"Are we finished?" Trephila asked impatiently.

"For now."

"Good!" she cackled, suddenly the hag again.

Eurodia and Tique resumed their ruder forms as well.

"I get first shot at his bicycle!" Tique exclaimed.

"You only claimed that because I want his bicycle!" Eurodia whined.

Their voices were the last part of them to vanish.

Williamson left the meeting consumed in a fury like few he'd ever known. "Lowly functionaries!" Little bugs! That might apply to nitwits like Lindwald, but Lucifer's damn campaign would have crashed and burned months ago if not for himself! Hadn't Williamson been the one to inform Lucifer of Lindwald's screwups in time to remedy them? Hadn't he alerted Lucifer to Joby's hidden lineage? Hadn't Williamson been the one to connect Taubolt with the Creator's dream of "Camelot"?

His "own exhaustive observation and analysis"? Williamson thought in outrage. How dare he?! Their security camera indeed! This was the last straw! It was time Hell's whole useless ruling class learned a lesson about those little bugs they relied on to keep the dirt from under their own celestial nails. If it took him years, he'd find some way to win Lucifer's precious wager all by himself. Let them call him a bug then!

California's Indian summer had been canceled this year. August's dry heat had surrendered overnight to September's crisp chill, as if summer were just too tired to fight about it. That was pretty much how Joby felt too, as he rode toward school for his first day of fifth grade. There'd been trouble at his dad's construction site almost the moment they'd returned from Taubolt. The people who'd hired his father's company weren't happy anymore, and his dad was being held responsible. His father had been grumpier than ever, always telling Joby he should "stand on his own two feet, and be a man," as if Joby were standing on his hands or something. His parents were angry at each other half the time now too, and Joby didn't understand that either, though more and more often it seemed to be his fault somehow.

A week after their trip to Taubolt, his dad had backed over Joby's bike while leaving for work one morning, smashing it completely. His parents had been furious, and threatened not to replace it. No one had believed him when he'd sworn to having no idea how it got there. Joby had loved that bike! It had still been practically new! Why would he have dumped it right under the wheels of his father's truck where any idiot could've seen it would get run over? He'd even asked Benjamin if he'd borrowed it without asking, but Benjamin had sworn he'd never touched it. Eventually, his dad had broken down and gotten him another one, mostly because they were tired of driving him around, but the new bike was only a crummy three-speed, and an ugly yellow color at that.

Since then, Joby had tried harder than ever to be good, but he couldn't seem to make it through ten minutes without tripping on something, or tearing his clothing, or bumping his head. At first, his mother had just smiled and called it "growing pains." But after he'd smashed a few juice pitchers and dinner plates, she had stopped smiling, and begun to act as if he were doing it on purpose. So much for her "perfect little boy." In fact, his mother had become so nervous and irritable that by now Joby automatically tiptoed whenever she was around. She didn't seem even to want Joby going out of the house anymore. Just this morning she'd tried to insist on driving him to school, then told him, "You be careful on that bike!" at least twenty times.

No doubt about it, Joby was glad to have someplace to go again besides his house. Now that everyone was back at school he'd get the Roundtable going like it had been, and that would fix everything else. He wasn't sure how, but he felt sure it would.

Approaching an intersection two blocks from school, he pulled his back brake handle to slow down, but nothing happened. He instinctively pulled the front brake handle, and that did nothing either. He looked back in surprise to see what was wrong with his brake shoes, momentarily forgetting the intersection.

A loud screech brought his gaze back around in time to see a beaten old town car on the cross street accelerating straight toward him! Joby turned his bike so sharply that he nearly flipped over, but the huge car clipped him anyway as it roared by without slowing down. Against a vague, astonished fear, and a barely conscious struggle to reclaim control of his body as it flew toward the sidewalk, Joby had only one clear thought: His parents would never get him another bike.

Frank paced up and down the shiny pastel hallway like a shooting-gallery duck, careful to avoid Miriam's bee-stung eyes. They'd been examining Joby since before Frank's arrival half an hour ago. Was it supposed to take that long?

Along with everything else, Frank hated how perfectly this validated Miriam's damn dreams. Her nightmares had returned in mid-July. He'd done everything he could to be understanding, but she seemed to expect him to help her tie Joby to a chair until her sleep improved! She hadn't wanted Frank to replace Joby's bike. Now Joby had virtually handed her the final word, and she was acting as if that made the accident all Frank's fault somehow. Half of him wanted to let Joby walk until high school if that's how long it took him to learn a little caution. The other half didn't want to let Miriam win. She'd been having these damned nightmares for months after all. So one of them finally comes true? What did that prove? Law of averages, right?

To be fair, Cally, down at the Filling Station, had helped him put some of it in perspective. At first he'd been reticent to mention anything so personal as troubles at work and home to a bartender, however attractive, but Cally always seemed so happy to listen, and so good at seeing right to the heart of things. She'd put her finger on the source of Miriam's trouble right away, explaining that Frank's difficulties at work threatened Miriam's sense of security, and so, afraid to confront her husband about it directly, Miriam was trying to retrieve control of her life through Joby. When Frank had tried to talk with Miriam about it, however, she'd simply flown off the handle, and accused him of being every kind of pompous, manipulative ass. He shook his head, and tried to remember their last truly happy moment together.

Sooner or later, it all came back to those damned Goldtree bastards. He'd gone over every detail of that mall design with them a hundred times before construction began, and they'd applauded like trained seals. Not until the damned showplace had started going up had they begun squawking about the "pricey materials," and "architectural extravagances." Those damned extravagances had been their favorite selling points back when there'd still been time to drop them! And his faithful partners! They deserved medals for dodging bullets under fire, every one. He shook his head again. God! What was he doing thinking about work when his kid was lying in a hospital bed?

"Mr. and Mrs. Peterson?"

Frank strode quickly to where Joby's doctor waited outside the examination room. Miriam was right behind him. Without thinking, Frank reached back for her hand, but she wouldn't take it. God, she was angry. . . . Then again, so was he.

"We've looked Joby over pretty carefully," the doctor smiled, "and except for a couple of nasty abrasions and a bump on the head, he seems fine. He's a very lucky boy."

Oddly, Miriam turned away then, looking angrier than ever. Not for the first time, Frank wondered if his wife was . . . okay. The thought sent chills down his back.

"We can take him home then?" Frank asked.

"I'd prefer to keep him overnight, just for observation," the doctor said.

"Is that necessary?" Miriam asked before Frank could reply.

"No," the doctor said, shrugging. "But he did have quite a fall."

"He'll stay," Frank said before Miriam could get started. "May we see him?"

"Of course," the doctor said, turning to lead them into the room. "I certainly hope they catch the guy that hit him."

"Amen to that," Frank replied, wishing fervently for someone he could hit without guilt or reservations.

After his night at the hospital, Joby had spent another very unhappy day at home before going back to school. His father had driven him there. The bike hadn't been that badly damaged, but they'd taken it away, and wouldn't say for how long. When Joby had explained about the brakes, his father had gotten the bike and shown him that they were working just fine, so, once again, he'd been deemed a liar.

At school, however, Joby discovered that being run down by a car was just about the neatest thing anyone he knew could think of, and was rather enjoying his sudden celebrity by the time the bell rang and his crowd of fans escorted him to their new classroom. There, instead of Miss Meyer, he discovered a young, primly attractive woman he had never seen before. She had short, dark, shiny hair, and wore a gray dress suit that made Joby think of bank commercials.

"Hi, Joby. I'm Miss Stackly, as your classmates already know," she said, as if he'd missed an assignment or something. "Miss Meyer broke her hip in a fall last month, and won't be able to teach this year, so I'll be your fifth-grade teacher." She leaned forward to shake his hand. "I'm very glad you're finally here!" She looked up and smiled at the class. "There must be easier ways to get out of school than throwing yourself in front of a car, mustn't there, children?"

Everyone laughed, and Joby knew it was a joke, but something in her voice had made it sound as if she really thought he'd just done it trying to get away with something.

Smiling down at him again, she said, "I'm afraid you've already got some catching up to do, Joby, so why don't we sit down at lunch and go over what you've missed." It was not a request. There went his lunch hour.

They were silent as they walked into Joby's school for their parent-teacher conference with Miss Stackly. Such silences had become so usual that Miriam hardly noticed anymore.

She had opened Joby's last report card expecting further evidence of the student Mrs. Nelson had praised the previous spring. Instead, she'd found a long string of C minuses above a handwritten list of concerns filling the "Comments" box. The teacher's words still seemed etched on her retinas: Joby seems to like working at his own pace, and in his own way. This appears to be deliberate disobedience rather than mere immaturity or ignorance of school policy. He is not working to potential, or making wise use of his time, and he holds his pencil the wrong way when writing. I have spoken to him about this many times since school began, but he is still doing it!!! It has been a pleasure to have him in class.

Miriam had found Miss Stackly's final blandishment as offensive as it was incomprehensible. Confronted with the report when he came home, Joby had simply burst into tears and run to his room. Later he had mournfully sworn to be working harder than ever, claiming that Miss Stackly hated him, and that nothing he did was ever good enough. Miriam had come this evening braced to meet the Wicked Witch of the West, but the woman who greeted them was attractive, pleasant, and apparently very sincere.

"Thank you so much for coming." Miss Stackly smiled, waving them both toward seats. "I know Joby's very disappointed about his report card, and it must have come as a surprise to you too. That's why I'm really so glad we're getting this chance to talk."

"Us too," Frank replied evenly. "Joby's always done reasonably well in school before. My wife and I are rather concerned about the sudden change."

"I appreciate and applaud that concern, Mr. Peterson." She smiled earnestly. "And I'd like to start by reminding everyone that a grade of C indicates perfectly acceptable work. Joby is certainly not failing in any way, and he's been making a much better effort lately, so we're definitely not in any kind of crisis. I see this more as a valuable opportunity to steer him toward higher achievement."

"I don't want to sound defensive," Miriam said somewhat coolly, "but it's always seemed to me that Joby was already something of an overachiever."

Miss Stackly gave her a wrenchingly sympathetic smile. "I'm sure I don't have to tell either of you what an amazingly gifted child you have, but it's crucial that such children be challenged. After being allowed to glide by on his extraordinary talents for so long, being asked to truly stretch himself for the first time undoubtedly feels like persecution, but I assure you, nothing could be further from my intention."

Miriam wasn't going to let her off that easily. "On his report card," she pressed, "you expressed concern about the way he holds his pencil, but his writing seems very neat to me, and his spelling has improved tremendously during the past year. He's worked very hard at that. Shouldn't we be more concerned with these things, than how he holds his pencil?"

Miss Stackly didn't seem the least bit defensive. She merely nodded, as if carefully weighing Miriam's point. "You know, those comment boxes are much too small." She smiled apologetically. "I so often wish there were room to address more than the problems there.

"Joby is a wonderful child," she went on to assure them, "but his very rich imagination sometimes draws him into a kind of fantasy world, which is fine for smaller children, but Joby is reaching the age where, if we're not careful, he could start to become socially isolated, and functionally impaired in all sorts of ways. I'd really like to see him reading a little less fiction, and concentrating more on core academics. Some organized team sports might help his sense of discipline."

"My son has always been plenty athletic, Miss Stackly," Frank replied with barely suppressed rancor. "If I know anything about Joby, it's that. And I'm not sure what social isolation you're referring to, but he's about the most popular boy I've ever seen." His tone became more heated. "You're new here, of course, so you may not have-"

"Frank," Miriam interrupted, blushing.

"Mr. Peterson, I could not agree more," Miss Stackly insisted. "And really, I am so moved and encouraged every time I meet people who love their children like the two of you so clearly do. But I want to help keep him in step with his peers, so that he'll still be that same wonderful boy when he graduates from high school." She offered them her most ingratiating smile yet. "I've enjoyed meeting you both so much that, well, I can hardly wait for our next conference!"

Miriam left not knowing what to think. She had often heard that even the best children went through difficult phases. Perhaps she had only herself to blame for being naive enough to think that her child would be different.

Benjamin sat with Joby and Jamie outside the auditorium, still flushed and glazed in sweat. When they'd all decided to try out for Mr. Bingham's fifthand sixth-grade after-school basketball team, Benjamin had thought a tub like Jamie's chances pretty poor. It had never even occurred to him that Joby might not make it!

Having once again proven faster and more agile than seemed possible from the look of him, Jamie had made the final cut. But Joby's weird new klutziness had been in full force; and, to everyone's astonishment, Mr. Bingham had suggested afterward that he sit the season out. Joby Peterson! King of the Roundtable! Ben could still hardly believe it. Mr. Bingham had assured Joby, where others would hear, that boys often went through an awkward phase when their growth started, and that Joby's troubles only meant he was on his way to being tall and powerful sooner than most of his friends. But that hadn't helped much, and now Joby sat between Benjamin and Jamie, head hung in shame.

Benjamin punched Joby's shoulder companionably, and said, "Mr. Bingham was right, Joby. You're gonna be wipin' us all off the court next year-lookin' right down at the tops of our heads-even Lindwald's."

"Course you will," Jamie agreed. "Who said everybody's gotta be a hot-shot athlete like Ben here anyway? You got lots of other good points. Your brain, for one, no matter what Miss Stackly says. And meantime, you need any protectin' 'til your growth kicks in, I'm yer man! I ain't forgot what you did for me last year."

Joby stood abruptly, and walked away without speaking or looking back.

"What!?" Jamie called after him. "I just meant-"

"Give it up, Lindwald!" Benjamin growled. Really, it was hard not to hit him. If Benjamin hadn't known better, he'd have sworn Jamie was humiliating Joby on purpose.

Laura endured this latest meeting of the so-called Roundtable daring everyone to notice the pointed scowl on her face. No one had. Their club was back in fashion, but fashion seemed to be exactly the problem. Who was cool, who was not, whose tennis shoes were coolest; that's all anyone wanted to talk about now. Should the knights get special T-shirts made? Should they all get identical haircuts? To Laura's irritation, Lindwald was among the worst practitioners of the Roundtable's new conceits. He'd somehow gone from being merely accepted last spring to being the Chief of Status Police this fall, with Johnny Mayhew backing up his every decree.

They'd hardly done any secret missions yet this year. The two proposed that afternoon had been nothing but personal payback schemes against kids who had ticked off some so-called knight. With Benjamin's support, Joby had managed to get them both voted down, but it made Laura sick! Nobody but Joby and Benjamin even seemed to remember what secret missions had been invented for, and since Joby's failure to make the basketball team, no one paid him half as much attention.

Her thoughts returned to the meeting only when Joby stood up to speak, looking, Laura had to admit, far less confident than he once had.

"As most of you prob'ly heard already," Joby began, "Lucy Beeker's folks split up last week, and you prob'ly seen how much Lucy's been cryin' since then, so we all know she could use some cheerin' up."

The room's sudden silence was more embarrassed than attentive. Lucy was the school's number-one social outcast. Heavier than Lindwald, and shorter to boot, she talked like a baby, and wore thrift-store clothes. Her brittle blond hair was a fuzzy rat's nest. She'd already been out of school twice that year for head lice, and they said her dandruff rained down on people from clear across the classroom. Laura knew what Joby was going to say as well as anyone, but, unlike the others, she was proud of him.

"I think we should do a secret mission for her," Joby said. The silence became suffocating. Laura was bursting to get up and second the idea, but she had learned by now that support from the Roundtable's only girl usually hurt Joby more than it helped.

Peter Blackwell stood and said, "Lucy's . . . pretty weird, Joby. People'd think we're dweebs."

Laura was halfway to her feet, not caring what it might cost Joby or anyone else, when, to her astonishment, Jamie Lindwald stood, staring hard at Peter, and said, with a frighteningly quiet voice, "So what, butthead?"

"Jamie?" Peter said, looking frightened and surprised.

"Only popular kids need help? 'S'at whatcha mean, ya little prick?" Jamie asked, balling his fists.

"No," Peter quavered. "It's . . . I just-"

Jamie turned to Joby. "I'm in."

Looking chagrined, Benjamin stood up as well. "Me too."

"I think it's a great idea!" Laura announced, shooting to her feet.

For a minute, no one else moved or spoke, and Laura wondered if "the girl" should have waited longer to jinx it with her endorsement.

"I'll do it," said Duane Westerlund, looking far from thrilled as everyone turned to stare at him.

"Good," Joby said, looking at no one in particular. "That should be enough. Any ideas on what we should do for her?"

"Next Friday's her birthday," Lindwald said.

The silence that followed this announcement was purely astonished. Jamie Lindwald knew when Lucy Beeker's birthday was?

"We should get some stuff together," Jamie went on, "balloons 'n stuff, and fix up her desk maybe, so she's surprised when she comes to school."

"But when are we gonna do it?" Duane protested. "Her mom always drops her off way before class, and Lucy waits around to get picked up again 'til five o'clock sometimes-right on the front steps! Miss Stackly's room is in the front hallway. It's not like Lucy's not gonna see us."

"I can take care of that," Lindwald replied, but would say nothing of how.

They'd all been pretty startled when Jamie finally told them his simple plan for evading Lucy's attention. While Laura, Benjamin, and Duane had agreed to help get the signs and decorations together, they had sheepishly declined to break into the school with him later that night to put them up, despite Jamie's assurances that he knew how to get in without damaging anything. Joby had wanted to back out too, but the mission had been his idea, and he wasn't going to let Jamie go it all alone after the way Jamie had backed him at the meeting. So, after telling his folks he was going to study at Benjamin's, he'd come here to school with the sack of balloons and crepe paper to join Lindwald under cover of darkness behind a row of hedges that grew against the building, sneaking toward Miss Stackly's classroom windows.

When they got there, Lindwald grinned back at Joby, then reached up to grab a short length of wire hanging from one of the metal sills. When he tugged it, the window tilted open, freeing a small slip of paper Jamie had left to keep the latch from catching. Joby almost laughed in relief. He'd been afraid Jamie might break the glass or something. Jamie pulled himself up through the window, then helped Joby in. Navigating by the glow of street-lights, they went straight to Lucy's desk and got started.

They had all the balloons inflated and taped to the desk, and were just starting on the signs and crepe paper when Jamie suddenly gasped and lunged for the floor. Joby looked up and saw the red flash, flash, flash, reflecting palely off the far wall.

"Get down!" Jamie rasped. "Someone called the cops!"

Joby dove for the floor, and hissed, "Who? Why?"

" 'Cause we broke in, stupid!"

"But how did they know?" Joby insisted. "Are there alarms?"

"I don't know," Jamie growled, "but we gotta get outta here! Don't stand up. They'll see you. Crawl to the door, and run for the back of the school."

"But the hall doors are locked," Joby whispered, feeling drops of sweat trickle down under his shirt as he crawled after Jamie toward the classroom door. "How will we get out?"

"The doors only lock from outside," Jamie replied. " 'Cause of fires. From inside, you just push 'em open."

Scrambling out into the corridor, they got up and ran toward the front hallway intersection, then turned down a second hallway toward the school's back exit, but slid to a halt when they got there, staring at the heavy chain wrapped and padlocked around the inside handles.

"What now?" Joby groaned.

"Another window," Jamie said without hesitation. "Come on."

He turned and bolted toward Mr. Bingham's room, but as they entered the room, a flashlight beam swept the glass from outside. Lindwald threw himself against the wall beside the windows, put a finger to his lips, and waved Joby frantically toward a narrow closet to his left. Joby dashed to the closet, and stepped inside. Feeling surprisingly messy piles of stuff around him totter and shift as he brushed against them, Joby held absolutely still, trying not even to breathe, for fear that his treacherous clumsiness might cause an avalanche and give them away, but it was not his body that betrayed them.

From out in the classroom came a horrendous crash of breaking glass. Without thinking, Joby stuck his head out of the closet to see what had happened, and had only an instant to see Jamie standing sullenly amidst the tangle of Mr. Bingham's huge American flag, its heavy toppled pole jammed through the broken pane, before a flashlight beam hit Joby square in the face.

"Stay right there, son!" came an angry, authoritative voice from just behind the beam. "Don't move a muscle."

Waiting mutely beside his parents, Joby stared at the Thanksgiving decorations plastered around the school office. The upcoming holiday seemed utterly absurd as he sat, still trying to map the full dimensions of his disaster.

The night before, while Lindwald and one officer had waited out in the patrol car, the other officer had stood in Joby's living room asking his stunned parents if they wanted their son "detained." After all the other trouble he'd been in that fall, Joby had been afraid they might say yes, but after assurances from his parents that Joby would be severely punished, the policeman had left him in their "custody," warning that the school might wish to pursue "criminal prosecution" of Joby's "offense."

When the officer had gone, Joby had tried to explain about the secret mission to cheer up Lucy Beeker, but his parents had just stared at him as if he were some creature left by aliens in place of their real child. And why not? He had lied about going to Benjamin's house. Why should they believe anything he said ever again? When they'd sent him to his room, he'd left the door ajar and listened to them argue about things Miss Stackly had said about him, and, to his deep dismay, whether or not to take away his book about Arthur!

"She's right, Miriam," his father had insisted, coming up the stairs toward Joby's room. "The whole thing has gone too far!" Joby had just managed to hide his beloved book behind the bed headboard before his father barged into the room, demanding that he hand it over. When Joby burst into tears instead, his father had insisted that Arthur was not, had never been, real, and that Joby needed to start learning to live in the real world. This had only made Joby cry harder. "Blubbering's not going to fix anything, Joby!" his father had scolded. "Sooner or later, a boy's got to stand up and learn to be a man!" He had stormed out after that without remembering the book, and Joby had gone to bed feeling more miserable than he'd ever known a person could feel.

Everyone at school this morning seemed to have heard about Joby's arrest. Benjamin and Laura had seemed afraid even to look at him. Lucy's birthday decorations had been cleared away before anyone even saw them. Some of the guys thought it was cool that Joby had gotten arrested, but others said it only proved Joby wasn't fit to be leader of the Roundtable, not that it mattered anymore, because the principal, Mr. Leonard, had declared the Roundtable over and done for good. Mr. Bingham's supply closet had been vandalized, everything tossed about in piles. Joby, Jamie, and, by extension, the Roundtable in general were being blamed. Though Joby had sworn to having no idea how Mr. Bingham's closet had gotten trashed, no one had believed him. By then, Joby had been sure things could get no worse, but they had.