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had a sort of date after school ... Is she supposed to come home for dinner? ... Well, I'm home now, so if you do hear from her could you ask her to call me ... Thank you ... Goodbye."
    He got undressed for his shower, thinking about Joyce; about her slender body, about the soft smoothness of her lips. He found himself naked, staring at the cluttered top of his dresser. It was a strange litter--a photo of his and Joyce's heads, slightly out of focus; a pocket game the object of which was to guide four little balls into a central aperture; a left-over radio tube from the last repair job on his portable; a pair of broken pliers; a silver-backed military brush set, deeply scored with the initials he had himself imposed with a nailfile; an ink bottle; a locket that belonged to Joyce; a pair of cheap binoculars; an ink-stained doily; a retired hunting knife; miscellaneous phonograph needles; a solid geometry textbook; a cartoon book picked up on the expedition he and Joyce had made to the burlesque show in Union City, New Jersey, which had strangely provided the basis for Joyce's expulsion from Paugwasset High; a key-ring with numerous unidentifiable keys and, finally, a button-covered beanie left over from some remote era like an archaeological relic of a forgotten civilization.
    He raced through his shower, dressed quickly and came down to find his parents already seated at the table.
    "You're a little late this evening, Tony," John Thrine said, mildly critical. He personally made a fetish of promptitude.
    "I was trying to hunt down Joyce Taylor." Tony tried unsuccessfully to smile. "She was supposed to meet me this afternoon." He set about his soup with great protective vigor. What was the matter with Joyce? Where was she? What was she doing? Didn't she know he'd be worried about her? She had been terribly silent on the ride home, last night ...
    It hadn't been very good. None of it had been good. You had both been frightened and unsure and worried, and Joy had screamed that once, and then, after you'd stopped in front of the house, she'd talked about her father--in a way that didn't quite make sense, talking as though her father were to blame for her being kicked out of school.
    Tony couldn't figure that part out. After all, she was the one who had got up from her seat in the auditorium and gone up on the stage. Of course, there had been some kidding and horseplay going on before that, but nobody had thought anything about it when she'd got up. And then, suddenly, there she was on the stage, walking back and forth in long strides that stretched out the flare of her light dress, and everybody was watching her. After a moment or so, she had caught the mood perfectly--exactly like the girls in that burlesque show in Union City.
    Suddenly she had deftly done something with a zipper, so that with each stride one slim, nylon-clad leg poked into view almost to the thigh. Then, faster and faster, she had whirled in a wild dance.
    He remembered how the infection had suddenly caught up the other kids. How they had applauded and whistled, stamping feet to give her a throbbing rhythm for her dancing. Then she had begun a mock "grind", weaving and contorting her body! No one had seen the teacher watching from the back of the auditorium. The whole huge auditorium rang with yelling.
    Then unexpectedly Harry Reingold was up on the platform calling, "Come on kids, break it up. You want old pussyfoot in here? Come on, break it up!" And Ruth Scott, tubby little Ruth, was pulling Joyce offstage. Then, as silence descended once more, and the students went back to their books, you had caught a sound from the rear of the auditorium and turned to see a door swinging closed. And you had known, then, that Joyce was in for it ...
    "Tony! What on earth is the matter with you?" Tony looked up at his mother. "What ails you, Tony?" His father put in. "Have you been drinking?"
    "I just don't feel so good. I don't think I want anything to eat now. Excuse me,