Go Truman!

For those of you who remember and love him from vol 2: I was rereading a nice scene between him and a young black girl at the end of Chapter 23 of D2L3. After attacking the big, mean lawyer from NJ, and being told by the cruel carnie Doctor Jack Madison that he will be brutally disicplined for this, here's him and the little girl:

As Doctor Jack and the others walked away, Dalia slipped her hand into Truman’s. “You shouldn’t have done that, Professor,” she said, her face very serious. “They’re gonna hurt you so bad tomorrow, and I can’t do anything about that. Please don’t be mad at me. I wish you hadn’t done that.”
Truman leaned close to the bars. “S’okay,” he said in a sighing whisper that could almost be mistaken just for an exhalation of breath, perhaps by someone not as wise and discerning as this young girl. But as Dalia’s eyes widened, he knew she understood – understood there was much more than even she’d seen, and understood that he trusted her with his secret. Truman understood something then, too – that surprising these living people could sometimes be as beautiful as it was exhilarating. Dalia slipped her hand from his and backed slowly away, a look of the purest, most sublime awe shining from her face.