And everyone had watched Mr. Calder take the froobie, while the new kid had backed away to the other side of the schoolyard as Mr. Calder raised the yellow plastic froobie to his ear, just like the football players did when they wanted to throw footballs like grownups. But when the froobie was ready to go, bang.

And Mr. Calder was only partly left. Outside the infirmary, the strangers were still examining the area for the sprayed pieces of Mr. Calder. Lights came on, and there were television cameras, and everyone was talking about how hard it must have been on Jimmy and Kathy to see such a horrible thing at their ages, so Kathy started to cry, and since Kathy was crying and everyone said it was horrible and since Jimmy's mother was hugging him as if something horrible had happened, Jimmy started to cry, too.

"The poor babies," said someone, and Jimmy couldn't stop crying. All this over Mr. Calder, who went up like a little firecracker with some of him left.

The two agents caught the nightly news on television as they went over their day's notes. There were the two children, crying away before the television cameras. The schoolyard. And Calder's home.

"A modest home on a well-kept street," said the announcer of the local television station.

"Well kept, you can bet," said the agent who had questioned the children. "We had both sides and the front of the house covered. And the backyard neighbor was a retired Marine." He blew air out of his mouth and went over the notes. Somehow, apparently in the children's toy, a bomb had been smuggled in. But then why did Calder play with it? How had it happened that a child hadn't grabbed it first and blown himself up, instead of Calder?

How did anyone even know the subject was in Fairview? He had changed his name to Calder when his children were only babies, so they never knew his real name. No one at the factory where he was assistant purchasing agent knew his name. The agent at the plant had kept an eye on that.