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stocky legs destroyed the illusion of a snowman. His deep booming contagious laugh could easily be heard above the many shrill voices of the audience.
    Competent Nurse Lodestone stood tall and intimidating by the Doc’s side. Her starched white uniform stretched across a torso that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the prow of a Viking ship. She easily carried a large bag bulky with medical tape, salve, bandages, tongue depressors, aspirins and bottles of bright red mercurochrome.
    Tretheway had asked Miles Terminus to give them a hand. He knew that since his mandatory retirement three years ago, time had hung heavy for the quiet spoken former policeman. Terminus had joined the force the same year as Zulp but lacked the Chief’s ambition or luck for advancement. After nineteen years on the force, he had been promoted to First Class Constable; 1919, the year of the Vincent Paradiso incident.
    One cool autumn night on Fort York’s beach strip, a narrow piece of land separating Wellington Square Bay from Lake Ontario, Constable Terminus was patrolling a line of summer cottages, more than half of them empty. He heard glass breaking. Rounding thecorner of the nearest cottage, he surprised, then challenged an obvious burglar. The shadowy figure advanced toward Terminus, threatening the policeman with a rifle. After another unheeded warning, the nineteen-year veteran fired his revolver. The .38 calibre bullet, more by chance than skill, bore a neat, bloodless hole between the eyes of the burglar. He dropped his rifle. It turned out to be a hockey stick. Vincent Paradiso, recidivist, second-storey man, pillar of the criminal community was, at the time of his death, out on bail pending an assault charge; hardly a model citizen. Because of this, taking into account Terminus’s undistinguished but clean record, those in power exonerated the policeman. But from that point on, his career turned into a long wait for a pension. He saw no more promotions. Terminus handled the affair well, seldom spoke of it and seemed outwardly contented. Although he spent the rest of his time at an inside desk job, Terminus never lost the lumbering, big-footed gait of a veteran beat policeman, albeit slower and less strong in his later years. He visited the Tretheways’ regularly but seldom played euchre.
    Each of Tretheway’s supplementary volunteer force stationed himself around the theatre to help in any way he could. The enthusiastic shrieks of the young audience stilled somewhat in anticipation when the title and opening credits rolled by, rose to fervent pitch when the tornado struck and changed to loud oohs and aahs when the film switched to technicolour as Dorothy entered the land of the Munchkins. From the time the Wicked Witch of the East was crushed by Dorothy’s falling house to the scene where her sister,the Wicked Witch of the West (‘she’s even worse than the other one’), was gruesomely liquidated, the decibel level varied from loud to screech. During relative lulls, singing scenes especially, excited club members ran up and down the aisles dodging slow-moving adult monitors and ignoring the cries of Violet Farrago. An endless stream of children going to the bathroom, usually walking backwards, added to the ambience. Few young eyes left the screen. And the Witch provoked the most screaming.
    Just past the three-quarter mark, Tretheway, with Jake in tow, sneaked up to the second floor. They paused at the projection booth. Tretheway tapped on the glass panel in the door. He waved. Neil Heavenly mouthed a greeting and waved back. They proceeded to the crying room.
    â€œI don’t know how he does it,” Tretheway said.
    â€œDoes what?” Jake asked.
    â€œSees the same movies over and over again.”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind.”
    Tretheway shook his head.
    At the end of the upper hall (no balcony) the company that orginally built the theatre had installed a crying room, so