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The crowd in question was 103 kids, ranging froht ruefully, no audience of kids had ever looked quite like this

No one over the age of five went unarmed There were knives, h theuns

No one was fashionably dressed At least, not by any of the nor shirts and jeans in sizes way too large Some wore ponchos made of blankets Many went barefoot Some had decorated thes made to fit with tape, painted faces, plastic flowers, all manner of bandannas, ties, and crisscross belts

But they were clean, at least Much cleaner than they’d been back in Perdido Beach aliven theone, as was detergent, but freshwater did wonders all by itself It was possible to be in a group of kids noithout gagging on the stink

Here and there as the sun sank and the shadows grew Saarette butts And despite all they’d tried to do there were still bottles of booze--either original or les of kids And probably, if he’d bothered, he could have caught a whiff of s were better Between the food they raised and the fish they caught in the lake and the food they traded for fro This was an accomplishment of epic proportion

And then there was the Sinder project, which had a that so It was like so that there was so he should have seen, would have seen if he just turned around quickly enough

It was like that Like soe of his peripheral vision When he turned to look it was still in his peripheral vision

It was looking at hiht now

"Paranoia," Sa slowly nuts, dude Orto yourself"

He sighed and shook his head and forrin he hoped would spread from without to within He just wasn’t used to so rief

Salanced back

"Diana," he said He stood up and offered her his chair

"Really not necessary," Diana said "I’nant, not crippled" But she took the chair anyway

"How are you doing?"

"My boobs are swollen and they hurt," she said She cocked her head sideways and looked at hiree of affection "Really? ThatIt’s…" He couldn’t really think of what else it ht be

"Well, then, I’ll spare you soht now On the good side I no longer throw up every ood," Sam said

"On the downside, I have to pee more or less all the ti hi at Diana e beneath her T-shirt And yet she was no less beautiful than she’d ever been and still had the sa s of areolae?" she teased