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much into church stuff these days, Jack Junior.” He hates it when I call him Jack Junior, so of course I do. “The fact is, I think it’s all a load of crap.”
    He gapes at me as if I’ve told him I was a slime creature from the sixth dimension.
    â€œWhat, are you—an
atheist
?”
    â€œI’m a Chutengodian,” I say.
    â€œA … a what?” he asks, curiosity overcoming the fear and loathing.
    â€œIt’s a cult.”
    He backs away from me a step. That gives me an idea.
    â€œWhat sort of cult?”
    I step toward him. “The Church of the Ten-legged God,” I say with the widest, craziest smile I can muster. Jack Junior takes another step back. The swimming pool, filled with the lifeblood of the Ten-legged One, is only a few feet behind him. “It’s the One True Faith, Jack. We do it all—sacrifice small animals, drink blood, worship Satan, the whole enchilada. You should come to one of our meetings.”
    â€œI don’t
think
so.” He tries to laugh it off, but I can see that part of him actually believes me.
    â€œJoin me in prayer, Jack Junior.” I step toward him and thrust out my hands. “Take my hands. Pray with me. Pray to the Ten-legged One.”
    Horrified by my cultish fervor, Jack takes another step back and, with a huge splash, falls into the Ten-legged One’s watery embrace.

    â€œI didn’t push him.”
    â€œWell it certainly
looked
like you pushed him,” my mother says.
    â€œWe were just talking.”
    â€œI’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.”
    â€œMaggie, if the boy says he didn’t push him, he didn’t push him.”
    â€œThanks, Dad.”
    â€œYou keep your mouth shut.”
    â€œThat poor boy.” My mother shaking her head. “He looked so miserable with his nice clothes all soaking wet.”
    â€œYou could see right through his yellow pants.”
    â€œI told you to keep your mouth shut,” my father snaps. For a few seconds we ride in silence, me in the backseat, my father driving, my mother clutching her purse. Then my father starts chuckling.
    My mother looks at him. “What is it, dear?”
    â€œI was just thinking,” he says. “Whatever possessed that kid to wear purple briefs under those yellow pants?” He laughed again, and this time I joined him. Even my mother could not stop herself from shaking her head and smiling.

 
----
    A ND IT CAME TO PASS THAT THE L ANDS AND THE W ATERS BECAME STAINED WITH H UMAN FILTH, AND THE O CEAN BECAME CONCERNED .
----

9
 
    The next morning, after my French toast and sausage and corn flakes and Pop Tart and orange juice and banana, (hey, a guy has to
eat
) I head straight over to the water tower and stare at the spiral staircase and try to figure out how Henry managed to get up there. It’s been driving me nuts. All I can figure out is he had to have had help. Maybe he and his three stooges carried a ladder to the tower, Henry climbed up, then the stooges carried the ladder away. But why would they do that?
    Besides, the one thing Henry
did
tell me was that he’d gotten up on his own. I believed him. Henry Stagg is a violent, psychotic fiend, but he’s not a liar.
    I am standing staring at the impossible-to-get-to spiral staircase when Shin shows up. He is surprised to see me.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” he asks.
    â€œTrying to figure out how Henry got up there.”
    â€œHow come you didn’t call me?”
    I shrug. It actually hadn’t occurred to me. “What about you?”
    Shin displays his notebook. “I’m working on something.”
    â€œSomething gastropod?”
    He shakes his head. “You’ll see.”
    â€œOh. Hey, the other day at Wigglesworth’s. What was that about?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou were acting sort of … different. When you were talking to Magda?”
    â€œOh. That