As soon as the door was closed, he forgot his fears of silent invisible Reds. Things were right quiet in the house, which was pretty suspicious to start with. The girls were never quiet till Papa shouted at them at least three times each night. So Alvin walked, up real careful, looking before every step, checking over his shoulder so often he started getting a crick in his neck. By the time he was inside his room with the door closed he was so jittery that he almost hoped they’d do whatever they were planning to do and get it over with.

But they didn’t do it and they didn’t do it. He looked around the room by candlelight, turned down his bed, looked into every comer, but there was nothing there. Calvin was asleep with his thumb in his mouth, which meant that if they had prowled around his room, it had been a while ago. He began to wonder if maybe, just this once, the girls had decided to leave him be or even do their dirty tricks to the twins. It would be a whole new life for him, if the girls started being nice. Like as if an angel came down and lifted him right out of hell.

He stripped off his clothes quick as he could, folded them, and put them on the stool by his bed so they wouldn’t be full of roaches in the morning. He had kind of an agreement with the roaches. They could get into anything they wanted if it was on the floor, but they didn’t climb into Calvin’s bed or Alvin’s neither, and they didn’t climb onto his stool. In return, Alvin never stomped them. As a result Alvin’s room was pretty much the roach sanctuary of the house, but since they kept the treaty, he and Calvin were the only ones who never woke up screaming about roaches in the bed.

He took his nightgown off its peg and pulled it on over his head.

Something bit him under the arm. He cried out from the sharp pain. Something else bit him on the shoulder. Whatever it was, it was all over inside his nightgown, and as he yanked it off, it kept right on nipping him everywhere. Finally it was off, and he stood there stark naked slapping and brushing with his hands to try to get the bugs or whatever they were off him.

Then he reached down and carefully picked up his nightgown. He couldn’t see anything scurrying away from it, and even when he shook it and shook it, nary a bug fell off. Something else fell off. It glinted for a moment in the candlelight and made a tiny twinking sound when it hit the floor.