The cat had forgotten that he had been supposed to ask Gil about this months ago. With all of the other things that had happened since spring it had been pushed out of his mind…had it only been this spring? It felt like two lifetimes ago now…
Gilhooly told his story, balled into his chair and his head down, “‘e said we’d be all square up iffen I’d get sumfin’ fer ‘im… one o’ those Ordo Mucro knives from mister Cleanslate’s desk drawer….”
“He wanted to set up Mister Cleanslate from the sound of it,” Arnold said, remembering how Underby had made his way into city hall this past year.
“…fink ‘e was settin’ up the church…” Gil told him and then Arnold vaguely remembered Lionheart mentioning something about it before… “I sawr ‘im come out from the kittycombs wif a knife… ‘ad grease or summat on it, not blood at all. ‘e tol’ me later…make me feel guilty…” Gil shook his head. “Pip was Lo’s pertecter… ‘e worked fer Underby…”
“You didn’t think he would kill someone who worked for him or watched over his daughter?”
Gil replied softly, “After ‘e was croaked the first time… ‘e came back, said ‘e’d changed… said missus Wickedtower ‘ad ‘im in a spell…” Skute shook his head, “Dinna believe ‘e ever changed…only I was… wot’s the word starts wif g?”
“Gullible or naive is the words you want,” Arnold offored.
Gil sank further into his chair, “Gullible, aye….”
Arnold cursed himself silently, he hadn’t meant to make Gil feel worse. Arnold paused for a few moments and then he continued, “We all fall into snares set by our enemies, especially when we don’t know they intend to do us or others harm. Figuring out who to trust seems like the first lesson to living on the streets…and it’s something you’ve learned since then.”
“Aye… only I gotta not be so… gullible…” The two talked for a short time and Arnold shared a few tricks the cat had learned about how to catch people in lies, and then Gil asked him, “Do grownups lie fer the same reasons kids do?”
Arnold thought about it for a moment and then gave him his opinion, “Not usually, no.”
“Why do grownups do it?”
“Everyone lies for their own individual reasons. Privacy, guilt, and their own amusement, like Stormy. Sometimes the lies are meant to hurt, sometimes they’re meant to help…it’s dependant on every situation.” As Arnold thought about it he grew more annoyed. “It doesn’t really help get things resolved though, I think.”
Gil thought about that and then said, “…rather think kids lie cos they’re ashamed, or afraid, or jealous…”
“Adults do it for those reasons too,” Arnold admitted. “They just find more ‘complex’ reasons to lie than kids do usually.”
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