At the top of the hill, the red van-if that’s what it is, it’s so gaudy and customized it’s hard to tell-turns on to Poplar. It begins to pick up speed. The sound of its engine is a cadenced, silky whisper. And what, pray tell, is that chrome gadget on the roof?

Johnny Marinville stops playing his guitar to watch the van slide past. He can’t see inside because the windows are polarized, but the thing on the roof looks like a chrome-plated radar dish, goddamned if it doesn’t. Has the CIA landed on Poplar Street? Across from him, Johnny sees Brad Josephson standing on his lawn, still holding his hose in one hand and his Shopper in the other. Brad is also gaping after the slow-moving van (Is it a van, though? Is it?), his expression a mixture of wonder and perplexity.

Arrows of sun glint off the bright red paint and the chrome below the dark windows, arrows so bright they make Johnny wince.

Next door to Johnny, David Carver is still washing his car. He’s enthusiastic, you have to give him that; he’s got that Chevy of his buried in soapsuds all the way to the wiper-blades.

The red van rolls past him, humming and glinting.

On the other side of the street, the Reed twins and their gal pals stop their front-lawn Frisbee game to look at the slow-rolling van. The kids make a rectangle; in the center of it sits Hannibal, panting happily and awaiting his next chance to snatch the Frisbee.

Things are happening fast now, although no one on Poplar Street realizes it yet.

In the distance, thunder rumbles.

Gary Ripton barely notices the van in his rearview mirror, or the bright yellow Ryder truck which turns left from Hyacinth on to Poplar, pulling on to the tarmac of the E-Z Stop, where the Carver kids are still standing by Buster the red wagon and squabbling over whether Ralph will be pulled up the hill by his sister or not. Ralph has agreed to walk and keep silent about the magazine with Ethan Hawke on the cover, but only if his dear sister Margrit the Maggot gives him all of the candybar instead of just half.