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“I’m sure they’d give you a medal. In prison.”
“After I saved London Bridge?”
“They’d lock you up and toss the key,” she said.
Mad Dog slid her a sort of interested look that caused a funny little stab in her stomach. “Would you be sorry if I was sent back, June?”
She snorted. “I’d be sorry I’d gone to the trouble of teaching you how to read and write. If you’re going to sit there like a side of bull-beef, you may as well learn your letters. What was the last one we did?”
“G.”
“Next one’s H, then.”
June went to the set of open shelves by the range, pulled out a large, rimmed tray, and brought it to him. The tray, filled with a layer of sand, was used in the oven to help even the temperature while baking. June had come up with the idea of having Mad Dog trace letters in the sand with his forefinger, which was easier than using a slate and pencil.
Standing beside him, she reached down to the sand. “H makes the huh sound. You draw it with three lines: two down and one across. Like a ladder.” After he’d watched her write some H’s, she shook the tray to level the sand and nudged it toward him.
Mad Dog drew the H exactly as she had.
“Good,” she said. “Do more just like that one.”
“Don’t look like no ladder,” he said, staring down at the letter. “Looks like a bed.”
“What?” June inspected the letter more closely. “That only looks like a bed if you’re two bloody feet tall.”
“It’s a bed if you’re looking at it from the end. See?” He used the tip of his forefinger to add two circles.
June shook her head, baffled. “What are those?”
“They’re heads.”
“That’s disgusting,” she exclaimed. “Choppin’ off people’s heads and keeping ’em in your bed?”
“They ain’t chopped off,” he protested. “The rest of their bodies is—” But he broke off as he saw the flicker of laughter in her eyes. Realizing she was teasing him, he ducked his head awkwardly as a smile broke out. It transformed him, that glimpse of nice teeth. It made him almost handsome.
Feeling a tide of warmth spreading over her face, June shook the sand tray until it was smooth. She decided to divert him from the subject of beds. “Tell me some words that start with the H sound.”
“Happytite,” he said, beginning on a row of little H’s.
“There’s no H in that one.”
“There is when I says it.”
“You’re saying it wrong, is why. Think of another one.”
“Hairy.”
“Hairy? Why that word?”
“It’s what I look like in bed.”
Her stomach flipped as neatly as a griddle cake in a pan. “You don’t wear no nightshirt?” she managed to ask.
“Don’t need it.”
“You’ll catch cold at night without a proper nightshirt.”
He shook his head. “I always sleeps ’ot, meself.”
