“Argh!” Jared and Jamie groan together.

Jared lounges on the leather sofa and Jamie sprawls on the carpet in front of him. They’re watching a basketball game on the big-screen TV. The para-sites who live in this house are at work, and we’ve already filled the jeep with all it can hold. We have hours to rest before we need to disappear again.

On the TV, two players are disagreeing politely on the sideline. The cameraman is close; we can hear what they’re saying.

“I believe I was the last one to touch it—it’s your ball.”

“I’m not sure about that. I wouldn’t want to take any unfair advantage. We’d better have the refs review the tape.”

The players shake hands, pat each other’s shoulders.

“This is ridiculous,” Jared grumbles.

“I can’t stand it,” Jamie agrees, mirroring Jared’s tone perfectly; he sounds more like Jared every day—one of the many forms his hero worship has taken. “Is there anything else on?”

Jared flips through a few channels until he finds a track and field meet. The parasites are holding the Olympics in Haiti right now. From what we can see, the aliens are all hugely excited about it. Lots of them have Olympic flags outside their houses. It’s not the same, though. Everyone who participates gets a medal now. Pathetic.

But they can’t really screw up the hundred-meter dash. Individual parasite sports are much more entertaining than when they try to compete against each other directly. They perform better in separate lanes.

“Mel, come relax,” Jared calls.

I stand by the back door out of habit, not because I’m tensed to run. Not because I’m frightened. Empty habit, nothing more.

I go to Jared. He pulls me onto his lap and tucks my head under his chin.

“Comfortable?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, because I really, truly am entirely comfortable. Here, in an alien’s house.

Dad used to say lots of funny things—like he was speaking his own language sometimes. Twenty-three skidoo, salad days, nosy parker, bandbox fresh, the catbird seat, chocolate teapot, and something about Grandma sucking eggs. One of his favorites was safe as houses.

Teaching me to ride a bike, my mother worrying in the doorway: “Calm down, Linda, this street is safe as houses.” Convincing Jamie to sleep without his nightlight: “It’s safe as houses in here, son, not a monster for miles.”

Then overnight the world turned into a hideous nightmare, and the phrase became a black joke to Jamie and me. Houses were the most dangerous places we knew.

Hiding in a patch of scrubby pines, watching a car pull out from the garage of a secluded home, deciding whether to make a food run, whether it was too dicey. “Do you think the parasites’ll be gone for long?” “No way—that place is safe as houses. Let’s get out of here.”