Her glance strayed to the telephone, but as it did, the image of David changed. The confusing emotion in his eyes faded; all she saw was the anger, and she felt his fingers digging hard into her shoulders again.

Of course he wasn't scared, she thought. She'd only been imagining it. And he hadn't seemed about to offer any explanations.

She blinked, and David's image faded completely. The only vision in her mind now was a table spread with food. Peaches at her heels, she went into the kitchen and unearthed two cans of chili and a box of instant rice. Ten minutes later, she poured the chili over the rice and dug in. Nothing had ever tasted so good, and she'd made so much there'd be enough for later that night, when she was sure to be hungry again.

But if Jenny's stomach rumbled for more food later that night, she didn't hear it. After shelving

books for a'few hours, something she'd been planning to do ever since her parents left, she hooked up the VCR, put on a movie -- an inane comedy, with absolutely no hint of scariness to it -- and stretched out on the couch to watch it. She might have seen ten minutes of it, but that was all. Her eyelids drooped, and she forced them open a few times, but then they closed for good. When she woke, it was just past seven in the morning.

By eight-thirty, she and Sally were astride Enrnia and Alice, plodding their way slowly toward the base of the rimrocks. The sun wasn't up very high yet. It would get hot later on, but right now the air wa^ cool and fresh.

Jenny smiled to herself. It was amazing what eleven hours of sleep could do for a person, she thought. Eleven hours of sleep made it easy to believe that nothing weird, like a dead snake arriving in a giftbox, would ever happen again. Sleep made it hard to believe it really hod happened. It made Brad seem pathetic, and turned the argument with David into a bad but fading memory. Even the thought of spending a couple of more nights alone in the house wasn't as terrible.

Mostly, eleven hours of sleep and not enough food made her wish Alice wasn't quite as slow as Sally had promised. "Hey, I'm starving!" she called out. "I think I can manage not to fall off if we speed up the pace a little!"

"Okay, then just give her a tap with your heels," Sally instructed. "And don't forget to hang on."

*To what?" Jenny asked. They were riding bareback.

"To her mane," Sally said. "Or wrap your arms around her neck."

One tap of Jenny's heels put AJice into a jaw-rattling trot, and Jenny had to clutch her mane tightly or she would have ended up on the ground. But with a second tap, Alice broke into an easy, rocking-horse lope. It felt wonderful, and Jenny was almost sorry when they had to slow down so the horses could pick their way around the rocks at the bottom of the bluff.