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meaning which would come to her. It meant he had a twisty sense of humor, that was all, then again, however she got to meaning she would be there.
She’s back there now, silent and hawk-eyed, as they rush through the bright morning. The first night, they’d slept in a clearing just off the road, she in his sleeping bag, Max under his Swiss-cheese blanket. Last night, he had found a cheap motel. He’d told the clerk she was his daughter, and the gnarly little gnome had leered at him and shoved the room key across the counter. He’d been tempted to poke the rodent in the snoot, but that might have brought the Cops in. Though of course they show up anyway now, the siren starting up and startling him, lights and clamor chasing them down to the shoulder of the road.
Max turns and whispers to her that she’s still his daughter, and she nods to him, big green eyes too deep to see what’s behind them.
It’s two cops, highway patrolmen: old cop-young cop, fat cop-skinny cop, bad cop-worse cop. The old cop stays behind the wheel while the young cop comes over and asks for his license. He hands it over, feeling he should explain to the girl why he actually has it, that the license is another form of Cop Repellant, something to keep them off when you can’t avoid them.
The cops don’t detain them long, and when he asks what’s going on, why’d they pull him over, the young cop says there was a ten-year-old boy snatched yesterday on his way home from school. Half the state is looking for him.
Max and the young cop deplore the state of the world – it’s eerie and funny how much he and the cop start sounding alike, but then Old Cop Joe sticks his head out the window and yells that they need to get moving. The young cop says yeah and nods to Max and smiles and bows to Ellen, who nods back, which amuses Max greatly.
As the black-and-white spurts off, spewing dust, he tells the girl that she handled that very well, and she looks down and says thank you. It’s cute that she’s embarrassed.
It’s not ten minutes later that he feels her grip around him slacken, and turns from the waist and grabs her just before she would have fallen from the bike. Her helmet falls off and bounces away, creepily like an actual decapitated head, and her hair
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Quo Vadis, Baby 2 |
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All work within this periodical is copyrighted by the authors and Big Pond Rumour, January 2008. No part is to be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the authors and Big Pond Rumour Press. |