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Show Anting Alone Page 237 making the guys all move together at once, light and crazy on their bare feet. So many guys' different brands of craziness were rubbing off on him now, and he couldn't help it, he was so scared, but he was laughing now. "You got to do a countdown like on old Lawrence Welk before he rips into one o' them fine polkas," said Spikey. He talked loud and important and did him a karate-do dance so some of the gal-chasers might hear and turn around and leave the little-bitty gals be and come and watch the big Lawrence Welk Polka Show. "A-one!" Spikey was screaming now. "A-two, a-three!" The old man went down slow and easy. He had a peacefuller expression under his white beard than Spikey ever saw, or would ever hope to see again, except on old hound dogs asleep on the porch after the big autumn duck hunt. The Hostages for Freedom did Johnny Rebel whoops and fell on him and began stripping him of everything but his natural attached teeth, and at that moment Spikey first noticed the whimpering sound that seemed like it might of been going on at his elbow for a long while. It was his little Eyeranian-like buddy. With the first really big gush of blackish foreign blood into the Wheatville dust, Spikey's little pal's whimper turned into a scream. It was a real high pretty girlish scream. The kid ran between two buildings and started off across the alfalfa field in the direction of home, taking half a barbwire fence with him. Spikey saw the horrible look on the political theory guy's non- Nebraskan face, so Spikey yelled, "Coward! Deserter! Traitor! You come on back here!" The political theory guy reached for a Magnum he had concealed under |