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Show Anting Alone Page 228 Spikey's same age and in real good shape, except he moved kind of stiff, especially down around that part of a man where good marriages are made and not in heaven, if you take the drift, as Spikey's dad used to say when Mama Mae Bell was in town shopping and he got a little too much cough syrup in his iced tea. And, though the political theory guy yelled a lot and said crazy things about blowtorching people's faces and hiding people's daughters, he always kept his voice sort of flat and dead somehow. But the other Hostages for Freedom didn't seem to take much notice of his weird voice. They really liked to hear him talk, and really got their patriotism rallied up around Spikey when they heard the warmer-upper speeches. So Spikey figured it must be okay. Spikey was the mascot, the symbol, the walking insignia, and the martial arts instructor, also. That's howcome they called themselves the Hostages for Freedom, because Spikey used to be a hostage over in Eyeran and all that. He was kind of the famous one. He was the one responsible for their actions. That's what the political theory guy said. Sometimes Spikey wished he'd never got taken hostage at all in the first place, or else if he did get took hostage that he'd never got sent free. He seemed like he grew a whole lot older than all his old friends during that hitch in Eyeran, a lot more older than just a year's worth plus two months. Maybe that's why he couldn't get as rallied up as everybody else by the political theory guy's voice. Maybe he was just too old to get rallied up much anymore. The political theory guy stuck his head out the truck window and screamed a word that he taught the guys a long time ago in an early |
