he children forgot for a little while.

One day about a month later, after Lew had gone back to teaching full-time, Brian came to Trent and told him there was another crack in the plaster on the third floor, and that he could see more metal behind it. Trent and Lissa came at once. Laurie was still in school, at band practice. As on the occasion of the first crack, their mother was lying down with a headache. Lew's temper had improved once he was back at school (as Trent and Laurie had been sure it would), but he'd had a crackerjack argument with their mother the night before, about a party he wanted to have for fellow faculty members in the History Department. If there was anything the former Mrs. Bradbury hated and feared, it was playing hostess at faculty parties. Lew had insisted on this one, however, and she had finally given in. Now she was lying in the shadowy bedroom with a damp towel over her eyes and a bottle of Fiorinal on the night-table while Lew was presumably passing around invitations in the Faculty Lounge and clapping his colleagues on the back. The new crack was on the west side of the hallway, between the study door and the stairwell.

'You sure you saw metal in there?' Trent asked. 'We checked this side, Bri.' 'Look for yourself,' Brian said, and Trent did. There was no need of a flashlight; this crack was wider, and there was no question about the metal at the bottom of it. After a long look, Trent told them he had to go to the hardware store, right away.

'Why?' Lissa asked.

'I want to get some plaster. I don't want him to see that crack.' He hesitated, then added: 'And I especially don't want him to see the metal inside it.'

Lissa frowned at him. 'Why not, Trent?'

But Trent didn't exactly know. At least, not yet. They started drilling again, and this time they found metal behind all the walls on the third floor, including Lew's study. Trent snuck in there one afternoon with the drill while Lew was at the college and their mother was out shopping for the upcoming faculty party.

The former Mrs. Bradbury looked very pale and drawn these days — C even Lissa had noticed — C but when any of the children asked her if she was okay, she always flashed a troubling, over-bright smile and told them never better, in the pink, rolling in clover. Laurie, who could be blunt, told her she looked too thin. Oh no, her mother responded, Lew says I was turning into a blob over in England — C all those rich teas. She was just trying to get back into fighting trim, that was all.

Laurie knew better, but not even Laurie was blunt enough to call her mother a liar to her face. If all four of them had come to her at once — C ganged up on her, so to speak — C they might have gotten a different story. But not even Trent thought of doing that. One of Lew's advanced degrees was hanging on the wall over his desk in a frame. While the other children clustered outside the door, nearly vomiting with terror, Trent removed the framed degree from its hook, laid it on the desk, and drilled a pinhole in the center of the square where it had been. Two inches in, the drill hit metal.

Trent carefully rehung the degree — C making very sure it wasn't crooked — C and came back out.

Lissa burst into tears of relief, and Brian quickly joined her; he looked disgusted but seemed unable to help himself. Laurie had to struggle very hard against her own tears. They drilled holes at intervals along the stairs to the second floor and found metal behind these walls, too. It continued roughly halfway down the second-floor hallway as it proceeded toward the front of the house. There was metal behind the walls of Brian's room, but behind only one wall of Laurie's.

'It hasn't finished growing in here,' Laurie said darkly.

Trent looked at her, surprised. 'Huh?'

Before she could reply, Brian had a brainstorm.

'Try the floor, Trent!' he said. 'See if it's there, too.'

Trent thought it over, shrugged, and drilled into the floor of Laurie's room. The drill went in all the way with no resistance, but when he peeled back the rug at the foot of his own bed and tried there, he soon encountered solid steel... or solid whatever-it-was. Then, at Lissa's insistence, he stood on a stool and drilled up into the ceiling, eyes slitted against the plaster-dust that sifted down into his face.

'Boink,' he said after a few moments. 'More metal. Let's quit for the day.'

Laurie was the only one who saw how deeply troubled Trent looked. That night after lights-out, it was Trent who came to Laurie's room, and Laurie didn't even pretend to be sleepy. The truth was, neither of them had been sleeping very well for the last couple of weeks.

'What did you mean?' Trent whispered, sitting down beside her.

'About what?' Laurie asked, getting up on one elbow.

'You said it hadn't finished growing in your room. What did you mean?'

'Come on, Trent — C you're not dumb.'

'No, I'm not,' he agreed without conceit. 'Maybe I just want to hear you say it, Sprat.'

'If you call me that, you never will.'

'Okay. Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. You satisfied?' 'Yes. That stuff's growing all over the house.' She paused. 'No, that's not right. It's growing under the house.'

'That's not right, either.'

Laurie thought about it, then sighed. 'Okay,' she said. 'It's growing in the house. It's stealing the house. Is that good enough, Mr. Smarty?'

'Stealing the house...' Trent sat quietly beside her on the bed, looking at her poster of Chrissie Hynde and seeming to taste the phrase she had used. At last he nodded and flashed the smile she loved. 'Yes — C that's good enough.'

'Whatever you call it, it acts like it's alive.'

Trent nodded. He had already thought of this. He had no idea how metal could be alive, but he was damned if he saw any way around her conclusion, at least for the present. 'But that isn't the worst.'