Under the Dome

“Okay,” he said, “but you have to be quiet. Don’t scare her when she wakes up, because she’s apt to be scared already.

“A little scared,” he amended. “Audi, good girl. That’s a very very good girl.”

Such compliments usually sent Audrey into paroxysms of joy, but not tonight. She didn’t even wag her tail. Then, suddenly, the golden gave a small woof and lay down, dropping her muzzle onto one paw. Seconds later, Jan’s trembling ceased and her eyes closed.

“I’ll be damned,” Rusty said.

“What?” Linda was now sitting on the edge of Judy’s bed with Judy on her lap. “What?”

“It’s over,” Rusty said.

But it wasn’t. Not quite. When Jannie opened her eyes again, they were back where they belonged, but they weren’t seeing him.

“The Great Pumpkin!” Janelle cried. “It’s the Great Pumpkin’s fault! You have to stop the Great Pumpkin!”

Rusty gave her a gentle shake. “You were having a dream, Jannie. A bad one, I guess. But it’s over and you’re all right.”

For a moment she still wasn’t completely there, although her eyes shifted and he knew she was seeing and hearing him now. “Stop Halloween, Daddy! You have to stop Halloween!”

“Okay, honey, I will. Halloween’s off. Completely.”

She blinked, then raised one hand to brush her clumped and sweaty hair off her forehead. “What? Why? I was going to be Princess Leia! Does everything have to go wrong with my life?” She began to cry.

Linda came over—Judy scurrying behind and holding onto the skirt of her mother’s robe—and took Janelle in her arms. “You can still be Princess Leia, honeylove, I promise.”

Jan was looking at her parents with puzzlement, suspicion, and growing fright. “What are you doing in here? And why is she up?” Pointing to Judy.

“You peed in your bed,” Judy said smugly, and when Jan realized—realized and started to cry harder—Rusty felt like smacking Judy a good one. He usually felt like a pretty enlightened parent (especially compared to those he sometimes saw creeping into the Health Center with their arm-broke or eye-blackened children), but not tonight.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rusty said, hugging Jan close. “It wasn’t your fault. You had a little problem, but it’s over now.”

“Does she have to go to the hospital?” Linda asked.

“Only to the Health Center, and not tonight. Tomorrow morning. I’ll get her fixed up with the right medicine then.”

“NO SHOTS!” Jannie screamed, and began to cry harder than ever. Rusty loved the sound of it. It was a healthy sound. Strong.

“No shots, sweetheart. Pills.”

“Are you sure?” Lin asked.

Rusty looked at their dog, now lying peacefully with her snout on her paw, oblivious of all the drama.

“Audrey ’s sure,” he said. “But she ought to sleep in here with the girls for tonight.”

“Yay!” Judy cried. She fell to her knees and hugged Audi extravagantly.

Rusty put an arm around his wife. She laid her head on his shoulder as if too weary to hold it up any longer.

“Why now?” she asked. “Why now?”

“I don’t know. Just be grateful it was only petit mal.”

On that score, his prayer had been answered.

MADNESS, BLINDNESS, ASTONISHMENT OF THE HEART

1

Scarecrow Joe wasn’t up early; he was up late. All night, in fact.

This would be Joseph McClatchey, age thirteen, also known as King of the Geeks and Skeletor, residing at 19 Mill Street. Standing six-two and weighing one-fifty, he was indeed skeletal. And he was a bona fide brain. Joe remained in the eighth grade only because his parents were adamantly opposed to the practice of “skipping forward.”

Joe didn’t mind. His friends (he had a surprising number for a scrawny thirteen-year-old genius) were there. Also, the work was a tit and there were plenty of computers to goof with; in Maine, every middle school kid got one. Some of the better websites were blocked, of course, but it hadn’t taken Joe long to conquer such minor annoyances. He was happy to share the information with his homies, two of whom were those dauntless board-benders Norrie Calvert and Benny Drake. (Benny particularly enjoyed surfing the Blondes in White Panties site during his daily library period.) This sharing no doubt explained some of Joe’s popularity, but not all; kids just thought he was cool. The bumper sticker plastered on his backpack probably came closest to explaining why. It read FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE.

Joe was a straight-A student, a dependable and sometimes brilliant basketball center on the middle school team (varsity as a seventh-grader!), and a foxy-good soccer player. He could tickle the piano keys, and two years previous had won second prize in the annual Town Christmas Talent Competition with a hilariously laid-back dance routine to Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.” It had the adults in attendance applauding and screaming with laughter. Lissa Jamieson, the town’s head librarian, said he could make a living doing that if he wanted to, but growing up to be Napoleon Dynamite was not Joe’s ambition.