They exchanged one of their famous looks, and then turned back to me. "We didn't mean to," Astor said. "It was an accident." It wasn't much, but at least it was a complete sentence. "I'm very glad to hear it," I said. "What was an accident?" "We got caught," Cody said, and Astor poked him with an elbow. "We didn't mean to," she repeated with emphasis, and Cody turned to look at her before he remembered what they had agreed on; she glared at him and he blinked once before slowly nodding his head at me. "Accident," he said.

It was nice to see that the party line was firmly in place behind a united front, but I was still no closer to knowing what we were talking about, and we had been talking about it, more or less, for several minutes-time being a large factor, since the dinner hour was approaching and Dexter does require regular feeding.

"That's all they'll say about it," Rita said. "And it is nowhere near enough. I don't see how you could possibly tie up the Villegas' cat by accident."

"It didn't die," Astor said in the tiniest voice I had ever heard her use. "And what were the hedge clippers for?" Rita demanded. "We didn't use them," Astor said. "But you were going to, weren't you?" Rita said. Two small heads swiveled to face me, and a moment later, Rita's did, too.

I am sure it was completely unintentional, but a picture was beginning to emerge of what had happened, and it was not a peaceful still life. Clearly the youngsters had been attempting an independent study without me. And even worse, I could tell that somehow it had become my problem; the children expected me to bail them out, and Rita was clearly prepared to lock and load and open fire on me. Of course it was unfair; all I had done so far was come home from work. But as I have noticed on more than one occasion, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.

Which is what I attempted to do, however futile I suspected it would be. "I'm sure there's a very good explanation," I said, and Astor brightened immediately and began to nod vigorously.

"It was an accident," she insisted happily. "Nobody ties up a cat, tapes it to a workbench, and stands over it with hedge clippers by accident!" Rita said.

To be honest, things were getting a little complicated. On the one hand, I was very pleased to get such a clear picture at last of what the problem was. But on the other hand, we seemed to have strayed into an area that could be somewhat awkward to explain, and I could not help feeling that Rita might be a little bit better off if she remained ignorant of these matters.