Hemingway and Sarah thought you might enjoy a little excerpt from the next book – since Hemingway was pretty much covering the screen with his body. I hope you like it:
“No!” a scream erupted from the living room. “Not again.”
Mary and Rosie both looked over in that direction.
“I can’t pay for another stay at your hotel,” Maggie cried. “Please give me a break.”
“Sorry, darling, as cute as you are, the rules are the rules,” Ian said. “You land on my property and you pay up.”
“But if I pay you, I won’t have any more money,” she complained.
“Aye, well, you can always sell me that wee piece of property I’ve had me eye on,” he replied and pointed to a spot on the game board.
“No, don’t sell him that,” Clarissa begged. “If he gets that, he’ll have all three of them and then he’ll start putting houses on them.”
“Not houses, darling, hotels,” Ian replied and added a nefarious laugh.
Bradley leaned over and whispered into Maggie ear. She smiled broadly and nodded. “Selling my property is an excellent idea,” she said in her most grown up voice. “But I’m going to sell it to Bradley, not you.”
Ian looked over at Bradley. “So, trying to outsmart me, eh?” he asked in his best bad guy imitation.
“You’re a little dog, not a gangster,” Stanley stated, pointing at Ian’s playing piece. “Start acting like it.”
Ian turned to Maggie and Clarissa and winked, then he picked up his playing piece and trotted over to one of Stanley’s pieces of property and tilted it sideways, so it looked like it was going to the bathroom on a little red house. “Better?” he asked Stanley.
“You watch your step, you young whippersnapper or I’ll show you what for,” Stanley replied, his eyes twinkling with laughter.
“How? Are you going to thimble me to death?” Ian asked.
While Maggie and Clarissa giggled, Andy just rolled his eyes. “Can’t you guys just play the game like normal people?” he asked.
Ian trotted his little dog around the board to Andy’s marker, tilted it once again and made a streaming sound. Then he looked up at Andy and shook his head. “No, I guess not,” he replied.
“You are so weird,” Andy said, biting back his laughter.