Chapter Two Page 7
Patrick: You don’t have to do this for me.
Bianca: I’m not so broke that I can’t afford to buy you a sandwich once in a while. If you don’t like it . . . could I order you to? Would that work, telling your tastes to change?
Patrick: I don’t have tastes.
Bianca: You must have some–
Patrick: I mean literally. Beings don’t have taste buds.
Bianca: Oh! Good thing I got the cheapest one, then.
I feel like the king in The Little Prince. Have you read it?
Patrick: I don’t know.
Bianca: He says a ruler shouldn’t order their subjects to do anything they’re not capable of doing. But he takes that so far that all his orders are for things that were going to happen anyway. Like ordering the sun to go down at sunset. That’s how I’m trying to be for you with this “Master” business. An authority in name only. You see what I mean?
Patrick: I’ll try.
Bianca: Good! That’s enough to start with. So . . .
. . . how did it go with the books? How far did you get?
Here’s a setup for miscommunication based on assumptions. Bianca assumed he could read due to his apparent age. Patrick assumes Bianca won’t be happy unless he could read all of the books.
Bianca is obviously not the sort who’d take an admission of illiteracy as something to feel bad about, though. As a librarian, I bet she knows just where the “My First Alphabet” books are!
If Patrick lies or runs away in fear over not being able to read, then his woobie-ness goes into annoying territory. But if he admits it honestly and is then earnestly surprised by Bianca declaring there’s a way to fix it, that would be much more satisfying.
Now this raises another slew of questions! If beings have no taste buds, how are they able to detect poisons or other toxins in their food?
I’m guessing they may be immune to toxins. Which raises the question of what kind of environmental hazards they can tolerate without ill-effect.
Well, we know that weapons can kill them, so makes me wonder about stuff like sodium pentathol.
Oh, he’s Jared, 19, isn’t he.