is just helping me.”
Bonnie looked at her with her brows knitted and her mouth pursed,
but didn’t venture a word.
“Bonnie?”
“Um-hm?”
“Did I just say what I thought I said?”
“Um-hm.”
Elena, with one motion, gathered an armful of pillows and
deposited them on her face. “Could you please tell chef that I want
another steak and a big glass of milk?” she requested in a muffled voice
from under the pillows. “I’m not well.”
Matt had a new junk car. He was always able to get his hands on
one when he really needed it. And now he was driving, in fits and starts,
to Obaasan’s house.
Mrs. Saitou’s house, he corrected himself hastily. He didn’t want
to tread on unfamiliar cultural customs, not when he was asking for a
favor.
The door at the Saitous’ was opened by a woman Matt had never
seen before. She was an attractive woman, dressed very dramatically in a
wide scarlet skirt—or maybe in very wide scarlet pants—she stood with
her feet so far apart that it was hard to tell. She wore a white blouse. Her
face was striking: two swaths of straight black hair and a smaller, neater
swath of bangs that came to her eyebrows.
But the most striking thing of all about her was that she was
holding a long curved sword, pointed directly at Matt.
“H-hi,” Matt said, when the door swung open to reveal this