‘But Dotty didn’t fall; she just got her leg crushed,’ said one of the grease monkeys. ‘She’ll be back.’
‘Not for three months or more,’ said Alyse. ‘So her peg and her belt are free. Them’s the rules.
‘Number twenty,’ she added to Suzy, pointing halfway along the line of coat hooks. ‘You’re lucky – Dotty kept her gear very nice. Better than Yonik, which goes to show. He wouldn’t have fallen if he’d kept his wings clean.’
‘And his nose,’ added someone, to general laughter.
‘Was he badly hurt?’ asked Arthur.
‘Hurt?’ Alyse laughed. ‘When you’re working on the tower, as we was, if you fall off and your wings don’t work, you don’t get hurt. You get dead. Even a Denizen can’t survive that fall. Twelve thousand feet, straight down. We were lucky to find his belt and tools, and his wrench had to be replaced. Bent like a crescent, it was.’
Arthur shook his head. He’d always thought Suzy was quite callous, but these Piper’s children were even worse.
I suppose when you’ve lived a very, very long time, you feel differently about dying, he figured. I wonder if I will feel the same . . . not that I’m likely to live that long . . .
A tug at his elbow interrupted his thoughts.
‘I have to go,’ said Dartbristle. ‘Got work to do, and there’s a flood due through right after twelve.’
‘Thank you,’ said Arthur. ‘I really appreciate your help.’
He offered his hand, and bent down close to shake the Raised Rat’s paw and whisper in his ear, ‘If you hear anything about Part Six of the Will, send word to me.’
‘Aye,’ said Dartbristle. ‘Goodbye, Ray and Suze.’
‘Thanks, Dart,’ said Suzy with a wave.
Once the Raised Rat was gone, she added, ‘Come and get yer tea, Ray,’ as she searched out two good-sized mugs from the dozens of chipped and damaged porcelain teacups and mugs that lay in disorganised piles around the spirit burner. Several grease monkeys who were gathered there to drink tea started to say hello, and Suzy poured tea with one hand as she spat and shook with the other.
‘I’m going to check my stuff,’ Arthur called out, which was probably the wrong thing to do. The other grease monkeys went back to their activities, and none came to introduce themselves as he went over to his peg.
Arthur put on his rain-mantle, which was like a sleeveless raincoat with a hood that went over his peaked cap. The cap had a buckle to fasten under the chin. Beneath the cap on the peg was a pair of clear goggles, which Arthur tried on and adjusted to fit. In the single large pocket of the rain-mantle there was a folded pair of dirty yellow wings. Arthur took them out, shook them so they expanded to full size, and spent ten minutes plucking out pieces of grit and dirt before folding them back up again.
The utility belt was very heavy. One of the six pouches held several different sizes of nuts and bolts. Another had a mouldy apple core in it, which Arthur removed. The next had a small grease gun, which was leaking until Arthur tightened the nozzle. The fourth pocket contained a pair of light leather fingerless gloves, which he put on. The fifth had an apparently unused cleaning cloth, a small cleaning brush and a cake of soap that had BEST QUALITY WATERLESS PERPETUAL SOAP stamped on it.
The sixth pouch was empty. Arthur tested its strap, then quickly slipped his elephant and the Fifth Key inside.
He looked around to see if anyone had seen him, but it looked like he had managed to be surreptitious. That done, he took the soap back out of the fifth pouch and tried it on an oily patch on his coveralls. Part of the stain was erased with surprising ease. Arthur was about to clean it off completely, but paused to look once more at the other grease monkeys, most of whom were now putting on their gear.
All of them had stained coveralls, and Alyse’s coveralls were the most splotched of all, with at least a dozen different-coloured oil stains.
Arthur quietly put the soap back in its pouch and put the belt on. Suzy was putting her belt on too, farther down the line. She waved at him and smiled.
Having fun as usual, thought Arthur. She lives in the moment. I wish I could.
He smiled a slight smile and waved back, then drew out his shifting wrench and hefted it, slapping the head against his palm. It was very shiny and very heavy. The screw-wheel that opened and shut the mouth of the wrench was gritted up, so Arthur quickly cleaned it with the brush and applied a spot of grease from his grease gun, not noticing that Alyse was watching him with approval.
‘They can scrub us between the ears,’ she said, ‘but good workers never forget to look after their gear.’