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He reached out, as though to put his hand on Melba's skirt, but Melba rolled away, right to the edge of the plank, depositing her arm into the water. She was wet to the shoulder but not at all cold. It was a lovely night and the moonbeams made the water less terribly black than one might imagine given its dankness and turbidity. With her nose so close to the water's surface, Melba detected a reassuring odor, fresh tar and fermented cabbage. The plank creaked as Randal Hans rolled after her. Melba felt the heat from his body warming her back.

Principal Benjamin was working on the cure for something, said Randal Hans, leadingly. In the basement of the school. I wouldn't know, said Melba and she heard Randal Hans huff, then felt his palms on her shoulders as he pushed off from her, widening the distance between them. They lay in silence, facing away from each other on opposite sides of the plank.

Even though it had seemed to her withholding and mean at the time, Melba was glad then that she had not given herself to Randal Hans when the opportunity had arisen in the unoccupied car of the funicular device. She loved Randal Hans and didn't want their relationship to end in death or in non-intimacy, but what other options were there? Maybe Melba Zuzzo had a problem too, a problem just like Diana Joy's. She wondered what she wanted with Randal Hans and she thought perhaps something like the muddled closeness one finds between a friendless brother and his friendless sister who live together in an old farmhouse and co-parent an orphan.