When her mother didn’t answer, she called out again. “Dad?” Again, nothing.

This, she surmised, must be her punishment. She’d pissed off her parents, disappointed them, and now they were going to act like she didn’t exist. Silent treatment, on a nuclear scale.

Okay, she could deal with that. It beat a huge confrontation first thing in the morning.

Cynthia didn’t feel she could keep down any breakfast, so she grabbed the schoolbooks she needed and headed out the door.

The Journal Courier, rolled up with a rubber band like a log, lay on the front step.

Cynthia kicked it out of her way, not really thinking about it, and strode down the empty driveway-her father’s Dodge and mother’s Ford Escort were both gone-in the direction of Milford South High School. Maybe, if she could find her brother, she’d learn just what was going on, just how much trouble she might actually be in.

Plenty, she figured.

She’d missed curfew, an early one of eight o’clock. It was a school night, first of all, and then there’d been that call earlier in the evening from Mrs. Asphodel about how if she didn’t hand in her English assignments, she wasn’t going to pass. She told her parents she was going to Pam’s house to do homework, that Pam was going to help her get caught up on her English stuff, even though it was stupid and a total waste of time, and her parents said okay, but you still have to be home by eight. Come on, she said, she’d barely have time to get one assignment done, and did they want her to fail? Was that what they wanted?

Eight, her father said. No later. Well, screw that, she thought. She’d be home when she got home.

When Cynthia wasn’t home by eight-fifteen, her mother phoned Pam’s house, got Pam’s mother, said, “Hi, it’s Patricia Bigge? Cynthia’s mom? Could I talk to Cynthia, please?” And Pam’s mother said, “Huh?” Not only was Cynthia not there, but Pam wasn’t even home.