Rob splashed through the standing pool which had formed near the base of the attic dormer. "Here's the downspout, all blocked up. Hand me that stick, will you?"

With the stick Rob fished wet clots of leaves out of the downspout. The water began to seep away immediately with a satisfying trickling noise.

Jonathan helped by tossing more leaves over the edge of the roof. Like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpets, Rob leaped into battle. He circled the entire roof and cleared the gutters all around. "It's autumn,"

he pointed out. "The leaves are still falling. Come early winter, say on a nice dry day in November or December, you climb up here and do this again.

Then you'll be all set for the winter. No more roof leak."

"I can't believe it," Jonathan said. "It's like a miracle."

Rob rolled his eyes and climbed down to ground level again. It was ten o'clock and he was starving. Hanging out with a food fiend like Edwin had gotten him into eating far more than he used to in New York. He left Jonathan to explain the miracle of gutters to another Center counsellor, and went inside to wash up. Because of zoning regulations there was no kitchen at the Open Door Center, For meals the residents were supposed to hit a nearby soup kitchen. Rob foresaw having to do that someday soon, but at the moment he still had quarters. He'd walk a couple blocks over into downtown Silver Spring and have a decent breakfast.

They were still yattering on the porch when he came out. "Rob!" Jonathan said. "This is Mrs. Ruppert, the jobs counsellor and daytime manager."

"Hi," Rob said reluctantly.

"You are handy," Mrs. Ruppert pronounced.

He looked down at his feet in their tattered athletic shoes. "Thank you."

"We should have no problem placing you."

Rob tensed. He knew, without any mental stuff, that he shouldn't say he didn't want a job. Not to a jobs counsellor. "Maybe after breakfast," he muttered.

"But before we begin the placement search, we were wondering, do you know anything about-plumbing?"

"You see," Jonathan broke in, "the downstairs toilet has never worked right. Every now and then it just runs over. It's gross."

Rob couldn't help smiling into his blond beard. "I'm not a real plumber, but I can do fixes on toilets. I have-I mean I used to have an old house we were fixing up."

"If you would look at it, at your entire convenience of course, we would be so grateful!" Mrs. Ruppert, a very short middle-aged lady, beamed adoringly up at him. Obviously working toilets loomed large in her concept of happiness. Rob hoped that Jonathan was absorbing the lesson.

"Let me make a pass at it after breakfast," he said. "While I'm gone, maybe Jonathan can scout around for a pipe wrench."

That morning Rob replaced the innards of all three of the Center's toilets.

In the afternoon he cleared a slow drain, caulked all the shower stalls, and began on the windows. It took all day Tuesday to finish caulking the outsides of the windows and doors, with only one short break to patch a hole in the dry-wall near the office. By Wednesday Mrs. Ruppert had twisted Pastor Phillipson's arm and gotten authorization to replace some long-missing floor boards and linoleum squares. Rob began installing them immediately. He also made the radiators quit knocking by bleeding the sediment out of them.

It was an almost poignant pleasure to work with his hands again around a house. No wonder he had been so desperately unhappy in New York. Looking back, Rob wondered how he could have been so stupid. After working all his adult life and years of being an energetic homeowner, and then entering the marathon called raising twins, he had switched to idleness, just panhandling and reading newspapers all day long. A recipe for misery! It was much better, much more fun, to do things. And this building needed work. From something the hardware store man had said when Rob was buying spackle, he gathered that the Center was not considered an asset to the neighborhood.

On Wednesday evening Rob sat cross-legged in the hall measuring the last board for the floor and pondering lawn care economics. On the one hand grass was merely cosmetic. Spreading fall fertilizer on it wouldn't increase the comfort of the residents one bit. On the other hand it could be argued that any improvement in the way the place looked might placate the neighbors. Rob was realistic about the Not-In-My-Backyard phenomenon.

Having a homeless shelter on your street did nothing for your real estate values. Heaven knew that if the county had proposed one on the Lewis block in Fairfax, Julianne would have hit the ceiling.

Julianne. She never fertilized or mowed the grass-that had been Rob's task.

Had she just let the lawn go to hay this summer? More likely she'd hired a lawn service. Rob looked up at the pay phone, which hung in the hall near the front door, and temptation seized him.

His hand was on the receiver, the other fishing for quarters in his pocket, before Rob got a grip on himself. What exactly would he say to her? "Hi honey, I'm in Tanzania ... No, I don't know when I'll be back . . . No, no paycheck ..." The lies he'd have to tell wouldn't deceive a baby, yet he'd have to muscle her into swallowing them. And what good would it do? At least he'd had the sense to command her not to worry about him. There was nothing more he could add to that. He swallowed hard and leaned his forehead against the graffiti on the wall. It had been so much less painful to just not remember. The doorbell chimed right above his head, making Rob jump. He looked through the glass, and flung the door open. "Ed! Thank goodness you're here!"

Plump as a robin in a red down parka, Edwin said, "Hey, Rob, what's wrong?"

Rob shook his head. "Nothing. Just-just a little homesick, that's all. Come on in, you're letting in the cold."

"Is that okay?" Edwin looked uncertainly towards the common room, where some residents were watching a sitcom.

"Well technically, no-no visitors allowed. But we're not supposed to go in and out at night, either. So either you come in, or we yell through the door at each other."

Rob ushered him across the hall to the dingy little office, and unlocked it. "You have a key," Edwin noticed.

"Have to, to put away the tools. Some of these guys you wouldn't trust with a lollipop stick."

"But they trust you, eh?"

"A guy who can repair a toilet commands respect around here, let me tell you ... And another rule is, no food in the facility." Rob laughed out loud at the politeness struggling with dismay in Edwin's face. "But I still have that half-box of cookies-let me get them."

"I was telling Pastor Phillipson about you," Edwin said. He took out a small Swiss Army knife and slit open the cellophane wrapping.

"Yeah?" Rob took a cookie. "I hear he doesn't understand the value of attic insulation."

Edwin pushed a cookie whole into his mouth, and laughed. "Mrs. Ruppert told the pastor you were an angel specifically sent from above."

Rob almost choked on a mouthful. "You must be kidding. I hope you corrected them!"

"Come on, Rob, how could I? I made a promise I wouldn't breathe a word about your shenanigans. So instead I told about how you saved Katie."

Rob glared at Edwin, who leaned back grinning and propped his feet on Mrs.

Ruppert's blotter. "I don't want a halo. I'd rather have a cape."

"If you had a halo, we would get your remains."

"I think I had better will my body to a dog food factory!"

Edwin laughed so hard he almost lost balance. When he recovered he sat up and said, "Last night I had an idea, a really good one."

"Not another experiment!"

"This is perfectly safe and innocuous, Rob. Look, I'll show you some of the elaborate and technical equipment I've prepared." Edwin pulled a shiny new penny out of his jeans pocket and held it up between two fingers. "Okay.

You want to hear it?"

Rob relaxed. There was not a lot of trouble anybody could get into with a penny. "All right."

"So let's consider this penny. I flip it." He did so, catching it neatly and clapping it onto his hand. "Call it."

"Tails."

Edwin looked. "Sorry, it's heads." He flipped it again. "Now-neither of us have looked at this penny, right? You don't know if it's heads or tails, and neither do I."

"Right."

"Is there any way, by the exertion of power, that you could influence the flip: make it come out heads or tails? Or find out which it is before I lift my hand?"