“Now swear on your heart that the data you are about to receive will be DIVULGED to no one.”

So mostly I just VEGETATE in the basement and pick my navel, to quote Grim, Mr. Belly Button Lint himself.

It’s just that people tend to get all choked up about firecracker holidays, and they don’t see what’s really going on, which like I say is the dads SWILLING beer and acting numb, that’s the basic formula. Not that Grim ever SWILLS anything

“Optimum darkness occurs at oh-three-hundred hours,” he says, looking at the new watch his mom gave him, the kind that tells you what time it is in Tokyo, just in case you’re wondering.

I go up the BULKHEAD stairs into the back yard and find a place where I can check it out.

I never...could ABIDE that man. I always thought he was crazy and...scary

I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for a while, and that’s the truth, the whole truth. The UNVANQUISHED truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking.

Okay, I’m out there messing around and that’s when I see the moving van. Not your MAINSTREAM, nationwide, brandname mover, either, just some cheapo local outfit.

“The Blade and his gang,” Freak hisses. “They’ve locked on to us. Their TRAJECTORY is converging. Go to the left,” he says. “Make it quick, if you want to live!”

“Gram must be your grandmother,” he says. “Grim would be, I suppose, a SOBRIQUET for your grandfather, based on his DEMEANOR”