Page 37 of The Summer Show

None of this computed. What could I possibly be facing where any of those items would be useful?

I was about to find out.

The portcullis at the end of the arena slowly opened. The wire that was my spine tightened.

Nothing was there.

Until it was.

When my foes appeared, my heart stopped for a brief nap and let my brain deal with the problem.

As a show opener, it was a good one, I had to admit. But let’s be clear, I was a dead woman the moment the dozen geese waddled into the arena, looking to pick a fight.

The show’s host, Paris, waved his arms as though this was nothing more life threatening than a circus. He shouted out something that sounded impressive for the audiences who would eventually be watching.

“Choose your weapons!” Memo said through the earpiece. He, I noticed, was behind the protective barrier, where he was in no danger of becoming goose food. “You can use them all if you wish.”

The geese hadn’t noticed me yet. They were pecking at the ground, blinking at the lights, and randomly honking their displeasure. Probably demanding to speak to the manager.

Geese. Really.

I searched the arena for a way out. A high spot. Anything that would easily remove me from the beaked ones’ path. Because once they realized I was here—

HONK.

And there it went. The first, fatal honk. Followed rapidly by dozens more as they realized there was an intruder in their waddling space.

Me. I was the intruder.

The cameras were rolling. Every bead of sweat rolling down my forehead was being captured for viewers to eventually pore over from their comfortable couches in their living rooms. The judges perched on their chairs wouldn’t be the only ones to critique me. Everyone would form their own opinions of this librarian from Bush Lake Elementary.

I’d be judged on my ability to survive geese.

I closed my eyes. Just for a moment. Long enough to gather my thoughts and sift through my library’s shelves to locate books about geese and how to appease them with something other than food or a human sacrifice. Ana had one murder goose who was waiting to make her move. Her I could handle. But this was a whole gaggle of death bringers.

What did I have?

Pepper spray. No. No way on earth would I pepper spray an animal. That went against everything I told students about kindness.

Whistle? Obnoxious. If I found a whistle obnoxious, then the geese would be even more annoyed. Geese were one thing. Angry geese were a whole other problem.

Potatoes? What was I supposed to do with potatoes? Roll them at the birds like small, brown bowling balls?

The tools they’d given me were useless and against my basic code of decency to do no harm.

Think, Kathleen. Think.

If memory served, when faced with a belligerent goose, a person was supposed to back away slowly while maintaining eye contact. But which goose? Approaching me at this very moment were twelve geese, and none of them were lesser henchmen. They were all the Godfather.

Doing my best to give them each their own personal one-on-one time with the eye contact, I moved around the arena and away from the pedestals with the lame weapons.

Wait.

I had moved too soon.

Lucky me, I did have one trick up my sleeve. One I had learned specifically to entertain small children, and because I had a boyfriend in college who had wanted to quit life to become a bard in a fantasy novel, and he taught me everything he knew.

Anyway.