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passed Jean’s room, with its little girl eyelet ruffles and glassy-eyed dolls, and crept down the stairs, taking care to avoid the third one from the bottom, which protested loudly at even the slightest weight.
    Once in the kitchen, she leaned against the counter with relief, aware that she was shaking. Maddy was right, she was taking an awful chance, but she had to see Jack and share this burden with him, draw sustenance from his strength. He would come, she was sure of it. He would know by the very nature of the request that she was desperate for his company, and it was not in him to deny her.
    She watched the street from the window above the sink, and at five to three he came into view, stamping his feet, his gloved hands in the pockets of his football jacket. His breath made a cloud before his face as he glanced up at the house and saw her. He smiled reassuringly, and as she went to the side door to let him in she already felt better.
    As soon as he crossed the threshold he took her in his arms. “Maddy told me,” he said into her ear. “How did he find out?”
    “He came home early from his trip and saw us outside tonight.”
    Jack’s memory of their parting was vivid, and he was sure it had left nothing to Portman’s imagination. “He’s asleep upstairs?” he asked, glancing over Jessica’s shoulder as if he expected her father to appear at any moment, flaming sword in hand.
    Jessica nodded. “Jack, what are we going to do?”
    “What did he say?”
    “Exactly what I thought he would say.”
    “You can’t see me anymore?”
    “That’s about the size of it.”
    “What about at school?”
    “‘Hello and goodbye.’ That’s a direct quote.”
    Jack muttered something in French that Jessica was glad she couldn’t understand.
    “And he says if I disobey him he’ll send me away to school. Really away. Like to Europe,” she added.
    He pulled back to look into her face, and she could tell that he was worried now. Nothing much frightened Jack, but this did. He knew enough about Jessica’s father from her descriptions to believe that he would make good on his threat.
    “I’ll go to see him,” he said impulsively. “He can’t be that unreasonable.”
    Jessica clutched at his hands, dismayed at the resurfacing of his stubborn faith in the merits of communication. “Oh, Jack, don’t talk nonsense. He won’t listen to you. He’ll be enraged that you had the nerve to confront him. He won’t see it as two people getting together to talk over a problem, he’ll see it as a punk kid defying a responsible, rational adult. He doesn’t admire courage, he sees it as a flouting of his will. Don’t you understand? You’d get nowhere, and you have to think of your family. Please, promise me you won’t try it.”
    “All right, all right,” he murmured, embracing her again and stroking her hair. “We just need time to think. We’ll come up with something.”
    They stood for a few moments in silence, and then Jessica said, “Jack, we have to go upstairs. My father might wake up and come down to the kitchen. We’ll lock my door. My room is at the other end of the house. We can talk and he won’t hear us.”
    “Are you sure?” Jack asked doubtfully.
    “Yes, come on,” Jessica replied, tugging on his hand. “Sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night and makes a snack.” She led him through the house, and he glanced around, impressed. He’d never been inside before, and compared to his parents’ home it was a palace.
    At the foot of the stairs Jessica held her finger to her lips and waved him back. He waited in the hall, behind the balustrade and out of sight, while she checked on her father again. The ship’s clock on the mantel in the living room ticked ominously, and the house seemed to be full of nocturnal noises, creaks and groans that made him skittish, uneasy. After a moment Jessica leaned over the banister and signaled him to join her. They fled to her room, as silent and