grabbed a can of Coke, and continued through the kitchen into the back room, where her grandmother was plucking a chicken. 'Hello, Grandmother,' she said.
The old woman turned down the volume on the cassette player next to her, atonal Chinese music fading into a pleasant muted tinkle. Her fingers continued to pull feathers from the chicken as she looked up at Sue. 'More have died,' she said.
Sue looked at her grandmother, confused, not knowing if that was a statement or a question. 'I don't know,' she said, a response that applied either way.
'More will die.'
Sue sat down on an overturned vegetable crate next to her grandmother.
'Why will more people die? If we are going to right the cup hugirngsi, why don't we right it now? Why are we waiting? Can't you find out where it is hiding? Can't we go there and destroy it?'
Her grandmother did not answer. 'I dreamed last night of amirror man.
A giant who makes mirrors.' 'A real giant?' Sue asked. 'Or a tall man?' 'A tall man.'
'Pee Wee Nelson.'
'Do you know him?' Her grandmother did not sound surprised.
'I just met him today. He used to be the police chief. He is a friend of my editor and his brother, the current police chief.'
The old woman nodded, as if this was what she had expected to hear. 'We must talk to this tall man. We will need amirror to use against the cup hugirngsi. ''
'A mirror?'
1 'Baht gwa. The mirror with eight sides.' The old fingers moved away from the chicken, traced a delicate octagon in the air. 'It will reflect and frighten the cup hugirngsi. Even tse raor are afraid of their own appearance.'
'But what are we going to do? Are we going to wait for the cup hugirngsi to come to us and attack?'
'No,' her grandmother replied, resuming her plucking of the chicken.
'We will go to its lair and confront it there.'
'Where is that?'
I do not know.'
'How will we find out where it is?'
'ZJi Lo Ling Gum. ''
Sue shook her head, frustrated. 'Well, when will we find out?'
'when it is time.'
'What if we find out too late? What will we do then?' The old woman's voice was low and filled with an emotion Sue had never before associated with her grandmotherwfear. 'I do not know,' she said quietly.. 'I don't know.' ' stared at the figure in disbelief. Fifteen thousand.
Fifteen thousand people had died of exsanguination in the United States since the FBI had begun keeping statistics. And that only included the information that had been entered into the computer. Who knew how many
