“My father called you Zizi.”
“Oh, you were snooping?” Zed’s expression went dark again. “So you saw when he took my gloves? Just ripped them off like garters from a halfpenny w***e—” he went silent then. People do that, when you’re a child, and they’ve just said a bad word. The better choice would be to keep talking, distract you until you’ve forgotten what they said, but instead they just freeze up so the last thing you heard was exactly what they didn’t want you to. But I already knew what a w***e was. I spent time in the kitchens and the cook’s boys were all very open about their exploits at weeks-end. So I was less interested in the apology that Zed began to stammer out, and more interested in why my father was calling him an owl.
ripped“I suppose I won’t go and ask my mother what a
