Lucy stood in the doorway as the boys left, but when Preston started his motorcycle there was no hideous roar. It turned over smoothly and quietly and purred as he rolled down the driveway.

“What happened?” asked Lucy.

“Tommy told me,” chirped up Sara, who had come back downstairs, her hair still damp from her shower. “He got a new muffler. The lawyer advised him it would help community relations.”

Esterhaus sounded like one smart cookie, thought Lucy, making a mental note of the name. You just never knew when you might need a good lawyer.

Lucy waited until after supper, when Sara had gone out to the movies with her friends and Zoe was upstairs getting her homework out of the way before the weekend, to tell Bill about the day’s events.

“Something’s going on with that football team that isn’t right,” insisted Lucy. “I just feel it.”

“Yeah, they’re winning,” said Bill. “They beat Lake Wingate twenty-one to six today. Amazing.”

“What are you saying? That it’s okay for the boys to haze each other and harass the cheerleaders so long as they keep winning?”

“Well, whatever’s going on, you can’t argue with the result.”

Lucy couldn’t believe her husband, Sara’s doting father, was talking like this. “Are you actually telling me you’d sacrifice your daughter’s well-being for a winning season?”

Bill shifted uncomfortably in his recliner, making it squeak. “No. Of course not. But maybe she just needs to develop a little tougher skin. That’s what this stuff is all about and to tell the truth, if it’s hazing that’s producing the desire to win, well I can’t say I think it’s such a bad thing.” He shrugged. “We all go through it one way or another. You’ve got to pay your dues.”

“Well, the team may be winning but Sara’s throwing up every morning before school. This can’t go on.” Lucy leaned forward. “I think she should talk to a counselor.”

Bill’s eyebrows shot up. “Like a psychiatrist?” He shook his head. “She’s not crazy.”

“But she is unhappy. I can’t get her to tell me what’s going on but maybe she’d open up to a professional. They know all sorts of techniques for establishing trust and getting kids to open up to them.”

“Why would she trust a stranger when she won’t trust her parents?”

“Apparently…” began Lucy, but she was interrupted by Libby’s frantic barking. The dog’s hair was standing straight up on her back as she paced from window to window, growling and barking.