“Did I say something wrong?” asked Dave. “It’s not fog? It’s gray lint? It’s cotton candy maybe?”

Neil shook his head. “Forget it. It was just an optical illusion.”

Dave strolled up toward him. “You really thought you saw something out there? What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know,” said Neil. “It looked so weird I just wanted a second opinion.”

“You can tell me,” Dave encouraged him. “I won’t laugh at you for longer than a half-hour.”

Neil turned away. “I guess it was just my imagination. Forget it.”

“You didn’t tell me what it was, so how can I forget it?”

Neil put down his ropework. “All right,” he said, “I thought I saw somebody, a man, standing out there in the bay.”

“Standing?”

“That’s right. Standing on the water, just the way you’re standing on that jetty.”

Dave pulled a face. “Well, you told me it was crazy, and you’re right. Are you sure you haven’t been reading the Bible too heavily lately?”

“Dave,” asked Neil, “will you just forget it? It was a trick of the light.”

“Maybe he was surfing and you didn’t notice the surfboard in the fog,” suggested Dave. “Or maybe he was standing on top of a submarine.”

“Dave, please forget I ever told you,” said Neil. “I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“Nor would I be, if I’d seen a guy standing on the water in the middle of the bay,” said Dave, with weighty mock seriousness. “Nor would I be.”

*

That afternoon, Toby brought home a large yellow Manila envelope from school, along with a note from Mrs. Novato. While Toby went out to play with his toy bulldozer, Neil took the package into the parlor and sat down at his old rolltop desk. Susan came in from the kitchen in her apron and slippers, and said, “What’s that?”

Neil looked at her, and gave a wry little smile. “It’s an experiment, I guess.”

Susan wiped her floury hands on her apron. She’d been making apple cookies, and she smelled of fresh cooking apples and butter. “An experiment?” she asked him. “You mean, something to do with school?”

He nodded. “You remember Toby kept on about Allen in his nightmares? Well, this morning, when I took him to school, I heard one of the other kids talking about Allen, too, so I asked Mrs. Novato to let me talk to the class for a couple of minutes. I asked them if any one of them had dreamed dreams like Toby.”

“Well? And had they?”

Neil opened the envelope. “There are twenty-one kids in that class, honey, and every single one of them put up a hand to say yes.”

Susan looked confused. “You mean—they’d all had the same nightmare? Surely they were just pulling your leg, acting like kids.”