for when her parents came back. Then she got in one of the two checkout lines. Then she waited.

Half an hour later, she was still waiting. It wasn't a computerized supermarket. Not only that, but the man three carts ahead of Jenny had bought enough food to last at least a month. She glanced at her cart and started to think about what to put back so she could get in the express line. Then she remembered there was no express line. She sighed, hoping Peaches wasn't howling and creating a disturbance, then she pulled a tabloid from the rack. The place wasn't so old-fashioned that it didn't have tabloids.

Halfway through a story about a woman who'd been to Mars and back, and seen Elvis en route, Jenny felt a hand on her arm, and looking up, she saw Brad.

His eyes were clear this time, she noticed, and his round face was pale. "Jenny," he said quietly, "I don't really remember too much about the other night. But I think I made a fool of myself. I'm sorry."

Jenny stared at him. He seemed to mean it, but she couldn't be sure.

"Well. . ." he turned to go.

**Wait," Jenny said. "You didn't happen to leave anything at my house, did you?"

"No." He looked confused. Either that, or he was a good actor. "At least, I don't think so."

"Okay." There was no point m going on, Jenny decided. Either he'd left the snake or he hadn't. And if he had, he wasn't going to admit it.

"Well... okay. Bye, Jenny." Still looking slightly baffled, Brad left the store. Jenny wasn't sorry to see him go.

Finally, her turn at the checkout came. She bagged her own groceries, which seemed to surprise the girl at the cash register, but another thirty minutes had crept by, and Jenny just knew Peaches was awake by now, putting on her abandoned-animal act.

With one bag under each arm, Jenny finally left the grocery store and hurried the two blocks back to her car, straining her ears every step of the way for the howls of a miserable dog. She didn't hear them, and when she reached the car, everything was quiet.

Relieved, Jenny set her bags down and glanced in the back window. She couldn't believe it, but Peaches was still asleep, the sun picking out the pinkish highlights in her hair. Jenny laughed and rapped loudly on the window. The window ... it was up. All the way up. She'd left it halfway down, hadn't she?

She reached for the driver's door. Locked. And its window was up, too. All the windows were up. What was going on? She fumbled in the pocket of her shorts for the keys, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. A puff of ovenlike air enveloped her bare legs: the inside of the car was baking hot.

"Peaches, what happened, you must be . . .'* Jenny stopped. The dog hadn't moved. "Oh, no!"