”“I would have!” said Mom.I hugged her. “Nobody but my mother.”Mom huffed a bit but grabbed her purse. “I need to get back and get ready. ...Your father is taking me to dinner.”“Oooh, something romantic? Do we need to warn the emergency squad?” teased Kelly.Mom laughed. “I hope so! We’re not dead yet!” She yelled down the hall, “BYE!” but the kids ignored her. She just smiled and shook her head. “Take care!” Then she was out the door.I looked at my wife. “I think that’s more than I wanted to know. Getting ready to go and meet Mark?"Her face paled when I said that and she stuttered when she said, "I have no idea what you are talking about." No? You don't know Mark? Mark Willard, husband of Martha, father of Cory and Kevin? But hey, I guess that I can understand that given that he has so many names to use. Let's see now" and I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. "On Tuesday you were registered at the Courtyard in Colorado Springs as Mr. and Mrs. Paul Baxter. Wednesday saw you at the. "Mary's eyes start to light up like she is an alien from another planetand she is going to explode. "I don't care what you saw because if youeven think of telling on me I will make your life even worse little BABYsister so don't mess with me Cindy." I may look like a little girl but I am still your father and you willlisten to me." I notice Mary's eyes start to light up again at me beingforceful with her.Mary grabs my arm. "You don't look like a little girl you ARE a littlegirl or I should say. Hopefully, the rulers of Sparta would just assume that their patrol had run into a gang that had wiped them out. Had that happened, the Spartans could well reason that their patrol had been inferior fighters and deserved to be killed. Stranger things had happened when it came to the Spartans and their soldiers.We were certainly in no position to get into a stupid war with Sparta. Maybe later we could afford to fight them, but we were certainly not yet ready. Therefore, if we found a few.