Enter Three Witches by Kate Gilmore Read Free Book Online Page B

“I mean, naturally, after finding me like that, more or less knee-deep in frogs. Anyone would wonder.”
    “Anyone would, and I do,” Erika said.
    “It’s a statistical project,” Bren said in a rush. “For math. You know how practical Miss Wentworth is, or don’t you? I forget you weren’t here last year. It’s part of the new math, I think. Like, no more meaningless theorems. No more dry examples. Everything must be related to life.”
    Erika nodded gravely. “I can see the life part all right,” she said, “but the mathematics still eludes me.”
    “Statistics,” Bren said. “I thought I’d count their spots and do a correlation.”
    Math was, unfortunately, one of Erika’s strong points. “A correlation with what?” she asked.
    Lacking a ready answer to this, Bren plunged on. “Anyway, you can imagine how impossible it was to count the spots on a bunch of frogs all hopping around in a tank and getting on top of each other, so I saw there was an empty tank in the corner and thought I’d take them one by one, count, put them in the other tank, then dump the whole lot back. But things got out of hand,” he finished with a helpless gesture that made Erika laugh.
    “You’re really crazy,” she said. “I like that.”
    “You do?” Bren asked dubiously.
    “Absolutely. I hate ordinary, predictable people. Come on, let’s walk. I’ve got to get home and see if I can eat. Ugh! What a thing to look forward to.”
    “You could take nourishment through a straw,” Bren suggested.
    “For two years?”
    “That’s true. You’d fade away.”
    “You can’t be too thin or too rich,” Erika said, “but I think it would sap my strength and ruin my temper. What a marvelous afternoon.”
    Bren nodded happily. They were walking up toward Broadway with the late sun shining warmly on their backs. “It’s turning nice for Saturday,” he said, adding to himself, “if I can only keep this damn frog alive.”
    Turning right on Broadway, they passed the seductive windows of Zabar’s—“No, I really can’t give up eating,” Erika said. As they crossed Seventy-ninth Street, the river flashed blue at the bottom of the hill, and the rusticated stone of Erika’s building rose into view like a fortress.
    Bren stopped at the tall gates and looked in at the fountains playing in the shadowy courtyard. “I always wanted to know someone who lived here,” he said. “What a neat place.”
    “Come on up,” Erika said. “You can help me choose something to eat and then look the other way while I savage it.”
    Bren was tempted, but only for a moment. The scrabbling sensation around his middle was growing weaker, and he wasn’t sure whether his mother would be pleased with a dead offering. There was also the strong probability that a more relaxed, indoor conversation with Erika would again turn toward treacherous waters. “I can’t this time,” he said. “There’s something I’ve really got to do.”
    “Okay. ’Bye for now,” Erika said, and turned in through the gate.
    As Bren started back up Broadway, he could hear the doorman’s cheerful voice, “Hey, Erika, what’d you do? Swallow a box of paper clips?” There was no reply.

Chapter Six
    The sky darkened again as Bren crossed Broadway and walked toward the park. Huge clouds were rising as if from some infernal cauldron in New Jersey, and the last rays of sun crept between them, casting a lurid glow on all that only a few moments ago had basked in the light of a clear September afternoon.
    Bren felt his spirits sink with the failing light. He wanted to hurry now—to get home and rid himself of his increasingly unpleasant burden—but his footsteps dragged as he trudged the last block to his house.
    Curiously, in view of his upbringing, or perhaps because of it, Bren was not given to brooding or to superstition. Now, however, he felt the ebbing life of the miserable creature inside his shirt as if it were his own. For the first time, he found