Page 22 of Tamiko and the Two Janitors
“Yes.”
“That should be enough time for her to get used to theidea.”
Melissa wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Rook smoothed her hair and said, “Don’t worry. She’ll likeyou. Eventually.”
“Who …?”
“True.” He chuckled and clarified, “I’m going to introduceyou to a Kith named True.”
TEN
Safety First
Tami arrived early at work. Not early enough that Coachwasn’t already parked in the back corner, but early. She’d been meaning toorganize all the literature she’d dumped into a fat file after the Amaranthineconference. All of it had to be important, but she wouldn’t be sure which informationwas applicable to elementary students unless she went through the stack.
An hour later, she had six piles and was waffling onstarting a seventh. Only she was waylaid by an interesting set of cribbed notes,purportedly put together by Kimiko Miyabe herself, on the etiquette ofnon-verbal communication.
Tami frowned as she tried a series of greetings, thenexpressions of gratitude. The concept reminded her of sign language, but thiswas nothing like fingerspelling. The diagrams emphasized the importance ofposture and expression, which added necessary nuance to the smallest ofgestures.
“This can’t be right,” she mumbled, trying to decide if thenotes meant she was supposed to tap or flick her right shoulder.
“Planning to umpire the next staff softball game?” Kip leanedin the doorway, a bemused expression on his face.
“Not quite.” She waved a brochure at him. “Just looking oversome of the information they gave me at the conference.”
“Ahhh. I’ve seen that sort of thing before.” He strolledover, poking through the pile of glossy advice. “Nice to see you making aneffort. I’m sure the new staff will appreciate it.”
She hummed unhappily. “I’m fumbling around. I can’t reallytell from these charts if I’m doing this right.”
“It’s not so hard.” Kip leaned across her desk, tapped hisnose, then tapped hers in a silent call for attention. “Lots of this stuff iscommon sense, really. Take this row.”
She scanned the line of nuanced greetings.
“Watch,” he said, tapping his nose again.
To Tami’s amazement, he ran through the entire series ofgestures, just the way they were described in the pamphlet, but paraphrasingtheir meaning into a sort of one-sided conversation. “Hey, man! What’s up?We’re good, right? No worries, friend. Take it easy. Everything’s fine.”
And he made them look entirely natural.
“How did you learn all of these?”
Kip shrugged. “Like I said, it’s not hard. You can barelyturn around these days without getting the run-down from some public serviceannouncement.”
“Show me again?”
Kip ran through the basics two more times, both patient andpleased with her comparatively clumsy efforts.
“Now, all I need is someone to practice on.”
He shook his head. “Not a whole lot of Rivven showing theirfaces in these parts.”
Tami sighed. “Can you blame them?”
“Can’t say I would.”
She leaned forward. “Do you think there are Amaranthine in Fletching?”
