"Suzette Haden Elgin - And then there'll be fireworks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

fully prepared to see to it that a suitable explanation was
provided for anybody present that couldn't understand
that on their own.

The little ones sang their hearts out, and the older
ones sighed and released their grips upon the small
heads just a mite. The children knew already; sing, sing
loud, and sing joyful. Make a joyful noise . . . they
knew. Or there'd be a smaller version of the Long Whip
waiting at home, and the mother assigned a specific
number of strokes to be laid on, by the Deacon that'd
spotted the wavering voice. It made for hearty music.

Eustace Laddercane Traveller the ^th believed, really
believed, in the Holy One Almighty. And there had not

And Then There'll Be Fireworks

been a whipping yet that he had not raised his own
voice in the closing hymn, almost roaring out the words,
waiting for the divine wrath to reach the limit of Its en-
durance and strike Granny Leeward dead before his
eyes. It had not happened yet, but his faith that it
would was a rock on which he stood, and a comfort to
him in the nights when often he dreamed it was a child
of his loins that cringed and screamed and twisted under
the strokes of the Whip.

"It went well, to my mind," said Nathan Overholt
Traveller the loist. "No faintings, no foolishness, and
no punishments to pass out afterwardтАФall very satis-
factory."

The other three nodded, and agreed that it had gone
well enough.

"Well enough, perhaps." That was Feebus Timothy
Traveller the 6th, youngest of the Magicians of Rank on
Tinaseeh. "But the child ought not to have died."
The two Fanon brothers, Sheridan Pike the 2$th and
Luke Nathaniel the i9th, looked at each other. There
were times when they wondered about Feebus Timothy,
finding him a tad soft, wondering if there wasn't a slight
taint of Airy blood there somewhere to account for what
came near at times to romantic notions. Times when
they felt he'd profit from a stroke or two of the Long
Whip himself. He sorely needed toughening up.

"There is no room on Tinaseeh for a disobedient
child," said Nathan Overholt harshly. "The subject is