"It seems our ladies are a bit anxious, Jack," Brian said, "For separate reasons. Jess, be sure you don't ever go on an afternoon with Michael unless you know for sure where he's taking you. You're liable to find yourself mountain climbing with him. I think that man is half spider. He loves to climb. He can leave men who are a third his age in the dust. You know, though, there isn't anybody else I'd want to be on the side of a building with."
"Why would you ever be in the side of a building?" Khaat frowned. "Michael? Well, I understand him. But you? Are you taking up another career?"
"Me? Not a chance," he said. "I like to climb, but I sure don't do it like he does."
"Aren't you glad he was the one who taught us how to climb trees?"
Brian laughed at the memories of that. He looked at Jess and Jack. "Michael's way of teaching us to climb was to flip up into a tree about as easily as a chimp and then dare us to follow him. He used to take sackfulls of cookies or candies and the only way we could have some was to manage to follow him up high enough to get them. Got us over any fear of heights we had in a hurry. The nice thing about it was that we always got a lot more sweets than Kate ever wanted us to have, and that if we ever did slip he simply whipped out his wand and kept us from falling. Those were fun days."
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