Let's Go Play at the Adams'

others toy with her another two or three days, and his parents would accomplish the same

end. There was no way out and no way to take action just now.

Personally he felt bad about Barbara. He they-had proved the point. They bad taken and suc-

cessfully held her captive. Now the responsibility weighed on him. For a boy who should have

been living on parental guidance, kindness, and protection, he had turned out to be

extraordinarily self-disciplined. How else could be have made the initial capture, stood the

morning watches, avoided catastrophe last night, and so on? Like his surgeon father he had

the inborn willingness to subject himself to the test again and again. Someday-again like his

father-he might hold life and death in his bands, and they would be good bands. But for the

moment he was tired of it all and quite frightened over what would happen next. (Cindy bad

told him what John bad done.)

At one o'clock in the morning, however, be just couldn't seem to think about it clearly. Like any

adult faced with similar imponderables, he simply postponed thinking about the matter.

Barbara, momentarily released in imagination, was-with some misgivings-returned to captivity.

Bobby left her room and went into the kitchen to make himself a milkshake.

Ordinarily a treat, this ritual repeated alone three nights in a row (no one to give permission,

admire, or share) bad become like so many other things he found himself doing now that

Barbara was captive, his par-

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ents were gone, and he was in charge. It was simply another duty; having fun was

practically a duty. Like Cindy he felt ennui. He wondered why in the world adults bothered

to grow up. You had to get physically bigger of course, but why grow up if it was like this? He

shook his head.

Well, anyhow.

He carefully plopped in the ice cream-c-chocolate-added chocolate syrup for true taste, just

enough milk to liquefy, and pushed the bowl of ingredients up under the blade of the

Adams' milkshake-maker (as separate from Mother's mixer and Dad's blender, each in its

own place, too). He set the automatic timer for forty seconds, pulled down the lever, and

pushed the button to On. Having at thirteen years old executed this maneuver without

even thinking about it, Bobby turned and idly surveyed the kitchen. It was in the instant of

turning that he saw-perhaps a trick of reflection what appeared to be a light down in the

marshy woods by Oak Creek where nothing else could be.

Bobby wasn't alarmed. Parallax and prism effects, particularly in a house with duothermal

panes, air conditioning, and random condensation, were not only known to him but actually

the objects of games he played alone. (Move the bead this way and make the light

disappear, etc.) Instead of being startled, he summoned up his interest and tried to figure

out what light source could cause so funny a bounce back. The color varied; it was white

and then quite yellow. It danced. Bobby moved his head. No luck; the light stayed pretty

much where it was no matter what he did. Behind him the mixer whirred on: fifteen

seconds to go.

The conclusion he reached in the next five seconds was that the light was not his old friend

reflection but truly a light in the marsh, not a flashlight, not coming closer, but simply an

unknown light in the marsh. This meant somebody was in the marsh.

Bobby's first thought was John Randall. John had talked big about coming over and helping

watch at night, but Bobby knew the problems of sneaking out of

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that house and returning too many times. Also the light was not near the path by which John

would come. Therefore it was not John. Behind Bobby, the mixer purred to a stop, leaving only

the little orange-colored On sign blinking at him ..

As if wishing the whole matter to go away, he turned, opened the kitchen cupboard, got out a

tall glass, and with a steady, exact hand, poured his milkshake into it. Then he detached the

mixer blade, rinsed it, and put it in the drainer to dry. When he had done this and turned back,

however, he saw the light again. Once in a while, it disappeared only to reappear again. In his

imagination, it was a small campfire, and someone was passing back and forth between it and

his eye. Gathering wood, perhaps.

Bobby got his milkshake, turned off the kitchen light, and stood holding the cold glass and

sipping from it, his heart beginning to step up tempo in the darkness of the room. As soon as

his eyes became accustomed to the night, he understood once and for all that there was a light

in the marsh, that it was man-made, and that there was a person there feeding the fire.

There followed two very quick trains of thought:

1. Adult. Power of adults. Kids holding a captive girl in the bedroom. Discovery. Alarm. Punishment.

2. Pickers.

Although the Adams did not own enough ground to farm seriously, they were surrounded by