‘Oh, Brian, you are such a cheeser!’

‘Never mind, just say you hope to die!’

‘Hope to die, hope to die, okay?’ Laurie said. ‘Why do you have to be such a cheeser, Bri?’

‘Dunno,’ he said, smirking in that way she absolutely hated, ‘just lucky, I guess.’

She could have strangled him… but a promise was a promise, especially one given on the name of your one and only mother, so Laurie held on for over one full hour before getting Trent and showing him. She made him swear, too, and her confidence that Trent would keep his promise not to tell was perfectly justified. He was almost fourteen, and as the oldest, he had no one to tell… except a grownup. Since their mother had taken to her bed with a migraine, that left only Lew, and that was the same as no one at all. The two oldest Bradbury children hadn’t needed to bring up empty suitcases as camouflage this time; their stepfather was downstairs, watching some British fellow lecture on the Normans and Saxons (the Normans and Saxons were Lew’s specialty at the college) on the VCR, and enjoying his favorite afternoon snack – a glass of milk and a ketchup sandwich. Trent stood at the end of the hall, looking at what the other children had looked at before him.

He stood there for a long time.

‘What is it, Trent?’ Laurie finally asked. It never crossed her mind that Trent wouldn’t know.

Trent knew everything. So she watched, almost incredulously, as he slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, peering into the crack. ‘Some kind of metal, I think. Wish I’d brought a flashlight.’ He reached into the crack and tapped. Laurie felt a vague sense of disquiet at this, and was relieved when Trent pulled his finger back. ‘Yeah, it’s metal.’ ‘Should it be in there?’ Laurie asked. ‘I mean, was it? Before?’

‘No,’ Trent said. ‘I remember when they replastered. That was just after Mom married him.