Re: Zephyr

[Herr D]

[continuation of Chapter 9]

Jennifer caned over to the cabinet halfway between them and opened it. Batteries all dead, most likely. She pulled out a camcorder with one of Po’s adaptors wired to it and looped an extension cord over her shoulder. Gauging the distance, she plugged in the camcorder, dropped an empty box on the floor, laid the camcorder in, wound up, and shoved the box with her right cane while heaving the coiled extension cord right at Young Mike. “Heads up!”
He turned without stopping shooting stills. Jennifer almost dropped her cane seeing his surprised face turn into a smile as he snatched the cord with his left hand. He left the camera on the sill, continuing his turn, stopped the box gently with a foot, went down on the other knee to grab the camcorder, whipped the plug around into his hand and plugged it in as he began to stand up. And knocked the perfectly good 35mm camera out the window with his elbow.
“Aaugh!” she yelled out. Young Mike didn’t look away until he had the camcorder focused.
“Oops.”
“OOPS? We’re almost three stories up!”
“It only fell to the ledge. Maybe a cracked lens. The pictures might still be good.” Jennifer blinked and continued caning toward him. “Here,” he said, “Hold this.” He angled the camera into her hands, moving it slowly. He changed the view to wide-angle. Jennifer gasped. The afternoon haze and something that might have been car exhaust was layered over the courtyard in an interlocking pattern of hexagons. “What on EARTH is THAT?”
“No idea.” Young Mike had trotted back to another cabinet and brought back a piece of bent conduit and a pair of pliers. He bent the end into a hook and looked out the window. “Aaugh!”
“What?!” Jennifer looked down. The camera was nowhere to be seen. “Oh my–” That’s trouble. Those things are REALLY expensive. If only he’d dropped it in the box. SLAP! Feel the palm burn from a good catch. Gentle pressure of cardboard. Scent of paper, dry rot, dust . . . AM I GOING NUTS, FANTASIZING ABOUT WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN?
Young Mike grabbed the end of the camcorder, as she’d let it droop and repositioned it. “I didn’t hear it fall, did you? Here, I’ll take that. If I’ve lost a camera, I’ll need the best footage I can get to make up for it.” He began slowly panning the cam around with surprising precision. “Good thing you thought of the cord, though. This battery’s dead.”
“Um–no. I didn’t hear it fall.” She bent and looked. “I don’t guess a magpie would be strong enough to carry that off, huh?”
Young Mike had a smile in his voice. “No. I don’t think so.”
As she straightened she saw him look away. Hey, Tarzan, I saw that! What would you bother about ME for?

[Continued Next Block]