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Wednesday, November 12, 2014

147

"Why did you do that?" Bjorn asked, following Katinka with his eyes as she headed for the kitchen. "Poor girl. What came over you?"
"Well, I was curious," Ante replied sheepishly.
"But you know how rude that was, don't you?"
"Ah... Well..."
"Would you have asked that kind of questions if she was a grown woman?"

Ante did not answer right away, taking instead another piece of pizza.

"But she isn't, is she?" Ante said defiantly. "She's not even seventeen. You know what that makes Roger. Well... it makes him a pervert. That's what it makes him."

But just as Ante said this, Roger appeared in the door of the kitchen, looking straight at the two men.

"Oh my," Bjorn muttered. "Look what you've done."
"Ups."
"So, what you gonna do now?" Bjorn whispered, following Roger with his eyes as he descended on their table.
"Me? Well..."

"If you two could treat Katinka with a little respect, that would be fine," Roger said as he neared the table.
"Respect?" Ante asked, pretending to be clueless.
"Yeah, you  know. A little courtesy never hurt anyone."
"No?"
"But people have been known to regret their disrespect for other people."
"Disrespect?"
"Are you a little hard of hearing or what?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you."

Ante looked over at Bjorn, begging for help.

"You know... I'm sorry," Bjorn ventured.
"You're sorry?" Roger asked. "And how about your buddy over here. Is he sorry too? After all, he's the twit, not you."
"I... I'm sorry," Ante said. "I was just..."
"You were just?"
"Well..."
"She's an orphan, all right?" Roger explained. "She doesn't need you to make herself feel less for it."
"But..."
"But what?"
"I wasn't criticizing her for being an orphan."
"No?"

Ante looked again over at Bjorn for help.

"Well... eh... I guess we did in a way... unintentionally," Bjorn said, trying desperately to find a way to avoid the real issue. "You know... without knowing it."
"Yeah?"
"Well... you know the Guardian Angels?" Bjorn continued, spinning his story as fast as he could.
"The TV show?"
"Yeah..."
"It's tripe. What about it?"
"Ah... well... we kind of like it, don't we, Ante?" Bjorn said, now looking to Ante for help.
"Yes we do. We think they are great!" Ante continued. "Love the way they take care of the kids, you know... Real heroes! But... well... I guess you two see it differently?"
"Yeah we do," Roger said with a serious frown. "It's a bunch of self serving crap."
"Oh, but they save the children. I mean... what would happen to those poor little kiddies if it wasn't for them?" Ante continued, a little too enthusiastically for Bjorn's taste.
"You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?" Roger said with disgust.
"Well... but seriously... who would take care of the kiddies?"
"Good people," Roger answered. "Like me and Elisabeth, and you know... There's no shortage of good people in the world. We don't need a bunch of evil psychopaths to run these things."
"Eh... good people like you?" Ante asked, unable to contain his curiosity.
"Yeah. I'm taking care of Katinka. You got a problem with that?"
"Eh... no..." Ante answered, pretending not to care.
"Good... So, is that all then?" Roger asked, changing his focus to the pizza pieces still left on the serving tray. "You're still working on that, are you?"
"Yeah, we're still eating," Bjorn answered.
"Okay. And go a little easy on Katinka, will you?" Roger continued in conclusion, turning back to the kitchen before the two men could answer.

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