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Show 51 Chapter 8 I began to get hungry because I hadn't eaten anything except a crust of leftover bread very early that morning, but I didn't want to go back to the Meinersing house for the noon meal. If I wasn't going to work for Master Hermann for a week, it didn't seem right that he should have to feed me. Gast seemed to read my thoughts, as always. "Buy yourself some food," he said, handing me some small coins. "I will be busy for the next few hours, but I will find you this evening when the celebration begins." He went off then, walking toviard the river and the bridge. I didn't want to go near the bridge again. I couldn't stand to see it when I was trying so hard to forget the savagery of the children, so I stood uncertainly on the cobbled stones of Market Square wondering what to do with myself. The street was filling with people going about their usual everyday business, housewives buying the food they needed to prepare for the Sabbath the next day. One by one, the women and children and the merchants called out to me, smiling and nodding. These were the same citizens of Hamelin who had always ignored me before, looking past me and pretending I didn't exist. That day, however, they were friendly and talkative. Mothers tugged at their children's hands and pointed to me. "There goes Geist," I heard again and again, "the boy who helped Gast get rid of the rats." For some reason I felt upset by the attention. After buying strawberries from a farmer who had brought his produce to town, then |