- •Vice-president in Charge of Volcanoes 9
- •I thought the worst of everyone, and I knew some pretty sordid things about Dr. Asa Breed, things Sandra had told me.
- •I asked Dr. Breed how many people were trying to reach the General Forge and Foundry Company by eight o'clock, and he told me thirty thousand.
- •I smiled at one of the guards. He did not smile back. There was nothing funny about national security, nothing at all.
- •I was surprised and mawkishly heartbroken. I am always moved by that seldom-used treasure, the sweetness with which most girls can sing.
- •I asked Marvin Breed if he'd known Emily Hoenikker, the wife of Felix; the mother of Angela, Frank, and Newt; the woman under that monstrous shaft.
- •I admitted I was.
- •If you wish to study a _granfalloon_,
- •I talked to the Mintons about the legal status of Franklin Hoenikker, who was, after all, not only a big shot in "Papa" Monzano's government, but a fugitive from United States justice.
- •I was so gay and mean,
- •I looked up _Monzano, Mona Aamons_ in the index, and was told by the index to see Aamons, Mona.
- •I was in the bar with Newt and h. Lowe Crosby and a couple of strangers, when San Lorenzo was sighted. Crosby was talking about pissants. "You know what I mean by a pissant?"
- •I looked for Mona, found that she was still serene and had withdrawn to the rail of the reviewing stand. Death, if there was going to be death, did not alarm her.
- •Irrelevantly, I found that I had to know at once who the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy had been.
- •I asked the driver who the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy had been. The boulevard we were going down, I saw, was called the Boulevard of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy.
- •I undertook to explain the deeper significance of the cat's cradle, since Newt seemed disinclined to go through that song and dance again.
- •Is a form of treason.
- •I thought at first that this was a fairly comical suggestion. But then, from Angela's reaction, I learned that the suggestion was serious and practical.
- •I told Angela and Newt about it.
- •I looked at Mona, meltingly, and I thought that I had never needed anyone as much as I needed her.
- •I laughed.
- •Inwardly, I agreed to become the next President of San Lorenzo.
- •I got off the floor, sat in a chair, and started putting my shoes and socks back on.
- •I had stopped ruling. "I see you do," I said.
- •I See the Hook 95
- •I asked him what particular Christian sect he represented, and I observed frankly that the chicken and the butcher knife were novelties insofar as my understanding of Christianity went.
- •I did not drink the rum.
- •I asked who the caricaturist was and learned that he was Dr. Vox Humana, the Christian minister. He was at my elbow.
- •I turned to Castle the elder. "Sir, how does a man die when he's deprived of the consolations of literature?"
- •I'm not quite sure why we hid him. I think it must have been to simplify the tableau.
- •I supposed that the ceremonies might as well begin, and I told Frank to suggest to Ambassador Horlick Minton that he deliver his speech.
- •It separated me from my fellow men.
- •I made up a tune to go with that and I whistled it under my breath as I drove the bicycle that drove the fan that gave us air, good old air.
- •I Am Slow to Answer 121
- •I let my mind go blank. I closed my eyes. It was with deep, idiotic relief that I leaned on that fleshy, humid, barn-yard fool.
- •In the background of this cozy conversation were the nagging dah-dah-dahs and dit-dit-dits of an automatic sos transmitter Frank had made. It called for help both night and day.
- •I hated to see Hazel finishing the flag, because I was all balled up in her addled plans for it. She had the idea that I had agreed to plant the fool thing on the peak of Mount McCabe.
I Am Slow to Answer 121
"What a cynic!" I gasped. I looked up from the note and gazed around the death-filled bowl. "Is _he_ here somewhere?"
"I do not see him," said Mona mildly. She wasn't depressed or angry. In fact, she seemed to verge on laughter. "He always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it was worthless."
"He'd _better_ be here!" I said bitterly. "Think of the gall of the man, advising all these people to kill themselves!"
Now Mona did laugh. I had never heard her laugh. Her laugh was startlingly deep and raw.
"This strikes you as _funny?_"
She raised her arms lazily. "It's all so simple, that's all. It solves so much for so many, so simply."
And she went strolling up among the petrified thousands, still laughing. She paused about midway up the slope and faced me. She called down to me, "Would you wish any of these alive again, if you could? Answer me quickly.
"Not quick enough with your answer," she called playfully, after half a minute had passed. And, still laughing a little, she touched her finger to the ground, straightened up, and touched the finger to her lips and died.
Did I weep? They say I did. H. Lowe Crosby and his Hazel and little Newton Hoenikker came upon me as I stumbled down the road. They were in Bolivar's one taxicab, which had been spared by the storm. They tell me I was crying. Hazel cried, too, cried for joy that I was alive.
They coaxed me into the cab.
Hazel put her arm around me. "You're with your mom, now. Don't you worry about a thing."
I let my mind go blank. I closed my eyes. It was with deep, idiotic relief that I leaned on that fleshy, humid, barn-yard fool.
The Swiss Family Robinson 122
They took me to what was left of Franklin Hoenikker's house at the head of the waterfall. What remained was the cave under the waterfall, which had become a sort of igloo under a translucent, blue-white dome of _ice-nine_.
The mйnage consisted of Frank, little Newt, and the Crosbys. They had survived in a dungeon in the palace, one far shallower and more unpleasant than the oubliette. They had moved out the moment the winds had abated, while Mona and I had stayed underground for another three days.
As it happened, they had found the miraculous taxicab waiting for them under the arch of the palace gate. They had found a can of white paint, and on the front doors of the cab Frank had painted white stars, and on the roof he had painted the letters of a _granfalloon_: U.S.A.
"And you left the paint under the arch," I said.
"How did you know?" asked Crosby.
"Somebody else came along and wrote a poem."
I did not inquire at once as to how Angela Hoenikker Conners and Philip and Julian Castle had met their ends, for I would have had to speak at once about Mona. I wasn't ready to do that yet.
I particularly didn't want to discuss the death of Mona since, as we rode along in the taxi, the Crosbys and little Newt seemed so inappropriately gay.
Hazel gave me a clue to the gaiety. "Wait until you see how we live. We've got all kinds of good things to eat. Whenever we want water, we just build a campfire and melt some. The Swiss Family Robinson--that's what we call ourselves."
Of Mice and Men 123
A curious six months followed--the six months in which I wrote this book. Hazel spoke accurately when she called our little society the Swiss Family Robinson, for we had survived a storm, were isolated, and then the living became very easy indeed. It was not without a certain Walt Disney charm.
No plants or animals survived, it's true. But _ice-nine_ preserved pigs and cows and little deer and windrows of birds and berries until we were ready to thaw and cook them. Moreover, there were tons of canned goods to be had for the grubbing in the ruins of Bolivar. And we seemed to be the only people left on San Lorenzo.
Food was no problem, and neither were clothing or shelter, for the weather was uniformly dry and dead and hot. Our health was monotonously good. Apparently all the germs were dead, too--or napping.
Our adjustment became so satisfactory, so complacent, that no one marveled or protested when Hazel said, "One good thing anyway, no mosquitoes."
She was sitting on a three-legged stool in the clearing where Frank's house had stood. She was sewing strips of red, white, and blue cloth together. Like Betsy Ross, she was making an American flag. No one was unkind enough to point out to her that the red was really a peach, that the blue was nearly a Kelly green, and that the fifty stars she had cut out were six-pointed stars of David rather than five-pointed American stars.
Her husband, who had always been a pretty good cook, now simmered a stew in an iron pot over a wood fire nearby. He did all our cooking for us; he loved to cook.
"Looks good, smells good," I commented.
He winked. "Don't shoot the cook. He's doing the best he can."