\u201cThere goes the roof,\u201d sighs Linus.<\/p>\n
He had always liked the library roof. He stands there, disconsolately, in the rain. The wall behind him begins gently to weep blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that being melancholy or sanguine?\u201d Jane asks, with interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cJane,\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I was going to criticize him for being melancholy at a time like this,\u201d says Jane. \u201cBut now I\u2019m not sure!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI <\/i>am going to be choleric!\u201d says Tom. \u201cShe\u2019s a space princess assassin! She\u2019s trained in calculating complex trajectories! She\u2019s going to figure out the correct angles any second now, jump up here, and slaughter the lot of us!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless,\u201d Jane observes, \u201cwe slam the doors in her face right as she jumps.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cBrilliant!\u201d says Tom. \u201cThat\u2019s thinking like a Doom Team Auxiliary!\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane makes a horrible face at him for reasons Tom cannot comprehend. Seventy seconds later they hear Maria\u2019s heel jets firing.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow!\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n
Tom and Jane and Linus and Edmund slam the balcony doors in Maria\u2019s face. She smashes into the clear plastic with enough force to knock the children back.<\/p>\n
Maria and Mouser look startled and flat. Tom and Jane and Linus and Edmund look winded. But the children recover first.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoop!\u201d says Linus. He pulls open the doors. He grabs the cat. He slams the doors again.<\/p>\n
Maria slides down and falls onto the ground below.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou brats!\u201d she shouts after them, as they scamper out of the library. \u201cThe Fan Hoeng will destroy you all!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s really getting into this assassination thing,\u201d says Linus, nervously.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s blood showing, that\u2019s what that is,\u201d Edmund says.<\/p>\n
\u201c. . . Sorry,\u201d the antichrist says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThere goes the roof,\u201d sighs Linus. He had always liked the library roof. He stands there, disconsolately, in the rain. The wall behind him begins gently to weep blood. \u201cIs that being melancholy or sanguine?\u201d Jane asks, with interest. \u201cJane,\u201d says Tom. \u201cWell, I was going to criticize him for being melancholy at a time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-3921","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\/02\/Linus_Head.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","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=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6344,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions\/6344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}