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her.
    â€œL-look what I found,” she choked out.
    The tall policeman tore the envelope open silently and read. Then he handed the letter to the other one.
    Alys’s face cooled in the silence that followed, and the knot in her stomach relaxed a little. The letter was good, awfully good; she knew that. She’d had enough practice amazing her friends at parties, seen enough reactions of grown-ups, to know just how good she was.
    The second policeman finished reading, and the two of them exchanged a glance over Alys’s head.
    â€œI’d say,” said the tall one, “that this looks pretty serious.”
    â€œYes,”
said Alys, with forced calm, her heart lifting.
    â€œI wonder,” he continued, taking a small notebook out of his pocket, “if before we take this back to the station for evidence, you would each write a sample sentence for me?”
    There was a moment of absolute silence.
    â€œWhat—what do you mean? What sentence?” said Alys at last.
    â€œOh, how about this one here, ‘to be opened in caseof my death or disappearance,’” said the policeman quietly.
    Everything blurred around Alys. The meaning of this was unmistakable—and unbelievable. No one else had ever been so skeptical, not even teachers confronted with their own handwriting. No one had immediately asked to compare it to hers.
    But—wait. What good would comparison do? The calligraphic characters in the letter were nothing at all like her normal writing. As first Janie, then Charles, then Claudia took the pen the policeman was pressing on them, Alys tried desperately to quiet her heart and
think
.
    Could they tell or couldn’t they? She had to know.
    â€œCan I—can I just ask why you want us to do that?” she asked shakily. “I mean, if you think one of us wrote that letter—well, we’d
disguise
our handwriting, wouldn’t we?”
    â€œNo one,” said the policeman, “can disguise handwriting enough to fool an expert.”
    And that, of course, was that. Alys felt somehow she should have known all along. Meanwhile, everyone waslooking at her; Claudia had produced some illegible chicken scratches on the pad, and the tall policeman was holding out the pen.
    She could not hope for help, and no help came. Janie’s expressionless face, Charles’s miserable one, seemed unnaturally bright and faraway. For a moment the best thing she could think of doing was to run.
    Her hand fell away from the pen.
    â€œI wrote the letter,” she whispered.
    â€œI see,” said the policeman in a hateful, smug voice.
    â€œBut it’s true—all the rest of it—everything we said!” The words came in a flood, like the tears that suddenly streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably. “It is, it
is
. We just didn’t know how to make you believe us. We—”
    â€œYou wanted to be believed, so you forged this letter and lied. Is that it?”
    â€œYes—no—” Tears and confusion overcame her.
    â€œAnyway, look at this place.” Charles had gotten his breath back and was now pointing to the burn the sky-bolt had made on the wall. “It’s trashed. Isn’t that evidence enough?”
    â€œHow’d it happen, son? Fireworks?”
    For the first time since the police had entered, Janie spoke. “Have you ever seen a firework that could do
that
?”
    â€œMexican kind. Illegal.”
    As Charles spun away in disgust, the tall policeman took Alys by the arm. In a very few minutes they were all outside.
    â€œNow,” said the policeman, and as they stood on the paved courtyard in the moonlight he proceeded to tell them, in words they would never forget, just how little the Law was amused by this kind of practical joke.
    â€œIn fact,” he said, softly, “I think this goes further than a joke. I think whoever wrecked that house was attempting arson. There’s been a lot of vandalism