“What is it?” asked a weak voice from behind Lieder. A woman’s voice—barely. It was such a husky whisper that it would have been hard to tell, if Lieder hadn’t whirled around, revealing a little old woman in the doorway.

A small woman—just the right size for bullying, thought Danny.

But no, Lieder had been trying not to disturb her. And now that Danny looked closely, he saw that the woman wasn’t old, just faded and sagging. Not his mother, as he had first supposed. Nor was she small—or at least, she wasn’t short. Average height, and since Lieder was no giant, they looked about right together as man and wife. Except that she was wasting away. Something was seriously wrong with her, her robe hung on her as if she were a child wearing a woman’s dress.

Cancer, thought Danny. At home Lieder deals with a wife dying of cancer or something just as bad. Then he comes to school and takes it out on the kids.

On Danny’s tall and skinny friend Hal. It was because Lieder was humiliating Hal that Danny had made a series of gates to help Hal get up the hanging rope to the ceiling of the gym yesterday. A series of gates that intertwined and turned out to be the start of a Great Gate.

It was too easy, to think that a dying wife was the reason Lieder was a bully. It came too naturally to Lieder, a habit, an aspect of his personality. He was probably always a bully. Only now he’s a bully with something else to worry about.

“It’s all right, Nicki,” said Lieder.

“Why don’t you invite this boy inside?” asked Nicki. “He looks cold.”

“I’m fine,” said Danny.

“He’s fine,” said Lieder.

“Come in and have some cocoa,” said Nicki.

“He has to get to school,” said Lieder, “and so do I.”

Danny had been willing to shrug off the invitation before, but the woman was insisting, and the trickster in Danny couldn’t help but enjoy the fun. Plus, he was tired and cold and pissed off at Lieder. “Actually,” said Danny, “I don’t have to be there till eight-thirty. I’m not on one of those teams that practices before school.”

“But cocoa’s not good for my athletes,” said Lieder.

“I think of it as an energy drink,” said Danny. “And I could sure use some warming up.”

“Come on in, then,” said Nicki.

As Danny came past him, heading for the door, Lieder gripped him harshly by the shoulder and whispered fiercely in his ear, “You’re not coming into my house.”

“What?” said Danny loudly. “I couldn’t hear you.”

Lieder didn’t let go. “You heard me,” he whispered.