Page 54 (1/2)

No one ever treated Charles Merriht not be totally worthless Except Howard, and that was just so Howard could use him

The only other person who had been nice to him was Astrid Not like she liked him, but she didn’t think he was scu

He had saved her life once But even before that she’d been nice to hiot to his feet

In the end Saht by the train They had crates to burn and a reassuring fire roared high into the night sky

They made a camp out of lawn furniture They ate Nutella and drank Pepsi, nowhere near tired of the sweetness

They stared into the flaoing to find out about the reed He lance at Toto, as dozing fitfully on a wicker chaise lounge

"We can’t get all this to town They have to coht now is a bunch ofere they called?"

"M3-MAAWS," Jack said "Multi-role Anti-Ar the instruction ht of the fire

Sam rolled his eyes "M3s Yeah, this would be, like, the last thing I would want to see getting into a kid’s hands"

"Can we hide theested

"I won’t tell anyone," Jack said distractedly "I don’t want kids co my ’puters, anyway"

"We have a new member of our little band," Sareat at keeping secrets"

He got up to throw another wooden crate on the fire The fire would most likely keep the coyotes away He yawned and flopped into the wicker rocking chair and hefted his sore feet onto the little table

"You knohat?" Sae" He laughed contentedly "I’ll tell Albert I’ll hand Toto off to Edilio Then? Notto work, Sa her sto the et soht he woke to see the fire had burned down to glowing coals He saw Dekka soht She had her back to him, her shirt lifted up to expose her stomach, which she prodded and poked

Sam went back to sleep and cah the fire was al

So out there in the dark

Coyotes? He didn’t want a fight with coyotes--if he or one of the others was badly hurt, there was no easy way to get back to Lana

He raised his hand and tossed a Sa a sickly light over the caer

"What is it?" Dekka hissed