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and with such a terrible sadness in her face, that I had to look away. I couldn’t stand it. And then she went upstairs, too, and shut her door, but quietly.

G ran stayed up in her room, refusing the food I brought her, her face to the wall. Rew came down, though. Around lunchtime he walked downstairs, making a point of turning his face from Andrew Snow, who sat with his chair tipped back against the front door, just staring up into nothing.
    Rew and I poured cereal and milk for lunch. Rew liked cereal, but I rarely let him have it. Cereal boxes are bulky, and I hated carrying them home from the store. But when he came down now and pulled out the Super Sugar Crisp, I decided not to make an issue of it. So we sat there, eating cereal and stealing glances at Andrew Snow. He didn’t bother us, but he looked our way plenty, an expression on his face that told me he wanted to say something. I guess Rew felt it, too, because he started in on Andrew Snow as soon as he’d finished his bowl. In fact, he spent a good half hour taunting him, promising he’d run at the first chance and get the police to put Andrew Snow back where he belonged.
    Andrew Snow ignored him, and after a while, unable to listen anymore, I went upstairs and tried to make Gran talk to me, tried to get her to tell me something that made sense. But Gran said not a word.
    And so finally I went back down to them. Andrew Snow sat in that chair by the door, face expressionless, watching Rew, watching me as I came down the stairs.
    “You get years and years for holding people hostage,” Rew was saying to him. “Maybe the death penalty, even.”
    Andrew Snow didn’t answer.
    “You’ll fall asleep, you know,” Rew said. “And then I’ll do it. You can’t stay awake forever.”
    Andrew Snow studied Rew, his lips pressed together in a line.
    “How do you know I won’t hurt someone once you’re gone?” he said. “Don’t you care at all about them?” He nodded toward me, and up in the direction of Gran’s room.
    Rew turned his face away.
    Like those people in the embassy over in Iran, we were captives. Andrew Snow held us, with his grim face and his back to the door. If my figuring was right, then according to ABC, the hostages had been held for 243 days by the time we joined them, in our way. For us, day one was a Thursday. The third of July.
    The heat of that day pressed itself through the windows, even after Andrew Snow had shut them. I went and stood by the kitchen door, looking out the back window at the Zebra Forest, thinking how it would be cool there now, in the shade. Thinking how if this were yesterday, I might be happy.
    Someone came into the kitchen behind me. I thought it was Rew, but when I turned, I found Andrew Snow. He’d managed to chain the living-room door and wedge his chair against it so it would take a while to yank open.
    “They’ll come back for you,” I said. “They don’t just let people walk out of prison, you know.”
    Andrew Snow raised his eyebrows. “You know much about prisons?” he asked me.
    I shrugged.
    He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. Through the kitchen door, I could just see Rew on the stairs, listening, his face pale, his head resting against the rungs of the banister. I guessed all that yelling had tired him out.
    “Then I’ll tell you something,” Andrew Snow said. “Policemen don’t pay attention. They’ve checked their box. They’ve been here. They’re done. They’ve got too many other things to worry about, specifically the forty-nine other guys that headed up that highway. I’m not worried.”
    He sounded like a liar, though. And not even a good one, like Gran.
    So I said, “Yeah, well, you can’t keep us here forever, you know. People will be looking.”
    He didn’t answer right away. But he looked around the kitchen.
    “You have many people here? Does your Gran have a lot of people?”
    There was something funny in his voice when he said it.
    I didn’t know how to answer