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by a thread, their fur soiled beyond cleaning. It's like she can smell the years on things, and she likes that smell.
    Old post cards, tin wind-up toys with rusted gears, buttons long out of fashion, ticket stubs found in a shoebox in the attic—these are the things Alice likes, not new stuff that comes sealed in plastic.
    Then I get an idea.
    I find the pet supplies. I buy a leash.
    "A leash," Aunt Flo says. "Now what do you want a leash for?"
    "For walking Boo," I tell her.
    Aunt Flo snorts. "That dog's never been on a leash in his life. Why, he'll drag you halfway to Kingdom Come."
    Yes, that's what I'm hoping.
    * * *
    Things have changed. They've gotten really bad. Another kid—a kid named Martin Dale—has gone missing. The whole town has gone crazy.
    "Nobody smiles anymore," Alice says. "It's like they have to have permission to smile and somebody's told them, 'No more smiling!' Even if they want to, they can't do it. You'll go to jail if you smile or laugh or have a good time. And if it goes on long enough, the jails will be full of people who are happy and smiling and the rest of the world will be all glum and sad. So anybody who wants to have fun will rob a bank so they can get thrown in jail. No, that's stupid. They'll throw a party. And everybody at the party will get thrown in jail. And it's all Martin Dale's fault for going missing."
    "It wasn't his fault somebody kidnapped him."
    She shakes her head.
    "He did something. Who would want to kidnap Martin Dale?"
    "A crazy person. A maniac."
    "He had to do something. Nobody just grabs kids and kills them for no reason. They did something! Martin Dale did something and so did Perla Ingram!"
    Now I understand. Alice is afraid. The whole town is afraid because the world doesn't make sense to them anymore. Two kids go missing and suddenly everything is all messed up.
    Everybody feels the way I felt already. Their world is upside down the way mine is. I know better than anybody, I think, how the people of Meddersville feel. How Alice feels.
    Everything is different here.
    Now it's different for all of us.

Chapter Seven
     
    "WHATEVER ELSE you say about him, whatever defects he had and Lord knows he wasn't quite right, Martin Dale didn't have a mean bone in his body."
    The telephone was ringing when we got home from the store and it's been ringing most of the afternoon. Aunt Flo paces around the kitchen with the receiver on her shoulder. She putters around and talks to everybody in town about Martin Dale and Perla Ingram and how something evil has come to their town.
    "They've called in the FBI," she says to somebody on the phone. "At least that's a start."
    Now she's washing the day's dishes. Usually they'd be washed right after every meal, but not today. It's another sign of how crazy everything has become.
    Catherine dries them after a fashion and hands them to Alice, who stands on a stool to put them on the shelf. Uncle Billy built the stool himself and it shows. The legs are too close together and they don't all meet the floor at the same time. Alice doesn't seem to notice the way the stool jiggles and tips, but it worries me.
    "Such a sweet, sweet boy," Aunt Flo says. "Do you remember he gave me a May basket?"
    "He gave it to you on the Fourth of July, Mom," Catherine says.
    "Makes no nevermind. It's the thought that counts. He thought to give me flowers, which is more than your father's done in twenty years. He made the basket himself out of construction paper. He left it on the porch and rang the bell, and I saw him peeking out from behind the hedge when I went to the door. He was a sweet, sweet boy."
    "He was retarded."
    "He was slow. That's all, just slow. There's more things that matter in this world than brains. He had a good heart, that boy."
    " Perla was good, too," Alice says.
    "Yes, she was."
    "Now she's dead, and Martin Dale is dead, too."
    Aunt Flo's face gets hard. "We don't know that," she says. The muscles in her jaw are tight. "They're missing. That