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certain—I went next door and told the Duggins what you’d been saying. There was a drainage ditch that ran along the side of the street with a pipe that went under all the driveways to let the water through. That’s where he was. That’s where they found Mickey.”
    “In the pipe?”
    “He must have crawled in to hide from his mother when he heard her calling. Then he couldn’t get out. There was rubble blocking the far end, and he didn’t know how to inch out backward.”
    “Was he all right?” Karen asked.
    “Yes, except for scratches. He was scared, though. I can’t imagine they had any more problems with him leaving the yard.”
    “What do you mean, you ‘can’t imagine’?” asked Karen. “Don’t you
know
? After all, we were neighbors.”
    “I don’t know anything,” her mother said. “The Duggins didn’t communicate with us after that. Neither they nor anyone else in the neighborhood. It seemed they didn’t want tohave anything more to do with us. People talk, especially people like Mrs. Duggin. It would have been impossible for that woman to keep her mouth shut about anything.”
    “But what did they have against us?” Karen asked her. “The way you tell it, it sounds like I was a hero. Weren’t they grateful?”
    “Maybe, at first, they were. By the next morning, though, that part was forgotten. What they hung on to was how weird the whole thing was. You weren’t even around when Mickey ran off. I’d taken you with me to the grocery store. There was no way you could have seen that little boy crawl into the pipe. But you
knew
he was there.” She paused and then asked slowly, “How did you know, Karen?”
    “I can’t answer that,” Karen said. “I don’t even remember it happening.”
    “You remember what happened tonight. It was the same thing this time. You knew about Bobby the same way you knew about Mickey.”
    “I keep telling you, this thing with Bobby was just a guess.”
    “Sure, you can say that,” Mrs. Connors said. “Maybe you even believe it. But it can’t be true. It can’t be just a guess every time.”
    “Every time? It’s only happened twice!”
    “No, it hasn’t,” her mother said. “There have been other occasions. There have been things like… well, here’s one. There was the Rosetti girl’s birthday party, back when youwere in middle school. You didn’t want to go because you said this mean girl was going to be there who would tease you about your braces.”
    “You made me go anyway. And she
was
there, and I hated that party.”
    “That’s true,” her mother said. “But the girl wasn’t somebody you’d met before. She was a cousin, visiting from out of town. How could you have known she even existed, much less that she was a horrible child?”
    “I don’t remember,” said Karen. “I must have overheard it. Maybe someone was talking about her. What are you trying to do, Mom, make me sound like a freak?”
    “That’s exactly what I
don’t
want you to sound like,” her mother said. “That’s why I’m upset about what happened tonight. If it was bad after Mickey, this could be worse. Whoever was there at the Zenners’ is going to talk, and you can be sure the story is going to get better with every telling. That’s why it’s important for you to have an explanation to offer, something that will sound reasonable and put an end to the gossip.”
    “Let people gossip!” Karen countered. “I couldn’t care less. It’s not as if I did something criminal.”
    “Well,
I
care,” her mother said. “And Tim will care. It’s taken you long enough to get a social life. Do you want to lose it as the result of one evening? You’re the one who used the term
freak
. It’s a horrible word. I can’t believe a young man like Timwould be very enthusiastic about having it used to describe his girlfriend.”
    Karen closed her eyes and willed herself to some faraway place where the sound of her mother’s voice could not reach her. The