“Did you know that Gideon and I were trained in Krav Maga?” Charlotte took another step closer to me, and I automatically took one back.
“No, but did /you/ know that at this moment you look like that crazy rodent in Ice Age?”
“Things aren’t perfect. They are far, far from it,but they are getting there, and I wasn’t looking back. Not when there were so many good things in the future.”
After leaving Earth, Catsic the Henge, it seemed, had spent decades seeking a Goldilocks planet to settle down on. One that wasn’t too hot, and wasn’t too cold.
“How did you die?”
“We er….drowned in a bathtub.”
“All three of you?”
“It was a big bathtub.”
“Too much damned TV. Thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes.”
“That’s professor Moriarty,” corrected Foaly.
“Holmes, Moriarty, they both look the same with the flesh scorched off their skulls.”
“Fluctuat nec mergitur.”
“Is that Latin?”
“Yes. It’s the motto of Paris–something like, Tossed but not sunk. The French translate it a bit more prettily–She is tossed by the waves but she does not sink.” Then he looked at me. “We’ve all been tossed by the waves, haven’t we, little ‘un? The t-trick is not to sink…”
“The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the Pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn’t do in the Pants — like picking your nose.”
“It’s not like I ever thought I’d live forever – or wanted to – but it had never occurred to me that I might die before I’d lived.”
Chief Nudd turned his head. Cole looked up.
At the end of the platform stood Fable, her jaw squared and hands clenched fists.
“Fable, no!” the queen yelled.
And then Fable punched the universe.
“You couldn’t keep sidling up to death and dipping your toe in. Eventually it grabbed your ankle and tried to pull you under.”