Perhaps the hard bun at the back of her head kept her awake.
She lay there with her eyes wide open and sleepless, staring into
the darkness.
At midnight the Kid Next Door came in whistling, like one
unused to boarding-house rules. Gertie liked him for that. At the
head of the stairs he stopped whistling and came softly into his
own third floor back just next to Gertie's. Gertie liked him for
that, too.
The two rooms had been one in the fashionable days of the
Nottingham curtain district, long before the advent of Mis' Buck.
That thrifty lady, on coming into possession, had caused a flimsy
partition to be run up, slicing the room in twain and doubling its
rental.
Lying there Gertie could hear the Kid Next Door moving about
getting ready for bed and humming "Every Little Movement Has a
Meaning of Its Own" very lightly, under his breath. He polished
his shoes briskly, and Gertie smiled there in the darkness of her
own room in sympathy. Poor kid, he had his beauty struggles, too.
Gertie had never seen the Kid Next Door, although he had come
four months ago. But she knew he wasn't a grouch, because he
alternately whistled and sang off-key tenor while dressing in the
morning. She had also discovered that his bed must run along the
same wall against which her bed was pushed.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25