Challenge 1106

Best Tools

In Jared Buck’s Let’s Be Reasonable:
1. What prevents Krilda from casting a disfiguring spell on Velmore or anyone else she might not like?
2. Why does Krilda not heed “reason,” as Velmore suggests she might?
In Kay Gordon-Shapiro’s Bringing Chad Home:
1. How does Uncle George react to his discovery that Celeste and, probably, other friends of Chad’s are space aliens?
2. Does George seem to have a natural resistance to the disguised women’s mind-control, which they seem to exercise over Chad?
3. How might the story conclude in favour of all the characters involved?
In Ollie Swasey’s Newshawk’s Crawl:
1. What details might provide clues to the story’s setting in time?
2. How many “spectators” are gathered near the entrance to the cave?
3. Why might Marlin Fletcher be the only newspaper reporter present at the scene?
In Arnold Hollander’s The Sheriff of Western Gulch
1. How has Sheriff Talbot related to Sean Clancy before the scene in Gerty’s Saloon?
2. How does Talbot confront Clancy at the shooting scene? Stealthily? Peacefully? In some other way?
3. Why does Talbot caution the reporter to give his readers “what they expect”?
4. What moral from the Old West might the 21st-century USA do well to heed?