“Is it war, then?” Cal wanted to make it official.

“War!” The word came back as a roar. That seemed official enough to Liz.

It seemed official enough to the head of the Westside City Council, too. “Thanks, folks,” he said. “We'll lick 'em. You wait and see. When they got a good look at my dog Pots, they'll be so scared, they'll run away before the fighting really gets going.”

Everybody cheered. As the meeting was breaking up, Liz asked her father, “Why does he call that monster of a dog Pots?”

“Because nobody here seems to remember who the Fenris Wolf was,” Dad said, which both was and wasn't an answer. He added, “Besides, whatever you call a critter like that, the dog is bigger than the name.”

There were old children's books in the home timeline about a dog like that, although he wasn't mean. What was his name? Clarence? That was close, but it wasn't right. “ Clifford!” Liz exclaimed.

“Where did you come up with that?” Dad said. “My grandmother had some of those books. She read them to me when I was little. Her mother used to read them to her, she said.”

“Oh, wow,” Liz said-in the home timeline, a phrase even more old-fashioned than Clifford books. People still used it here, and it did come in handy now and then. She went on, “Will the Westside win?”

“They sure think so,” her father replied. “But the Valley thinks it'll win, too, or it wouldn't have started the war in the first place. I haven't been up there. I don't know what all they've got. I don't know how serious they are about the fighting, either. That's one of the reasons people fight wars-to find out how serious both sides are.”

“If the Westside weren't serious, it wouldn't have built that wall across the 405,” Liz said.

“Or maybe it just didn't think the Valley would think the wall was worth fighting about.” Dad shrugged. “'If it didn't, it was wrong. And it looks like a lot of people will get hurt because of that.”