let the stupid crow start talking.
“Sweet little auntie, we need the archdeacon’s manuscripts for the Death Lists,” he said.
So it was said. Owl Dorothy reacted neither with surprise nor with consternation. She appeared completely uncomprehending.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Now I think that I don’t understand.”
“The Death Lists,” repeated Sam. “We know how it’s arranged. Everything the archdeacon writes out by hand, you type up on a typewriter.”
“That’s right,” said Dorothy, not without pride. “It has to do with the archdeacon’s handwriting. You understand, despite all the education and wisdom that the penguin possesses, it’s almost impossible to interpret his handwriting. It took me many years before I could clearly distinguish his ‘j’ from his ‘g.’ Not to mention the little pole that sets an ‘h’ apart from an ‘n.’ But in time you learn, and—”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted the gazelle, “this is certainly a lovely art. But we’re in kind of a hurry. The manuscript to the Death Lists?”
“The Death Lists?” repeated Dorothy. “That sounds gruesome. Do you mean this is something that Archdeacon Odenrick would be involved with? In what connection, then, if I may ask?”
“Auntie, you know what we’re talking about,” said Sam.
“I do beg your pardon,” said Dorothy, “but I cannot say that I—”
“Come on, then, dammit,” roared Tom-Tom. “We’re in a hurry. Now you bring out those damn lists, ma’am. Otherwise I’ll see to it that you…bring out those damn lists.”
“My,” said Dorothy, looking horrified.
“Exactly,” said Sam, without enthusiasm.
It was clear that the old owl was afraid. She stared in fright at Sam and nodded frantically, her short beak bobbing up and down like a float in the waves.
“Well?” said Sam.
But Owl Dorothy seemed to have gone into some kind of gridlock of fear and confusion, and beyond continuing to nod she didn’t react at all.
Sam looked at Tom-Tom, who shrugged his wings to show that he didn’t know what should be done.
“Do you have an office here, auntie?” asked Sam. “Show us where you usually hang out, where you work on the archdeacon’s things.”
The changed tone of voice worked, partly. Dorothy managed to take herself out of her temporary paralysis. She shook her head in confusion, mumbled a few words about her not knowing what they were talking about, then got up from the kitchen table and guided them into her small office, which was next to the kitchen. A pedantic orderliness prevailed there. Neat piles of correspondence, paperwork, and archived material were on the desk and on the shelves next to it.
“Exactly,” Tom-Tom burst out triumphantly when he saw all the handwritten papers with just that unreadable writing the owl had just described.
Sam sat down in the desk chair, Dorothy stood alongside and nervously tried to explain what the various piles contained at the same time as she watched with mounting terror how Sam rummaged through the papers without regard for order.
“Worthless,” he said after a while. “This is just worthless. Where are the lists of names?”
“But,” said Dorothy, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What lists of names? The only lists of names I have are the lists of confirmands and…wait, the guests who are invited to the home of the minister tomorrow evening. Is it the invitation list you want?”
“Could it be some damn code?” said Tom-Tom.
“Have to see what you have,” said Sam. “But you’re not fooling us.”
“I don’t want to fool anyone,” said Dorothy, leaning down to take out tomorrow’s invitation list from the hanging folder in one of the desk drawers.
The crow and the gazelle ran down the stairs, two steps at a time, over to the car. Dorothy stood in the doorway, watching them.
The bum was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the gray Volga. There weren’t many street people in Amberville, and it was quite unbelievable that one of them would get in Sam and Tom-Tom’s way this evening.
And yet it happened.
It was a llama. In the glow of the streetlights the car cast a shadow over his upper body, and they saw only the legs lying outstretched across the sidewalk. When they came closer they saw that the llama was long and hairy and dirty and seemed to be sleeping half upright against the Volga’s front tire.
Without a word Tom-Tom increased his speed and ran ahead of Sam. In a few seconds he was at the car, where he took hold of the llama’s shoulders and lifted him up. Perhaps the llama awoke, perhaps he never had time to come to his senses before Tom-Tom, with