Cecily pantomimed screaming as Mark and Nick and Annie all laughed. "Give me the phone," she said.
"Oops," said Lettie into the phone. "She has risen from her earthen grave and is reaching for the phone with mud and roots and a tattered apron hanging from her half-rotted arms. Do you wish to speak with Zombie Mom?"
"Give me that," said Cecily, getting steadily less amused as the other kids laughed even harder.
"Here she is," said Lettie, then handed it to Cecily, who snatched it with a half-serious glare at her oldest daughter. "Ow. The eyes of Satan," she said. "I've been zapped."
Cecily left the living room and leaned back against the kitchen counter. The edge of it cut into her butt. Which was fine with her—she was in the mood to feel a little pain. And to inflict some.
Of course it was Nate Ogzewalla on the phone, as she had known it would be. "Did you watch the speech?" he asked.
"Yes. It was really effective. We're getting up a mob in our neighborhood right now to tear all global warming believers from their homes and burn them at the stake."
"Oh, I see what your daughter meant about Zombie Mom."
"That speech was beneath him. Or if it wasn't, it should have been. The nictovirus is the villain, not environmentalists."
"Identifying and neutralizing the opposition is sound political strategy," said Nate. "Now all the controversy will be about whether the President should have been nicer or whether the environmentalists deserve—"
"I understand the theory, Nate," said Cecily. "I just don't agree that it justifies slandering a legitimate political movement."
"Meaning that you're a global warming alarmist?" asked Nate. "Your ox is being gored, is that it?"
"I'm an environmentalist. I knew the facts about global warming but I always thought it was a convenient way to get the world to take actions that are necessary whether humans are causing global warming or not."
"So I should put you down as pro-plague, then?" asked Nate.
"Am I on the radio, Mr. Limbaugh?" asked Cecily.
"Relax, I'm just teasing you," said Nate. "The President knew you'd hate this and he wanted me to call you just to reassure you that he is going to 'clarify' his statement later today to calm people down."
"He shouldn't have—"
"Shouldn't have riled them up in the first place, I hear you, Mrs. Malich. But he had to make a decision. He's got to rally support behind a ruthless policy of quarantine. He had to make it seem like somebody else was ruthlesser so that people would see the quarantine as an act of protection."
"'Ruthlesser' is a very ugly word," said Cecily.
"The official purpose of this call, Mrs. Malich, is to ask you one question."
"Ask it and then get off the phone," said Cecily.
"This is from the President himself, you understand."
"I understand. What's the question?"
"The question is: 'Are you still speaking to me?'"
Cecily sighed. "Tell him that he'll find out the answer to that when he speaks to me himself, instead of hiding behind his chief of staff."
"I'll tell him that it's a yes," said Nate.
"Of course I'm still speaking to him. I'm not thirteen, I don't give people the silent treatment. The question is whether there's any point in speaking to him, considering how often he decides against me."
"That's not fair, Mrs. Malich. He goes along with your views more than any other adviser he has."
"Ten percent of the time?"
"More like fifty, and nobody else is close. And he's going to need your advice more and more in the days to come, so please overlook this little act of evil on his part, and stay on the team? Please?"