He piled our bags in the cart, set himself at the door. “Now when the rain lets up, we’ll run these out. Ready?” I got ready to open the door. The rain came like someone had thrown a bucket of water at the window. In a moment it had stopped, though water still streamed down the glass. “Now!” cried the salesman, and I threw the door open and we were off. We reached the car laughing like maniacs. The wind howled around us, sweeping up spray and hurling it at us.

“We picked a good break. You know what this weather reminds me of? Kansas,” said the salesman. “During a tornado.”

Then suddenly the sky was full of gravel! We yelped and ducked, and the car rang to a million tiny concussions, and I got the car door unlocked and pulled Leslie and the salesman in after me. We rubbed our bruised heads and looked out at white gravel bouncing everywhere.

The salesman picked a small white pebble out of his collar. He put it in Leslie’s hand, and she gave a startled squeak and handed it to me, and it was cold.

“Hail,” said the salesman. “Now I really don’t get it.”

Neither did I. I could only think that it had something to do with the nova. But what? How?

“I’ve gotto get back,” said the salesman. The hail had expended itself in one brief flurry. He braced himself, then went out of the car like a marine taking a hill. We never saw him again.

The clouds were churning up there, forming and disappearing, sliding past each other faster than I’d ever seen clouds move; their bellies glowing by city light.

“It must be the nova,” Leslie said shivering.

“But how? If the shock wave were here already, dead—or at least deaf. Hail?”

“Who cares? Stan, we don’t have time!”

I shook myself. “All right. What would you like to do most, right now?”

“Watch a baseball game.”