“Spanner, please,” he said as he flailed with his hand outside the bonnet; his head inside.
I toddled from the stoop and found it for him. The hand took it greedily and disappeared to join the head.
“How would you go about describing smoke?” I ventured. I couldn’t see any response, but there was a sudden, brief cessation of tinkering.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” he said finally, petulantly.
I shrugged. “I was just thinking about it.”
And then he pulled his head out and screwed his eyes into focus. “… about describing smoke?”
“About how to go about describing smoke.” I told him, secretly very pleased.
He hesitated a minute, then leaned inside the motorcar again. “You are a queer boy.”
