Whim Manor And the Boy Who Wasn't.

Insta-Graham

Not wanting to get caught for keying the car, we made our way around to the other side of the town center, quickly but not too quickly, and started sweeping next to the bridge that led to the bandstand.

Graham stomped over and puffed out his chest, "Have you two just been pushing the dirt around?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

His eyebrows jumped up. "Not depositing it in the storm drains?"

"You didn't say we had to." I shrunk back.

"I asked you if you knew how to sweep," he sounded dumbfounded, "The wind's blown all the dust back."

And then he just stood there, shaking his head. He raised a finger, looking frustrated. "Go back to the square, and start over."

"But... but—"

"I don't care," he sounded angry, "if you spent as much effort working as you did trying to get out of work, you'd be done by now." He looked at me like I was stupid.

And, I guess, he had a point... If I had come to work in normal clothes, and worked hard, I'd be done already and free to deal with Justin... But still...

"Then maybe you should have told me what 'work' meant," I said coldly.

He huffed, and puffed, and blew a frustrated breath. And then he said, "Fair enough. Look, I'm having a bad day, and all your 'Mutton Shunter' talk isn't helping. So, tell you what, you go back and do the square, and just the square, and properly this time, and then... you can go."

I felt a shiver, Justin would probably be in the square.

"But..." I whined.

"It's a good deal," he said, "And it's only on the table for the next ten seconds..."

"But..." How could I explain the whole Justin situation without revealing I was a boy? I just couldn't deal with all this all at once.

"Nine... eight... seven..." he counted.

I cringed.

"six, five, four three two—"

"Okay, okay!" I blurted out.

And as I started back toward the square, my feet jingling, and Suzi in tow, I heard him call after us, "You know, a 'thank you' would have been appropriate."

He was right, the dirt had been blown back so that all the sweeping we'd done earlier had been useless. But that was his fault. I don't know what his problem was. But he seemed to be taking something out on me. And that wasn't fair.

So back in the square again, we started at one end, and were working our way back to the other, this time pushing the dirt down the storm drains. I was trying to keep one eye out for Graham, and the other out for Justin.

But Justin wouldn't be so hard to spot, he was wearing a red t-shirt—

Oh no... I whipped out my phone and called him.

"Harper, what's up? You done yet?" He sounded happy.

"Not quite yet. Hey, you know about the clothing-enforcement zone, right?"

"Yeah yeah, Tilly told me about it when I went by the school."

"Oh, thank god."

"No worries," he laughed, "I got an old shirt, and a hat, and a vest, oh and I'm wearing old boots. And jeans, it turns out, were invented in 1871, so I'm all good."

"Good, good." I let out a breath. "I should be done in an hour, then I need to shower at the school, and I'll call you, and we can meet?"

"Sounds like a plan." He sounded very happy. "I'll just waste some time. Hey, there's that geisha. I'm going to get a picture."