We’d Only Taken Two Steps
drew her arm coaxingly through the old man’s- he’d bribed a child
- frightened the old lady
- The obligatory scream
- you have to do lots of awkward stuff
Tune in next time part 115 Click Here for Earlier Installments
We’d only taken two steps down the sidewalk when the presidential zeppelin blotted out the sky. It flew down the street as speedily as a dirigible could, which is to say — not very. Its altitude was so low it barely cleared the spires that topped nearly every building in Pittsburghistan.
“Maybe we can catch it if we run to the roof!” I cried.
Svetlana shook her head and sighed. “Not in my condition.”
Just then an old woman staggered out of the laundromat across the street. She looked up at the red, white, and blue zeppelin in terror. Svetlana in her old man disguise steadied her. The old woman smiled a wrinkled smile and drew her arm coaxingly through the “old man’s” and began chattering in Low-Contrarian. I am much more fluent in High-Contrarian, but she seemed to be telling Svetlana about the time she’d bribed a child to spy on her cheating husband and collect evidence for her divorce.
Svetlana hiccuped a very feminine hiccup, which frightened the old lady. She threw a complicated hand gesture meant to ward off evil. The obligatory scream was coming, I knew, and I had to prevent it. You have to do lots of awkward stuff in my line of work, but keeping the old woman from revealing the truth about Svetlana was one of the most awkward things I’ve ever done.
bonus points for using them in order