\u201cI didn\u2019t make my hat for this,\u201d says Tom. \u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to make everyone into soulless cannibals!\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom bumps into Lucy Souvante \u2014 space princess assassin, his one-time enemy, and the evil prophet of space. He recognizes her instantly. He draws his pocket flamethrower. He turns. He squirts his space distorter to gain distance and fires \u2014<\/p>\n
She has already caught his gun hand and pushed it aside, already lifted him by the neck, is already staring at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou followed <\/i>me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI go to school here,\u201d he squeaks.<\/p>\n
She puts him down.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d she says. \u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all right,\u201d he says. \u201cI was going to set you on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looks him up and down.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re different, boy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a ha\u2014aa\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
His word is both interrupted and strung out when she plucks it from his head, looks it this way and that, and experimentally puts it on.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t eat me,\u201d whispers Tom.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not,\u201d she says. Then her stomach rumbles. \u201cI mean,\u201d she says. She licks her lips. \u201cI mean \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
She closes her eyes. She counts one, two, three<\/i>, while lifting and lowering her hand.<\/p>\n
She throws paper.<\/p>\n
Tom has also thrown paper. She squints at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s what you threw last time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I win, I get to eat you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to play rock-paper-scissors for my life \u2014\u201d he starts. One, two three<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Paper against paper.<\/p>\n
Lucy squints at him. \u201cI should warn you,\u201d she says, \u201cthat I always throw paper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just aces,\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because I\u2019m an evil prophet \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s punched her in the stomach and he\u2019s grabbed his hat back.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s run away!<\/p>\n
\u201cGod damn it,\u201d she says, because he\u2019s around the corner now, so he could throw rock or even scissors on their next go and she wouldn\u2019t even know.<\/p>\n
The House of Hunger is bad. They terrify him.<\/p>\n
The Keepers\u2019 House is worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI didn\u2019t make my hat for this,\u201d says Tom. \u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to make everyone into soulless cannibals!\u201d Tom bumps into Lucy Souvante \u2014 space princess assassin, his one-time enemy, and the evil prophet of space. He recognizes her instantly. He draws his pocket flamethrower. He turns. He squirts his space distorter to gain distance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-chapter-2","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Icon_Ink_Paper-e1422845006103.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039","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=5039"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6163,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions\/6163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}