One

December 10, 8:37A.M.

The Jeffry house in the suburbs of Chicagowas empty, but it was a hectic sort of emptiness. The portable television in the kitchen was on the "Today" show at top volume. Jane's ninth-grade daughter, Katie, had turned it on in the desperate hope of finding some tidbit of news with which to complete her social studies assignment. Naturally, she hadn't thought of turning it off before leaving for school. Such things never occurred to Katie. From upstairs, the sound of sixteen-yearold Mike's stereo was blaring an extremely noisy Queen album. Mike didn't set much store by turning things off, either.

The coffee maker was making a very peculiar burble because, in her haste to get her kids off to school, Jane had slopped water on the heating element. The furnace was going full blast, making the funny clicking sound Jane had been worrying about for a couple of days, and from the basement there was the sound of some lonely item of clothing with a metal button thrashing around in the dryer.

The kitchen phone was ringing insistently and was being ignored by the cat closest to it. He, a rotund gray tabby tom named Max, was standing in the sink fishing expertly in the garbage disposal for any little treasures that might not have been thoroughly disposed of. The faucet was dripping every few seconds on the back of his almost nonexistent neck, but it didn't seem to worry him. His counterpart, a sleek yellow item named Meow, was daintily cruising the breakfast room table for crumbs.

In the dining room a great shambling dog named Willard was barking his head off at the neighbor who walked the poodle by the house every morning. Willard had been soundly trounced once by the poodle and now spent a few refreshing moments every morning telling the interloper (from the safety of his own dining room) what would happen to him next time they met. Jane had to clean the low windows at least once a week because of his spitty morning barkfests.