Truda rolled her eyes. Whyever in the world did she have to go to this stupid concert anyway? Drat Frau Hildscheim. No teacher but she would have assigned a concert attendance to her high school music students. But that wasn't the worst of it. One, Truda didn't really care for dressing formally, but apparently concertwear was rather formal indeed. And two, her parents both had business engagements the night of the concert, so Truda had to go with her grandpa.
Now, some people thought her grandpa was pretty special. After all, he'd lived through World War II and had plenty of tales to tell of the battles. But sometimes hearing him made so much of by all the adults in Truda's life soured her own view of him. He talked slowly and couldn't always process new ideas, and he was totally hopeless with modern technology. And this was her escort to a high-class concert–she'd rather have been assigned a five-page report on counterpoint or something like that.
So she and her grandpa had sat through an hour and a half of classical music that nearly bored her to tears (although the tears might have been brought on by her pinching high heels), and now she was helping him down the grand staircase towards the concert hall's foyer. They were the last ones on the stairs; Grandpa moved as slowly as he spoke. No, wait, they weren't the last ones–a tall, thin, pale man hurried past them, jauntily swinging a cane which he apparently carried for style only. Truda personally thought it looked ridiculous, very old-school, but everyone was entitled to his opinion, and now she and Grandpa really were the only ones on the stairs. She tried to hurry him up a little bit, and they finally reached the foot.
That was when the screaming broke out.