When Ripley refused to answer he wriggled away from his sister, stared wide-eyed at the shadows cast by the flashlight across the bellied ceiling. The air smelled end-of-summer cool. Soon he would go to preschool. But the outside was dark, big, and hollow, filled with great nothings and terrible anythings. He heard a dog barking in the distance. It sounded angry.

'Where's Bart?'

'In-side,' Ripley said in her dangerous voice.

She thought she was soooo big. But soon he would be bigger, and no one would tell him what to do, and he would save little kids from bad cornfields and booby bullets and dinosaurs. Even psychos would be afraid of him. Last week, Mia had fallen asleep waiting for Dad to come pick them up, and he and Ripley had watched a show on psychos—a cool show. They had even seen crime scene photographs, with blood hanging like spaghetti from the walls. Sickos, Ripley had called them. Bad-bad men, just like Uncle Cass.

Frankie giggled to himself, whispered 'Sickos!' He liked that word, he decided. 'Sickos!' he hissed again. 'Sick-sickos!'

Then he thought he heard a rattle beyond the nylon, and he was frightened again. What if it was a sicko? He swallowed, thinking how big and empty and dark the outside was. A sicko could be anywhere, and Frankie wouldn't know. How could you know if you couldn't see? Maybe that was what the dog was barking at, some sick-sicko hiding in the hole between buildings, waiting to make spaghetti of somebody.

Frankie didn't want to be spaghetti.

'I wanna go see Bart,' he said. Dad said Bart had super senses.

'Quit your whining!' Ripley said like a little Mom. .

'You're not Mom,' he mumbled.

Then he heard it. The sound of feet swishing through dewy grass. Swish-thump. Swish-thump…

'Ripley!' he gasped.

'I hear,' she said, her voice now as small as his.

Shwish-swish-thump…

He turned to her horror-stricken face. The flashlight lay between them, illuminating her face from below. Earlier that night she had put the flashlight to her chin and tried to make scary faces. Frankie had only laughed. Now she looked scarier than any face in the whole world.

'I don't want to be spaghetti,' Frankie murmured. 'Ripleeeeeeee …'

They heard a pop from the peak of their pup tent. Ripley clasped the flashlight with both hands, pointed it toward the sound.

Something pointy whisked across the orange nylon.

Frankie couldn't breathe. He wanted to scream, but something clamped his mouth shut.

Another pop. Ripley jerked the flashlight toward the entrance.

It was black-black beyond the mosquito-screen gauze. The zipper started dropping, tooth by shiny tooth.

Click-click …

Ripley screamed. The zipper ripped down.

Something dark exploded into the light. Frankie felt an iron hand clutching at his stomach.