Bertram pants. He gasps for air. He flees to his car, tears squealing out of the lot, flees across the city to Amelia. He hears the building crumble behind him; and after that, he never again feels safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmelia!\u201d he cries, bursting in on her. She is staring grimly at a blender full of alchemical substances. Then, almost three seconds later, she startles violently.<\/p>\n
\u201cBertram!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m being hunted by a space princess assassin!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve adopted a girl!\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do with girls!\u201d<\/p>\n
He looks confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a girl,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know!\u201d she says. \u201cBut I had a toad!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d he says. \u201cWhy have you adopted a girl?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is supposed to destroy the world,\u201d Amelia says. \u201cWell, the portents are ambiguous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no room left for anybody else to destroy the world,\u201d says Bertram, frustrated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not her<\/i> fault,\u201d Amelia says.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoint,\u201d Bertram concedes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were going to kill her. But I said, \u2018no! No killing! Instead I will adopt her!\u2019 Then they gave me that look that people make.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bertram eyes her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes! That one! The one that says, \u2018you are quite the renegade, Amelia, but for some reason or other we will accept your unreasonable notions.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout that,\u201d says Bertram.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d says Bertram. \u201cI mean, um. It is, I have debts, you see. So, thus, I mean. I mean, the space princess. I mean, she was going to kill<\/i> me, Amelia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeath is very frightening,\u201d Amelia agrees. \u201cDo little girls like trucks or is that only boys?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDead!\u201d says Bertram. \u201cBang!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, buy her off with your money,\u201d Amelia tells him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not \u2014 I \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr your archaeology!\u201d<\/p>\n
Bertram sags.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m such a loser,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Amelia stares at him with stress-filled eyes. \u201cWhat if she makes a baby? What if she makes a baby out of trucks?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
That is when the blender\u2019s top explodes, showering the room with alchemy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bertram pants. He gasps for air. He flees to his car, tears squealing out of the lot, flees across the city to Amelia. He hears the building crumble behind him; and after that, he never again feels safe. \u201cAmelia!\u201d he cries, bursting in on her. She is staring grimly at a blender full of alchemical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-3609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stomping-the-world-round-chapter-4","series-stwr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Bertram2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3609"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6403,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions\/6403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3609"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=3609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}