The strange looks on the faces of Harold W. Smith and Chiun caused him to doubt that statement, but he shoved the doubt into the back of his mind. The nightmare was over. Everyone who mattered to him had gotten through it alive. Everyone who deserved to die, had.
Remo Williams felt a nervous exultation quivering in his solar plexus like butterflies of promise.
His good mood carried him through the fifteen-hour flight in a C-5 Galaxy.
"When we get home," Remo said, lying in a webbing net, his hands clasped behind his head in contentment, "I'm going to bake you a rice cake, Little Father. With a hundred candles."
"Why?"
"For your birthday. You're a hundred now."
"I am not!" Chiun snapped.
Remo sat up. "Then what was all that phony crap you dished out last spring?"
"That was true crap," Chiun retorted. "But I have missed my kohi, therefore I have not properly achieved the venerated age. Since Masters of Sinanju celebrate no birthdays between the ages of eighty and one hundred, I must remain forever young."
"Bull. You're a hundred."
"I am only eighty," said the Master of Sinanju firmly. "Remember this. Any assertion to the contrary is a canard."
They argued this point for the remainder of the flight. Remo Williams didn't care. Smiling contentedly, he let Chiun's carping and complaining wash over him like a reviving surf. All was right with the world. Nothing this bad could ever happen to them again, he was certain.
Epilogue
Miss Lapon of the Hutchison Elementary School in suburban Toronto watched the six-year-olds file into the room.
"Welcome to kindergarten," Miss Lapon said brightly.
The children laughed and giggled. It would take a while to settle them down at their miniature tables, so she went to a cabinet, returning with colorful cardboard cans heavy with Play-Doh.
"For our first day, we're going to work in clay," she announced, setting a can on each table.
"Yay!" the children cried. A little blond girl with sparkling cornflower-blue eyes put her hands over her mouth, suppressing bubbling laughter.
After Miss Lapon had finished passing out the Play-Doh and the children had settled down to kneading and shaping the pastel claylike matter, she went among them to see what their young imaginations were producing.
Not much that an adult mind could recognize, Miss Lapon was not surprised to see. But that was not the purpose of this first-day exercise. Miss Lapon was looking for students having difficulty with motor coordination. It was important to spot the troubled ones early.
One little girl-it was the one who had been giggling earlier-had found a corner all to herself and was industriously pushing and pulling a sickly green lump of PlayDoh into a surprising anthropomorphic shape.
It looked to Miss Lapon's practiced eye like a squatting earth-mother figure, similar to those found in ancient Sumerian archaeological sites.
Except that this earth mother had six spidery arms.
Miss Lapon bent over her. "And how are you coming?"
The serious little girl didn't react at first.
"I asked," repeated Miss Lapon, thinking she had found a hearing-impairment problem, "how are you doing, little girl?"
The girl started. Her eyes focused. Miss Lapon made a mental note: strong powers of concentration.
"I'm almost done finishing her," the little girl said.
Miss Lapon smiled encouragement. "Very nice. Does she have a name?"
"Kali."
"Cally. That's a nice name. And what is your name?"
"Freya, daughter of Jilda," said the little blond girl with the cornflower-blue eyes.
Miss Lapon's eyes shone with amusement. "Don't you have a last name, Freya?"
A serious cloud passed over the childish features. "I don't think so," Freya admitted.
"No? Don't you have a daddy?"
The eye lit anew. "Oh, yes."
"What is your daddy's name?"
"His name," Freya said with childish pride, "is Remo."