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"Hold your fire!" Peter yelled

With visible uncertainty, the soldiers counshot outside, Michael?"

The man waved casually "Oh, he er "You three," he said to the soldiers, "clear the rooar climbed off Greer Chase, estured in Chase’s direction "Is he okay?"

"In what sense?"

"I mean does he know?"

"Yeah," Chase said tersely, "I know"

Peter was still furious "The two of you, what do you think you’re doing?"

"Under the circuht a direct approach was best," Greer replied "We have a vehicle outside We need you to coht now"

Peter’s patience was at its end "I’ sense, I’ll toss your asses in the stockade myself and throay the key"

"I’ed"

"So the virals aren’t co back after all? This is all some kind of joke?"

"I’m afraid it’s the opposite," Greer said "They’re already here"

53

A to miss this place

They had decided to leave the rest of their chores undone for the day There see thearden tend itself

She felt sick, almost feverish Could she control it? Would she kill hiot to do it the way Zero done, Carter had told her Ain’t no other way to go back to the way you were

The girls atching ajust a girl herself: The Wizard of Oz The movie had terrified her--the tornado, the field of poppies, the wicked witch with her sickly green skin and battalion of airborne monkeys in bellman’s hats--but she had also loved it Amy had watched it in the motel where she and her mother had lived Her o out to the highway, and before she left she’d sit A to eat, soht now Mama will be back soon Don’t you open that door for nobody Auilt in hera child by herself wasn’t so her mother was supposed to do--and Amy’s heart alent out to her, because she loved her, and the woman was so remorseful and sad all the time, as if life was a series of disappoint to stop Soet out of bed all day, and then night would fall, and the skirt and the top and the television would go on, and she’d leave Aht of The Wizard of Oz had been their last in the motel, or so Amy recalled She’d watched cartoons for a while and, when these were over, a game show, and then she flipped around the dial until the ht her eye The colors were odd, too vivid That was the first thing she noticed Lying on the bed, which se of sweat, and perfu distinctly her own--Amy settled in to watch She entered the story when Dorothy, having rescued her dog fro from the storm The tornado whisked her away; she found herself in the land of the Munchkins, who sang about their happy lives But, of course, there was the problem of the feet--the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East, sticking out from beneath Dorothy’s tornado-driven house