Read Child Garden for Free Online

silence for some moments and then looked up.
    'Oh, sorry,' she said. 'There's a pile of boots over there.' She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. Milena peered helplessly into the darkness.
    'Golly,' said the Polar Bear. 'I keep forgetting you people can't see in the dark. Shall I find a pair for you?' Her voice seemed to float, airily.
    'That would be very kind,' said Milena. 'Size six. Something less floppy?'
    The GE took the pirate boots and shuffled off into the racks. Her feet were bare. The fur on top of them swept across dust and whisky, making streaks on the floor to mark her passage.
    Milena didn't know what to think. She felt she had been humbled in some way, and that made her annoyed. She suspected that she deserved it, and that made her worried.
    The GE was gone for some time. 'Who's been pushing over all the racks?' her small voice wondered out of the darkness.
    Milena looked at the phantasmagorical waste on the desk and the floor. Books, more books, papers with pawprints across them, old coins. These were real things, the real things that Milena had never seen. She began to feel an ache of jealousy, an ache of nostalgia. This is history, she thought, let the Vampires see this. She picked up a thick black book and opened up its crinkly pages, and realised that it had not been printed. The lettering, in fantastic sweeps and swirls of black ink, had been written by hand.
    Penetrating Wagner's Ring, the lettering said with an excess of eloquent strokes.
    'Not a fortunate title,' murmured Milena, a smile creeping sideways across her face.
    It was an exposition of the Ring cycle. There were drawings of all the characters, slightly amateurish in execution. Each one was identified, not by name, but by a series of notes. The last page said only 'Conclusion: the Ring cycle is a symphony.' It was written in gold.
    'That's not right,' said Milena. It was not what her viruses told her.
    But the clock in her mind told her the labour-hours it must have taken.
    'Bugger,' said a voice, and a rack of dresses collapsed somewhere in the darkness. Milena hurriedly dropped the book. The GE emerged carrying boots.
    'Typical of me, somehow, that title,' the GE said.
    She's seen me reading her book, Milena thought, and went rigid with embarrassment.
    'I console myself,' the GE continued, 'with the thought that there was a book of piano exercises that really did call itself Fingering for Your Students. Here are your boots. Try them for size.'
    Milena pulled one of them on, feeling awkward. She hopped up and down on one foot and thought she was going to fall over. Her cheeks felt full and flushed.
    'Fit?'
    'Yes, yes, I think they do,' Milena replied. She really couldn't tell. She pulled the boot off again. The GE belched roughly. 'Excuse me,' she said, covering her mouth.
    'You sing very well,' said Milena, surprising herself. Her viruses told her that the Polar Bear sang quite as well as anyone at the Zoo.
    'Ah,' said the GE and shrugged. 'I suppose I do, yes.' She blinked. 'Why don't you take this with you.'
    She gave Milena the Mahler score, yellow and plump.
    'You might as well have these too.' She slapped on a Shostakovich and a Prokofiev. 'Don't tell anyone they're Russian.' Russians were not in favour.
    'I can't take them,' said Milena. She didn't want them. The GE stared back at her dolefully.
    'Really. I think I'm blocked from taking them.'
    She didn't know if that were true. 'I think I'm supposed to feel that they belong to everyone.' She did know that the scores were too valuable to be given away so lightly. Milena held out the scores back towards her. There was a fruity smell of booze and lanolin.
    'Ah,' the GE said, and blinked, her eyes distant and unfocused. She took the papers, and held them low and level just over the top of the desk before letting them drop.
    'What's your name?' Milena asked.
    'My name?' said the Polar Bear, and sniffed and smiled. 'Well, let's see if I remember it. Rolfa.' She grinned 'Woof woof.'
    'I'm