I was up on the roof, chasing increasingly inane theories for Ray's
murder, when the Conrad kid came bursting through the door, which I had
left open. They saw me, and immediately ducked behind one of the ducts.
(Heh.)

I waited a few minutes. When nothing happened, I walked over to the
duct. It was shaking and sobbing slightly, so I reached into my pocket
for the handkerchief I always carry around, and dropped it on the other
side of the vent. After a few moments, it blew its nose with a loud
hooting sound.

"Want to talk about it?" I said as gently as I could. My father is a
pediatrician. I'll have to call him and ask him to calm down unruly
kids. I remember standing there hundreds of times as he managed to get a
screaming, terrified lad of eight to let go of his mother's
bell-bottoms, snop sniffling, eat a popsicle, and then he'd jab a hollow
metal tube into their arm and take their blood. Since he was telling
them a funny story about a lion, an elephant, and a rabbit who walked
into an ice cream salon, they never noticed.

"SomekidsatschoolweremakingfunofmecauseI'maherm" he(as I later learned
they preferred) blurted out.

I settled back against the duct. Hermaphrodites were rare, but no rarer
than, say, a black person with hazel eyes. As such, they were a prized
commodity among fur fetishists, who had plenty of forums dedicated to
them. Surprisingly, androgynous herms, such as Pat here, were largely
ignored in favor of futanari; girls with penises. The ones who did like
AndryHerms were rabid, though.

I recalled the Conrads when they moved in several months ago; a young
couple with a reticent, slightly sulky child of indeterminate gender. I
had only caught a few glimpses of him since, and today was the first
time I learned that he was a herm. His parents seemed a little stressed;
it's not easy to find skirts with carefully-concealed flies in this
city. Better chance in San Francisco.

"Well, Pat, you just have to not let them get to yo-"

"I know that," he cut me off. I peeked, and saw that he was looking at
his hand. It closed into a tiny fist. "I mean, my mind knows it, but it
still hurts."

It occured to me that all really he needed was a hug. And I gave it to
him. He fell asleep, and I took him downstairs. His mother said thank
you so much, we've been looking for him all over--won't you come in and
have some tea? I declined; after all, I had to put up the Christmas
decorations.