As usual, it being almost Christmas, Martin puts Jane in a sack, drags her down to the basement, and shackles her to the wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so you don\u2019t eat Santa!\u201d he teases her, gaily.<\/p>\n
He throws her homework and half a pizza in after her. Then he locks the door with seven locks!<\/p>\n
\u201cSpudgeflidgeon!\u201d she rages. \u201cGeffle-twonk! Glip! Glip!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Martin leans against the door and sighs happily. Years of using invented curse words in her presence have finally<\/em> paid off!<\/p>\n He straightens. He adjusts his goggles. He wanders about the house preparing for Christmas. Then he relaxes and he enjoys the marvelous silence of his home.<\/p>\n He reads a book.<\/p>\n He smokes a pipe. He spits out the pipe, hacking and coughing, and makes himself a big mug of the svart-drink instead.<\/p>\n After a while \u2014<\/p>\n Since nobody\u2019s watching \u2014<\/p>\n He sneaks to his box of holding things. He plays with his classic Star Wars action figures. He cuts things that probably shouldn\u2019t be cut with his cut-anything sword. If your power just went out I\u2019m really sorry. That\u2019s all Martin\u2019s fault!<\/p>\n It\u2019s not mine!<\/p>\n He takes out his stone. He puts in on his forehead. He traipses around as a billy goat, then as a small Godzilla, then as a number of other barnyard animals \u2014 tortoises, sheep, capybaras, and the like \u2014 and ultimately goes back to being a goat one more time.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just so satisfying!<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMeh-eh,\u201d he bleats.<\/p>\n Then it\u2019s back to hanging up stockings and making the house more Christmas-y. He consults the scroll of evil prophecy to see if there\u2019s anything else that must be done.<\/p>\n \u201cCinnamon!\u201d he says. He bonks his forehead. He adds cinnamon to the apple cider that he\u2019s brewing. He pours a little more along the edge of the window to keep out immortal and other, non-immortal, ants.<\/p>\n Then he sits back to think about presents.<\/p>\n \u201cTime sheets,\u201d he concludes. What little sister wouldn\u2019t<\/em> love the opportunity to sign in and sign out for chores around the house, scientific research, and high adventure? Plus, he\u2019s been a little concerned that she might be indulging herself with a bit too much unauthorized overtime. Not under his <\/em>roof she won\u2019t!<\/p>\n He\u2019s deep in the middle of the design \u2014 he\u2019s a graphic designer \u2014<\/p>\n When Lucy Souvante begins pounding at Jane and Martin\u2019s door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As usual, it being almost Christmas, Martin puts Jane in a sack, drags her down to the basement, and shackles her to the wall. \u201cIt\u2019s so you don\u2019t eat Santa!\u201d he teases her, gaily. He throws her homework and half a pizza in after her. Then he locks the door with seven locks! \u201cSpudgeflidgeon!\u201d she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-5922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-16","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Jane31.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922","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=5922"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5970,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions\/5970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}