Courthouse Steps · June 24, 2230 · Afternoon
Harlan had brought a pencil to a place selling pencils. This made the afternoon a small financial success before anyone heard his name.
Carla had brought the paper they actually needed. A clinic appointment copy had lost the lower corner carrying his return time; the records desk could make a replacement from its retained sheet. Neither wanted to discover at the next visit that his memory of the hour differed from the clerk's. They had come for a copy, not a verdict, and the copy clerk was away from the window.
“Back shortly,” Carla read.
“Written in the previous century?”
“Same morning, probably.”
They sat on the public landing where an ordinary straight-backed chair had been set beside a bench. Harlan chose the chair. It was not the disputed one beside Olga's kitchen wall. This seat had no visible history and one arm polished by people waiting, which was enough information for him.
Below them a man sold pens, pencils and assurances that his ink would survive proceedings. A girl had bought a pencil stub and was drawing on a scrap beside the noticeboard. Petitioners moved around her with the elaborate politeness adults reserve for children occupying exactly the space adults would prefer.
Carla settled the damaged copy on her knees. Harlan looked at it.
“Put that away.”
“I want it ready.”
“It will still be missing the corner when it comes out.”
She folded it carefully into her bag. He offered the pencil.
“What for?”
“A game.”
She looked surprised enough to annoy him. Apparently a man could object to furniture, walk slowly, possess an illness and still catch people unprepared by wanting entertainment.
“I know several,” she said.
“Do you know one where you lose?”
They used the blank back of a discarded advertisement, obtained from the pen seller after he established it would not be used to undermine the new advertisement. Harlan drew five short lines. Carla guessed letters. He marked each wrong guess with a square until a little wall grew beneath the word.
“What happens when the wall is finished?”
“You lose.”
“How many squares?”
“Seven.”
“You didn't tell me that.”
“You hadn't used six yet.”
The first word was LADLE. Carla found it with one square remaining and accused him of choosing an object he knew she had spent the morning hunting. He said this was not an accusation against the word. She took the pencil and made six lines.
“No forms,” he said.
“That isn't six letters.”
“No word whose answer is a form.”
She crossed out her lines, which confirmed his suspicions, and drew seven instead.
They played until the bell inside sounded. The window stayed shut. Below the landing a cart shifted its load, and three people stopped talking at once to see whether the wheel would hold. It did. Ordinary suspense returned to the building.
Carla's word was PUMPKIN. Harlan objected that the season had not consented. She said she had been thinking of food, which was neither regulated nor evidence that the food existed.
The girl by the noticeboard came up two steps.
“You had an I already,” she told him.
He looked down. He had indeed guessed it twice.
“Are you with the court?”
“No.”
“Then your ruling can be appealed.”
She grinned and moved closer. Carla offered space on the bench. The girl sat at its far end, within sight of the woman below who was examining a posted page. The woman looked up, received a wave, and continued reading.
Carla offered the girl the better end of the pencil. It had been sharpened with a blade and still carried the uneven facets of the hand that cut it. The girl turned it around, preferring the blunt end because it made letters she could see. Harlan started to explain that the sharp point would last longer, then stopped. This was not a competition in conserving pencils. He had brought one in order to use it.
For the next word Harlan allowed the girl to choose. She drew the lines neatly. He began with confidence and lost it one letter at a time.
“You can't use a person's name.”
“You didn't say.”
“Is it a person's name?”
“No.”
“Good. Continue being correct.”
The girl filled in the last letter. Harlan read the word twice.
“That is not how you spell pigeon.”
“It's how I spell it.”
Carla laughed. The sound surprised her more than it surprised him. She had been watching the window between guesses, listening for anyone in the queue who might need an explanation, checking the girl's mother could still see her. For a moment she did none of these things.
Harlan wanted the laugh again. He also wanted to win. These desires were not automatically compatible.
“If we can spell everything privately, I shall win at once,” he said.
The girl looked uncertain. He had put too much edge on it. She held out the pencil, ready to return the game along with it.
Carla did not rescue him. That was a kindness he could resent usefully.
“Wait,” he said. “Show me your bird.”
On the scrap she had been using below, the girl had drawn a pigeon with a body too large for its feet and an expression of legal disapproval. Beside it she had written its name as she heard it.
Harlan examined the drawing.
“The bird's right,” he said. “The word needs another letter.”
“Which?”
He showed her. She added it, crowding the final letters close together. Then she drew seven fresh lines.
“Again,” she said.
The clerk returned. Carla half rose. There was one person ahead of them and the clerk was still opening the ledger. She sat back down.
This word was WINDOW. The girl counted her lines, found she had made one too many, and crossed the last one out before he could object. Harlan applauded the correction with two fingers against his knee. He lost anyway, having become convinced halfway through that the answer concerned a cooking vessel.
When their turn came, Carla left him with the pencil and took both sheets to the counter. The replacement was made from the retained copy. She checked the return time aloud. The clerk checked it against the book. It took less time than they had spent on the pigeon.
Below them, the girl's mother called. The girl offered Harlan the game sheet.
“You keep it,” he said. “You won most of it.”
She ran down the steps, then came back up the first two to ask whether he would be there tomorrow.
“I sincerely hope not.”
She accepted this without taking offense. Carla watched them wave.
On the way back, she asked whether he wanted to play again at the Commons. He said yes, provided she stopped selecting tools.
“I chose pumpkin.”
“Under pressure.”
They walked slowly, the new copy secure in Carla's bag. Harlan had not become a more gracious loser. Carla had not found extra hours in the day. They had, however, acquired an unfinished argument about spelling, and neither intended to surrender it before supper.