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branches knocked against the house.
    I peered beneath the porch, wondering if there might be something interesting in the cellar. Instead of a regular basement door, the foundation wall had a recessed round opening, like the entrance to a tunnel. The hole was closed off by an odd circular door with a spiral pattern.
    The sandy soil sloped invitingly towards this entrance. I took a few steps closer and touched the door. It was slick and iridescent, like something on a high-tech vehicle. A dark violet band spiraled in from the edge. Looking closer, I saw that the band was patterned in a frieze of raised glyphs. Perhaps my over-excited mind was fooling me, but I seemed to see a sloppy baboon, a flying turnip, a dancing mushroom, a plant with windows in its stems, and a naked woman amid rays of light.
    Several yards behind me, Droog whined. I heard a thump from within the house. Someone was home! But I couldn’t leave yet. For in the very center of the door, I’d just now spotted a depression in the precise shape of a human hand. I was filled by a sense that this door was meant for me. Quickly I set my right hand into the smooth cradle at its center—and, yes, my hand was a perfect fit. The door had been waiting for me.
    The big disk shuddered, twisted from side to side—and abruptly flopped towards me, flattening me onto my back.
    Fortunately the ground was soft, and the door didn’t weigh all that much. Even so, I found it hard to push the disk off me. It was as if something behind the door were pressing it against me—as if I were a rat trapped by a janitor with a garbage can lid.
    I heard a slithering sound, shortly followed by a clatter from within the basement. Droog began sounding the alarm—his barks low, hoarse and frightened. I heard a woman’s clear, low voice, calmly soothing the dog. And then her footsteps hurried across the sandy back yard.
    Finally the door’s pressure upon me lightened, and I scooted back into the sun. The woman who’d run off was nowhere to be seen. Peering into the basement, I saw a gleaming golden sarcophagus against the side wall, unmistakably an Egyptian relic, its surface filigreed with hieroglyphs.
    Instantly I thought of Skeeves, and the stories of his having stolen a casket from a rich wastrel’s house in San Francisco. Was he hiding in this hard-to-find house?
    The near end of the sarcophagus bore an idealized likeness of some pharaoh’s face, with the figure’s head-dress sweeping down the sides of the casket in tooled golden ridges. The basement also held a huge conical wad of gray-green material that fanned out from a pointed tip near the far wall. Perhaps it was a kind of plastic. A sheaf of the stuff was attached to the back of the door, highlighted all over with glints from the sun. The funky stuff tensed like a muscle, dragging the door back towards the wall—and closing it in my face. Very weird.
    I heard a footstep on the porch above, and I looked up to see a well-built guy with sun-darkened skin and greenish blond hair. A surfer I’d seen around town a few times before. A jerk. His name was Header. His eyes were fixed on me, and his nose was bleeding bright red. Maybe Header was a coker. He raised a handkerchief to his face and made a noise.
    In that very instant, a four-inch-long blue slug dropped down from the porch. The slug began worming around on the ground, eating dirt, growing with great speed. I had an odd, fleeting sensation then, as if an alien personality within the slug were rummaging through my mind. Was this how it felt to go mad?
    The swollen blue slug kneaded its flesh against itself, growing lumps and taking on the shape of—a bull sea lion with large, golden eyes. Droog redoubled his barking, giving it everything he had.
    Ignoring us, the odd sea lion wallowed out into the middle of the back yard and snuffled the air, perhaps tracking the woman who’d emerged before him.
    Droog gave a