The Collaborative Wiki Novel

This was once a Candidate for Deletion, but there's sufficient interest to keep it for historical interest. It is a WalledGarden, but an interesting one.

Welcome to TheCollaborativeWikiNovel - Wikiwrite, for short - where we collectively write our own novel. The rules are simple: Read through what is here already, and, if you are so inspired, add a few lines - just click "Edit Text". Leave a blank line between paragraphs, rather than indent. As for plot, character, mood, genre, and the title... well, we'll see about that.

Should refactoring be allowed? I am tempted to say no. As Omar Khayyam, channelled through Edward Fitzgerald, wrote:

  The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

I am tempted to say yes. And not just refactoring, but rewriting. Changing content, even. Otherwise, what is the point of doing this on a wiki? The evolutionary element, which makes wiki so fascinating, would be ruled out from the get-go. -- BenKovitz

I am tempted to agree with Ben, but another view would be that Wiki participants are simply choosing to play this game. MathQuizOne has no evolutionary aspect to it. Certainly rewriting shouldn't begin until the story is at least ten paragraphs or so long, IMO, and then only cautiously; when it's short, rewriting will tend to concretize the direction it will move in before that would otherwise have happened. I doubt I need to tell Wiki residents to be cautious in rewriting, though. -- DanielKnapp

I think rewriting is necessary if the story isn't quickly to degenerate into random silliness. I hate to put an elitist spin on a thing so inherently and beautifully democratic, but a few of the contributions at this point have been suspect; it seems the contributors just didn't carefully read what had preceded their additions. But most have been stellar and a pleasure to read and add on to. I agree with Daniel, however, that caution is the key. P.B.

My contribution got changed. I tried to close the possibility that the setting was America, and someone changed what I wrote to open it up again. :)

There's a similar kind of collaborative story effort going on at my friend's MacBrickout Wiki. The userbase/community there is predominantly pretty young and . . . well, I was going to say non-technical but I guess that's sort of ancillary. Anyway the approach we've taken so far - it just evolved this way - is, apart from a couple specific instances, we've had fun with just "dealing with" whatever (possibly strange) turn the previous author may have taken with the story. So while the writing overall is pretty uneven, the tone shifts like crazy, the plot meanders, etc., it's been fun - and since we're hardly taking it seriously, it can be pretty humorous in all its wackiness. So for whatever it's worth, the story is at http://www.leapfrogsw.com/cgi-bin/qwiki?ChapterOne, and the few discussions we had that led up to actual revisions of the existing story, are preserved (and took place) in http://www.leapfrogsw.com/cgi-bin/qwiki?ChapterOneDiscussion. -- BillKelly

I look for this kind of thing on the web all the time, and one of my favorites is at http://www.valeriemates.com/storysites.html. The program is very simple. At every turn there are exactly two choices. But as we know, sometimes simple works best, and I have seen some good examples. My major regret is that certain characters don't submit correctly in the email or title. Also, there doesn't seem to be a utility for removing obscene entries. -- PatrickParker

I think this should be divided into chapters with one chapter on each page for greater web readability. I would propose that this page would contain a table of contents (perhaps only being chapter numbers) and then each page have something at the bottom saying Continue reading ChapterTwo?...etc. Also, I keep hearing about Choose Your Own Adventure Wikis, but I still have yet to run across one. Where are they? -- ChuckSmith

I wonder how old this page is? We started a collaborative novel on the Alt Party wiki site. Re reckoned it was quite a new idea at the time (couldn't find any others). In this case we actually want people to keep changing it so that the novel never stays the same. See it at: http://www.altparty.org/~altwiki/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?action=Browse&id=_One_More_Lie_ -- Setok

Not sure how old it is, but it seems that work on it ended around March of 2002. It's now listed on WalledGardens.

I'm going to guess reference to persons living or dead in less than a flattering light in such an obvious way, without subtlety, is a counter-incentive to collaboration. Would this be a case for a re-write? MichaelWolz

For a long time I had trouble sleeping. There was nothing redeeming in these months of insomnia; the night may yield mysteries to those who dare plumb its depths, but not to those who are just trying to get through it. Sleep deprivation was not my first concern but rather being deprived of dreams; the primary function of sleep was not to get a "good night" but to substitute for the tedium of the alternative. In this way I succumbed to the futile enumeration of woolly herbivores.

If death is just the shadow of life, then sleep is the shadow of a shadow. Dreams are then shadowy shadow plays, I suppose, though for many they come in colour. But I digress. If you are reading this you are probably mainly curious about, you know, what really happened, and how it all began, and I promise to get to that real soon. But you should know from the get-go that lack of sleep changed everything. Tired and utterly without dreams, it was hard to love anything.

Events began, as they usually do, with the sun rising after one of those nights; my disturbance was increased by the ringing of the telephone. Reluctantly I picked it up, and froze when I heard its tinny voice: it was Bill Gates.

Bill Gates is the best name we have for an acquaintance of mine who has a severe identity problem. We're not even sure who he is, since all we have to go by is what he tells us, and what he tells us is that he's Bill Gates. To be sure, he looks a fair bit like the pictures, but shouldn't he be off in corporate America somewhere? Once he had said he was going to a meeting, and we followed him around until he broke his ankle and had to go home. It healed remarkably quickly. Be that as it may, he's a genius.

"Bill, you're a genius," I said.

"I am a genius," Bill concurred, blind to my sarcasm. "Can we meet?"

I clutched the phone in my distracted nakedness and looked out the grimy bedroom window. From four stories below came the dust and early rumblings of a morning road crew; from within came the rumblings of an empty stomach. From the phone came the rumblings of Big Trouble. I was tempted to keep him waiting, to hold off the collision with futility. Speaking with an organic accent and no uncertain terms, my stomach reminded me of my empty wallet.

"Where and when?" I asked. I avoided asking why, because I had a feeling that I didn't want to know.

 * * *

The man who called himself Bill already had a table when I arrived at Louie's, and was doing his best to look inconspicuous. But what can I say? It was kind of like trying to hide a frog in a plate of spaghetti. Presented with a round face with a double chin, watery eyes, so large they look like thick glasses, but mercifully small ears, one might conclude the guy looks like Bill Gates, except for his greenish complexion. I looked around, and couldn't help but notice he was attracting his fair share of stares.

Just as I came close to the table, a good-looking woman stepped over to Bill's table. "I hate your products," she said. "They're as unreliable as this styrofoam cup." With that, she squeezed her cup and it gushed lukewarm coffee all over Bill's sweater. She turned and stalked away.

Bill looked up as I came to the table. "Do you think she was hitting on me?" he asked. "The coffee would have been hot if she was really mad."

"Your products do suck, Bill," I replied. "For a genius, you have surrounded yourself with some serious incompetents." Of course, the "products" I was referring to are very different from the products the lady was referring to. More about that very soon. "How's the veal here?"

"It's the very best," Bill said, sponging coffee from his thighs. "I've ordered some myself."

"Did I hear you correctly?" I asked.

"I've ordered some myself," Bill, or whoever he was, repeated, with a solemnity that threw into relief the situation's underlying ambiguity. Caught in the perpetual question mark of Bill's true identity, we had in the previous several weeks developed a prototype language of parallel realities. Thus, Bill, in his innocent statement of intent concerning the ordering of breakfast Wienerschnitzel, was actually indicating to me that a) all members of the Young Cows Liberation Consortium were in position for the morning's raid and b) the jelly doughnuts were fresh.

"I'll just have hot tea and a newspaper," I replied. Bill of course heard, "Wonderful, do you need me today? I've got some clean-up I should do after that last shipment. Oh, and the doughnuts look a bit stale; I think eggs will be fine."

Fair reader, you get the point. I will spare you the details of translation and just give you the goods up front from now on, except where the situation demands especially close attention to our arcane form of double-speak.

"The clean-up can wait," Bill said, now wiping his glasses with the lone white edge of a coffee-soaked napkin. He inspected them to his satisfaction, smiled at some private joke, then put them back on. "It's time for a pre-emptive strike."

I should have gagged, but as I told you, I knew something like this was coming.

"It's time for Old Mac Donald to feel some real pain, " he continued. Old Mac Donald was Bill's favorite term for The Man, for the meat industry, and for anyone, including politicians and police, with their hands in its deep pockets. Apparently hijacking cattle cars was growing tiresome for Bill, and he was looking to expand his business.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" Visions of an exploding Burger King, ground beef and human flesh spraying the surrounding cityscape in equal quantities, danced in my head. As it turns out, my guess was just getting warm.

"You're going to take a little trip to Oak Brook, Illinois. I have a package, and I need you to deliver it."

Oh boy. Oak Brook Illinois is part of the greater metropolitan area of Chicago, and I hear it is a pleasant place to live, work and visit. It is also, dear reader, home to the head office of Mcdonald's Corporation. Little Billy was going for the Big One, and he wanted me to run the play.

It suddenly occurred to me that in all the time Bill and I had spent together, we'd never developed a way to say "definitely not." The best we had was "I've a very busy schedule," and that would involve me ordering far more alcohol than I felt was appropriate for the occasion.

I extended my hand for the package - if in truth "package" was a suitable term for a pink heart-shaped gift bag sprinkled with gold glitter and foaming at the lacey top with polka-dotted tissue paper. A tag fastened with satin ribbon read, "Junior's fifty! Ain't that nifty!"

"Go where I've sent thee," said William. "All will be revealed in time."

 * * *

I had one hour till the milk run left for Oak Brook - one hour to mourn the imminent termination of my youthful innocence. But there was no fat lady singing yet, nor was the die cast or the Rubicon crossed.

Here it would probably be best if I related the history of Bill's little organization.

The Young Cows Liberation Consortium (YCLC) began, like most of these things, in England, as, well, a consortium to liberate young cows. Its M.O. was almost exclusively characterized by media blitzes and staged 'happenings' of varying quality. On one particularly disastrous occasion, in September of 1992, the hair of three rookie members caught fire in their attempt to immolate a pile of veal calf crates on the steps of the House of Lords. They saved themselves only by plunging their heads, in impossible synchronicity, into the water trough they had on hand for Charlie, their mascot calf, who watched all of this with typical bovine placidity.

Bill, who had gone abroad to do a doctorate in statistics at the University of London, joined in 1994 but quickly grew dissatisfied with the Consortium's methods. He pushed for more extreme measures, and was the man behind the infamous Big Poop in which the Consortium laced a five ton shipment of beef and veal with Lacamine, a tasteless but extremely potent laxative. Eventually the founding members grew wary of his increasingly radical tendencies, but he finished his thesis at that time, and was soon back in the U.S. stirring up his own brand of trouble on home turf. Three guys from the Consortium defected and followed him here.

Thus a radical version of the YCLC soon sprouted in the US, adopting guerrilla tactics to fight for the rights of our four-stomached friends. I met Bill in a smoky Boston bar one night and ended up talking with him until closing time. He showed me scars, warned me about the evils of meat, and assured me I would be A Valuable Asset For The Organization. I got involved gradually, first only as a consultant for certain problems they were having with their old IBM mainframe, but eventually I moved over to the frontlines.

To tell you the truth, I was never big on this whole cow rights thing. Mostly, I was bored and without hope and needed something to feel alive. Playing cowboy gave me some kicks, no doubt, but I drew and still draw a line, and killing hundreds of innocent people is definitely over that line. Also, the sight of blood makes me puke like Sunday morning, if you must know. So you could say that I was not too keen about this whole pre-emptive strike plan of Bill's, and especially not about my starring role in it.

It was becoming increasingly clear to me as I sat in Louie's alone, fondling polka-dot tissue paper: It was time to jump ship and make like Salman Rushdie. In any case, I would have to find a way out on the way: my ride, Science Gonzales, pulled up in front of Louie's and gave a furtive little honk. I left a tip and headed out towards an uncertain destiny.

"How's it going Science?" I asked, climbing into the old VW van. Don't ask about the name, because there is no real story to it. His parents just decided to call him that, and his sister's name is Susan. Deep down, to be sure, he is a very bitter man. Not because of his name - he likes that, but because of his middle name, Jesus. You see, his father was Mexican and left his family when Science was young and very different from the Science of today. Since then, Science had developed a deep and lingering hatred for the Mexican peoples. But I digress once more.

"Close the door, cowboy. We've got twenty hours of road ahead." Science took a bite of his plum and pressed petal to metal; Louie's receded in a cloud of diesel exhaust. I started to get nervous, and not just because of the task ahead.

Seventeen hours (and only one pit stop) later, my fears proved well founded.

"I don't have a clue what's wrong with it." Science was leaning over the smoking engine.

"You know, the tree it's wrapped around might have something to do with the engine problems," I suggested. "Can we get a tow truck?"

 * * *

That tow truck guy, wouldn't you know it, offered us each a cup of lukewarm coffee. When I am on assignment, I never take any food from any one, because - well - you just never know. I felt pretty awkward in this situation, what with the tow truck guy, wearing his black toque and speaking in a thick Polish accent, feeling so happy to help. I just knew he felt insulted by my refusal, and all of a sudden I had this strange sense of guilt for accepting his help in this situation, even though we were paying him for his services. I thought, maybe I should just tell him coffee does really nasty things to me, and I end up in the hospital emergency room if I drink it. But then, of course, he would just write me off as strange, and sink deeply into thoughts about how we members of the weaker North American breed have to go to such lengths to protect our bodies from any kind of trauma. No thank you. I was already feeling self-conscious about the frilly gift bag in my hand. He would just have to think me rude.

I felt an emptiness inside. It was clear to me that I had spent my whole stash of pretentious digressions and similar drivel all in one place, and was now reduced to soberly making my way through events. But I also sensed a rewriter sneaking up on me, ready with a fresh bunch of painful literary devices. "I must now trust the discretion of Wiki writers. Oh, woe is me!" I proclaimed loudly. The other two looked at me strangely.

We climbed into the cab of the truck and our friend accelerated carefully, as if to protect the precious cargo of twisted Day-glo metal trailing behind us. Science seemed to be very tense, and not just because he was squished between me and Joe Tow, but probably also because of all the wild thoughts going on in his "Scientific" mind, so to speak.

Suddenly I had a crazy thought of my own. Illinois was a fair distance away - a distance that, on this stretch of highway, at tow truck speed, didn't seem to be shrinking - and from what I knew it consisted almost entirely of farmland. Also, one never heard of anything happening there. Perhaps, just perhaps, the one explained the other: perhaps one never heard from it because perhaps it was a state to which civilization had never spread, without telephones and too far to walk to and get news from. In that case, perhaps I could make Bill think I had delivered the package without anyone getting hurt! Of course, perhaps I was thinking about Idaho, but was tired and under too much stress to notice.

But then I thought: That's a stupid plan and would never work! And so it was released from conscious intention, and receded, as all such thoughts do, into "the dusty hum of who we are." You see, Bill was much too smart, much too smart, my friend, to be tricked into thinking that Idaho was Illinois. And yes, my friend, Bill had men on the inside, agents of both information and - if you weren't on their side - misinformation, who would undoubtedly keep abreast of the situation. Yes, if hundreds of people were actually killed at the headquarters of a multinational corporation, Bill would hear about it very soon, have no doubt; if they were not killed, he would hear about that too. "Damn that sly fox!" I thought. "Damn his wily ways!"

By the time the guy at the garage told us it would take ten grand and two weeks to fix the van, I had already, with the help of Science and the complimentary but stale donuts in the customer lounge, arrived at a Plan B: we would (get this) rent a K car from Budget, and continue on our way. Oh, also, we would have had to take a taxi from the garage to the Budget office, forty miles away. Oh, also, dear reader, I had come up with my own private little Plan C. Thus by the time the taxi pulled up in front of Don's Fix-it, and before Science knew what was going on, I was already long gone.

 * * *

You wanna know what's really scary? I'll tell you.

Monsters.

Yes, my friend: big, hairy monsters.

You know what's funny, though? Clowns. Man alive, they make me laugh! With their dancing and prancing, prancing and dancing - what in carnation are they doing? Man, that's funny stuff!

In any case, when I climbed on the plane to Nowhere in Particular, Just Trying to Run the Hell Away From Bill Gates and One Science Gonzales, I didn't know quite what to feel or say or do. You see, my seat was C34, and in C35, between me and the aisle, sat - I swear it's true, my friend - a big, hairy, yet amusingly inferior to me MONSTER-CLOWN. Man, what do you do when that happens? That's what I would like to explain to you now.

"That's nice." he waved a hand at me, and left that bluish paw with long fingers hanging out there reaching for something. I shrunk back into my seat and a wrinkle creased tightly between my eyebrows. "I like pink." Oh? he's not too smart, fine. I handed him the "package", and watched as he ever so carefully ruffled the paper to peer inside with out opening it. Then after peering one large blue and black painted eye socket over the opening in the paper for a few moments he threw his head back and laughed wildly. The hideous noise emitted out of that greasy red mouth, large uneven teeth and a big fat pink tongue drooling, was more then enough to make people stir and squirm and look around. "How much longer till we land?" I thought, of opening the slider covering the little oval window, but the kid in front of us has his open and all I could see was the glare of the clouds. In the next seat the laughter had stopped and I could hear him ripping the paper and chomping on something. "Look I can read your mind." He said "and I'm going to eat this weapon for the good of all living creatures." I had one of those moments where you sort of float outside of yourself for a moment and then you feel a sharp pain pull you back into your body and you realize that your still awake and the voice you just heard is in your head, because he didn't say a thing. I slowly turned toward that big hairy monster clown as the last of the pink paper was going down like someone eating lettuce that hasn't been cut. Crunch, crunch, crunch and a big grin and it was gone. In the background, the flight attendance voice cut in with the usual "place your tray tables in the upright...." But, I wasn't really listening, I just set back knowing I was buckled in and we'd be on the ground soon.

 * * *

And that's when the meteorite hit the plane.

 * * *

Conspiracy theorists were of course suspicious that the meteorite was not just an accident. They noted that SDI tests were being conducted in the area at the time of the impact. Perhaps, some suggested, that SDI was used to control the flight of a meteor by heating a given side, creating a kind of "ion engine" affect.

When that theory came out in the news, it gave me pause. Sure, at first it seemed natural to assume that a mole in "Bill's" organization had been watching my progress, perhaps through some device hidden within my funny valentine itself. But then, my tired, overawed mind responded, what if it wasn't me they were aiming at? What if it had been "Bill" monitoring me himself and the target was the clown who ate his package?

All of this seemed more than a little improbable, of course. As did my escape from the plane. Fortunately, the plane's wheels were on the ground when the meteorite hit. Apparently, the flight attendant had spent too long smoking in the lavatory and made his announcement just a bit late. I had a friend who was a flight attendant. She once told me that they are actually trained in how to disable the lavatory smoke detectors, so they can spot tampering by passengers. It's true that travel broadens the mind.

Also fortunately, it wasn't a very big meteorite. Just big enough to crush the skull of the clown, and drop him and the guy in the business suit in the window seat next to him through the hole in the side and floor of the plane where the left wing had been attached. The resulting vastly unequal drag caused the plane to swerve violently to the opposite side and tilt down until the remaining wing scraped along the runway, throwing up showers of sparks. This slowed our forward momentum quite nicely and the plane came to a shuddering stop.

That was mighty good shooting - if it had indeed been intentional and the clown was the target. Or, it wasn't such good shooting if they'd been gunning for me. At the time, though, I didn't think about that. It just freaked me out. I had to get out of there.

So I dug the 25-foot blue LAN cable that I carry "for emergencies" out of my laptop case, tied one end to the leg of my seat, tossed the other end out the hole, and shinnied down to the ground. Heat rising off the tarmac blasted my face. I crawled over the remains of the wing and took off at a dead run across the runway. I tore my pants climbing the chain-link at the outer bounds of the airport, but I didn't care. I was running on adrenaline - that and the sudden euphoric realization that I was free! Free! The clown and the meteorite had relieved me of my dubious errand, and if I could just get away from this horrible, flat, kerosene-smelling place I could go home and resume my safe, quiet life. Suddenly it didn't seem so dull and pointless anymore.

Did I say that I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time?

Exhausted, soaked with sweat, I finally staggered into an upscale motel, got a room, went upstairs and crashed on the bed.

When I awoke, bright sunlight was streaming through the gauzy inner curtains that hung before the room's one big window. I looked at the clock on the night table: 3:22. I'd slept at least 17 hours.

After a long hot shower, I felt human again. I put on the motel robe I found in the closet and opened the door of the room. As I'd hoped, there was a copy of USA Today at my feet. It was there that I learned that I wasn't free at all.

It was too much to think about right then, so I wandered down to the pool and stood in the baking sun, looking out over the water and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. It was then that I saw her.

She had three breasts! At first I couldn't tell whether that sight was due to my eye injury from the plane crash, or was real.

She slowly made her way around the pool, and I saw that it was no apparition. She must have also been blinded by the light of the pool, because she looked surprised to see me. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, she wrapped her towel around her unique bikini top.

"Oh, I didn't think there was anyone else out here," she said and was about to hurry off. "Please don't leave on my account," I replied. I was about to say that it was still a free country when I remembered the USA Today.

She looked at me sheepishly, and without the distraction of her breasts I realized she was a dark brunette, with deep hazel eyes and about five foot six. We sat down on some deck chairs and she sighed, "I suppose you want to know why?" "Why what?" "Why I have ...," she glanced downward briefly, "You know ..., everyone wants to know why." Her voice had the weariness of someone explaining something for the millionth time.

I shrugged and then she started her sad story. "You see, my sister and I were conjoined twins, we were joined at our breasts until we were twelve years old. They were happy years, except that she had really terrible morning breath. Well, our parents decided to get us separated, and we thought that would be okay ... I mean four divided by two and all that. Unfortunately we didn't know that our surgeon was addicted to crack and cough syrup."

At this point she drew her knees up to her eyes, and cried, "Damn that man, and damn his cough syrup binge!" I put my arms around her shoulders to comfort her, and she grabbed hold of my hand, an instinct that came from a lifetime of fending off boys trying to steal first base. Once she was sure of my motives, she revealed that neither she nor her sister considered plastic surgery, due to their deep seated mistrust of surgeons.

"My name is Angela," she said, "Whats Yours?" This is the moment I was dreading. Being a protagonist, it is surprising that it should take this long to be named, but as you will see, there is a very good reason I kept it private. "I ...," I said and paused. After a while she said, "Yes, your name is?" "It is I" "Yeah, I know it is you but what is your name?" "Can't you see that it is I?" At this point she was mad. She was furious. Some women look beautiful when their angry, Angela looked like a horseman of the apocalypse. "Look buddy, I've just poured my heart and soul out for you, given you my whole life story and here you are jerking me around and not giving me your freakin' name!" I stopped her short and replied, "My name consists of one, single, solitary letter and it is my misfortune that that letter is the ninth in the latin alphabet, namely I."

There was a minor earth tremor at this point as in a parallel universe thousands of wiki readers shook, realizing that they didn't know if they were reading a first person or a third person narrative. You see, most of them were programmers, and programmers hate ambiguity.

Calm descended in the Wiki Reader's universe. All the readers reached the same conclusion simultaneously. Consider I to be a variable. This variable contains the value "personal pronoun" or "proper noun", depending on the state. Then they all said in one breath, "That is the simplest thing that might possibly work."

Angela and I recovered from the shock of the tremor. Then I started feeling faint, and hungry. After a few moments thought, I realized that the last time I ate was the pseudo meal on the plane, over eighteen hours ago. Angela mentioned a diner two blocks down, and arranged to meet me/I there after she changed her shoes.

I had was just arriving to the diner...

 * * *

And that's when another meteorite hit the diner.

* * *

It blew up the kitchen, and instantly and horrendously killed the cook

How did they know I was there? But how could anyone know I was going there... should I blame Angela? the diner idea was after all hers... Or was it meant for the cook and this was just a terrible coincidence. What's the chance of me witnesses multiple meteor strikes? Is there a meteor shower, or something more sinister? It's a good thing that I myself haven't been hi'~#7;~` [NO CARRIER]

The terminal got disconnected... maybe someone knew I had finally found the secret diary of my dead brother (he died when the third meteorite to fall in less than a month on a populated area killed him and Angela) but they never recovered their bodies, the explanation according to the government was that their bodies were vaporized...

But now I have more pressing problems... did the connection in the terminal just failed? should I attempt to reconnect? or perhaps someone knows I found this, and hijacked the connection? should I start looking running to find a place to hide before one of those murderous meteorites ends my life too? This could be my only chance to discover who was behind this "controlled meteor showers"

In the darkness a voice says: I thought I had a final ending there with the direct smackage and trail off. Now it'll never end. Rats! then he/she said: I broke the connection too late... who knows how much of the diaries was he able to read! Rats!