. . .

Alerts travel up their hierarchy. A response organizes. Soldiers prepare themselves tensely. Jane reads the sun-eating wolf a story, but she isn’t happy about it. She plays tug-of-war with the sun-eating wolf over a bit of knotted rope that is also on fire. She scolds Skoll for being Skoll and gives Skoll a treat for being Skoll and is in general very bad at providing a nurturing home environment. Then she goes to bed. Agency social workers strike!

They raid Jane’s home in the middle of the night. They seize Jane about the waist. They carry her off.

“What?” says Jane. “What?”

She stretches her arms towards the house. She yells, as if in slow motion, “Rose-bud . . .”

This is because she has not quite grasped yet that this is not a game.

Hiring clowns to impersonate activist social workers and raid their house in the middle of the night is just exactly the kind of thing that Martin would probably do.

Skoll twitches an ear.

<< . . .

. . . >>