Lost Boys

The crickets were so thick on the floor that in places he couldn't even see the carpet. The crickets jump ing on him made him want to scream, and walking was very slow when he had to keep brushing them off, and finally he just stopped brushing them off, even though he couldn't stand the way it felt to have their feet on his naked legs. He couldn't brush them off because they were here in his children's bedroom and he had to get rid of them and so what did it matter whether he was comfortable or not?

They were coming up from a small gap in the back of the boys' closet. He could see them crawling out, first the ante

And then he thought, 1 made them. Crickets from hell. A plague of crickets. A sign to me that God saw the way I bullied that woman today and he knows that I secretly loved doing it, that I loved the power I had over her. So just like Pharaoh, I get a plague.

DeA

"Forget the dustpan," said Step. "They'd just jump off. I'll hold the bag open for you. But first we've got to stop them from coming in."

"You found the place?"

"A crack between the floor and the wall in the back of the closet. Do we have any rags?"

"All the old socks," she said.

"Get them wet and we'll jam them in," he said.

"Wet? Why?"

"Oh, please, DeA

It took all the socks DeA

Then the hard part started. The crickets were not inclined to hold still, and so it seemed an almost sisyphean task. Step would keep the bottom of the garbage bag flat on the floor by holding down two corners with his feet, and then hold the top open as far as he could with his hands, while DeA

Gradually they began to make progress, especially after Step figured out that by spraying Raid into the garbage bag itself from time to time, he could convince the ones they had already caught to stay put. It took an hour before all the visible crickets were collected and the bags tied tightly and carried out to the garage. Then began the hunt for the strays.

They pulled the kids out of their beds, one by one, and perched them sleepily in Step's and DeA

I hope we're so lucky, thought Step.

They found three crickets that had crept down into Robbie's sheets, which meant that DeA

They already were asleep, sprawled in a tangle on top of Step's and DeA

"Wouldn't it be nice," Step said to DeA

"I've got to wash," said DeA

Now that she mentioned it, he still felt the tickling of those tiny feet, and it got worse the more he thought about it. "You get the first shower," he said, "but make it snappy."

She didn't make it snappy, but he understood. When it was his turn, he had to soap himself up and rinse himself off three times before he finally felt clean enough to dry off and go to bed. And even then, he inspected the sheets, though no cricket had jumped on their bed and he knew it, he knew it, but he still had to look. He had to be sure.

"Tomorrow, the exterminators," he said as he finally pulled the covers up over him.

"Yes," she said, "I already tho ught of that. I'll call Bappy to find out if they have some kind of contract, like with Terminex or somebody."

The next morning he was late to work, of course, later than usual, because he had lost so much sleep the night before. He came in to find a memo sitting on top of his desk. It was from Ray Keene, and even though it was addressed to everybody Step knew that it was aimed at him.

It has come to my attention that some employees have been abusing our relaxed attitude toward work hours. Therefore a new policy is instituted begi

Step wanted to storm into Dicky's office and call him every name he could think of. But he couldn't. If only Arkasian had come through. If only Step had a contract with somebody else, a way to get out of this place. It would be such a joy to tell Dicky Northanger exactly what he thought of him. Instead, Step put the memo into his attache case, locked it again, and then headed for the pit.

The pit was silent when Step came in, and for a moment he thought that they all blamed him for this. But their silence, he realized, was because Dicky was in the room, leaning over the shoulder of one of the programmers. Since Dicky rarely came into the pit, this was in itself significant-but then, perhaps Dicky was doing it in order to stifle the outrage that they were all no doubt feeling. Well, that was fine with Step. The longer Dicky hung around in the pit, the more their anger would focus on him instead of on Step.

"Glass," said Step. "I need you in my office, if you can. I'm having some trouble with the way hyphenation is handled and I think there's a system to it that you can explain to me." They had worked all of this out the week before, but Dicky certainly wouldn't know that.

It didn't matter. "Glass will not go into your office right now," said Dicky. "And there is no reason for you to be in the pit. Glass is helping me work with my programming staff, and that takes precedence over anything the manual- writing staff needs. In fact, you should make a list of your questions and leave them on my desk, and I will get the answers for you. The programming staff has been inclined to goof off, and I am not allowing any further distractions."