The Luck Runs Out by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

She drove as she did everything else, in a spirit of amused wonder, as though she’d embarked on a fascinating experience for the first time and found she was surprisingly good at it. After being trundled about in Stott’s ancient leviathan and jolted in the van, Shandy was altogether content to sit passive and let her go on driving. He liked the way her small hands in their brown leather gloves gripped the wheel. There was nothing about her he did not like. After a while, however, the gloves stirred a thought he’d as soon not have been bothered with again.
    “If you were a Viggie, you wouldn’t wear those.”
    “Wear what?” she asked.
    “Leather gloves.”
    “Oh.” Helen pondered the matter for a moment. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. Whatever put that observation into your head?”
    “Sunflower seeds.”
    “I see. That explains everything.”
    “Helen, I’m a tired man.”
    “I know you are, poor pet, and you shall have rest. If anybody comes poking jars of pickled pigs’ feet at you tonight, they’ll have me to contend with.”
    “Noble woman! But seriously, getting back to the Vigilant Vegetarians, what do you think of them?”
    “How do I know what I think of them? I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of them at all. My grandfather, Deacon Marsh, always maintained that the Lord gave man the birds of the air and the beasts of the field for his use, and I suppose I took the preachment at face value. I don’t honestly see what’s so awful about an honest working woman’s warming her hands with a pair of gloves made from the hide of an animal that has already contributed its high-grade protein to the betterment of the race, though naturally I wouldn’t buy a fur coat and I think leghold traps are an abomination. How did we get started on the Viggies, anyway?”
    “I told you, the sunflower seeds. They found twenty-six sunflower seeds in the cab of Miss Flackley’s van.”
    “Peter, I do see what you mean. One does manage to collect the odd seed or two in one’s cuff or wherever from filling the bird feeders, but twenty-six is a lot for someone as neat as Miss Flackley was, so it must have been the pignappers. I can see them buying birdseed to feed the pig because it would throw people off the scent—oh dear, that’s a strange choice of words—but why get sunflower seeds when cracked corn or millet would be so much cheaper and more suitable? It does suggest somebody who has them around to munch on, doesn’t it? Like Matilda Gables, which of course is ridiculous.”
    “Matilda who? Why?”
    “You know that cute little sophomore with eyeglasses about twice the size of her face, who wears the T-shirt that reads, ‘He prayeth best who loveth best All creatures great and small.’ She leaves a trail of sunflower seeds every time she comes into the library. I think she must have a hole in her blue jeans.”
    “Why doesn’t she sew it up?”
    “Peter, Matilda is a Brain. She wouldn’t know which end of a needle you’re supposed to thread. I can’t imagine what she’s doing at Balaclava in the first place. She ought to be at Harvard or Oberlin, majoring in Old Norse or Pure Mathematics.”
    Shandy nodded. “I know. I’m afraid she’s here out of a sense of dedication. She’s the type to see herself as the flaming spearhead of a brave new order.”
    “But, Peter, she’s so tiny!”
    “So was David as compared to Goliath, since we seem to have got off on a Biblical turn. If this Gables kid is so brainy; she could surely find a way to manage the pig, or cohorts to manage for her. Whom does she hang out with?”
    “I can’t think of anyone offhand. Matilda generally studies by herself. She does tend to gaze worshipfully at Hjalmar Olafssen, but who doesn’t? I do, myself.”
    Shandy groaned. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned that lad. Tell me one thing, have you ever caught Olafssen gazing worshipfully back?”
    “At me? Of course not.”
    “The more fool he. I meant at