“Interesting,” said Mr. Hastings, taking some instruments out of his shirt pocket. “Do you mind?” He gestured that he wanted to get on the bed.

Sina held her hands out in the manner of a duchess saying Be my guest, and he crawled across the bed, also pretending the dirty Kleenexes and apple core weren’t there, and began measuring various angles.

“And where did you see it exactly out the window?”

“Um,” she said, “it was there. Just through those trees.”

“Interesting,” he said again. “Did you see it as a…”—Mr. Hastings paused dramatically and turned his head slowly to look her in the eye and finish meaningly—“blue light?”

Winifred and I jumped, but Sina stoically kept both feet on the floor.

“Yes,” lied Sina, her face beginning to twitch in its characteristic tell because, of course, she’d already told us it had lots of blinking lights, only some of them blue. “Yes, I did. That’s why I called. Because on the radio they said it cast…” And here her dramatic pause answered his and she copied his slow head turn and piercing look. “A blue light.”

“Quite,” said Mr. Hastings.

He looked at Sina searchingly. Although they had several feet between them, they seemed to be locked in some kind of dance, moving to the silent beat of what they would not say.

“This blue light—I mean, this obvious meteor…”

He was asking for something, but Sina just blushed and looked down.

“We are talking about a meteor…” he said, and even though it was a statement, it seemed to hold a question.

“Yes,” said Sina so breathlessly we could hardly hear her. I was sure at that point she was on the verge of confession.

“How fast would you say it was going? Did it appear to be making its way to the horizon … with…” Again the pause, again the head turn, again the piercing eyes. “Speed?”

Winifred and I leaned forward involuntarily, so as not to miss a word.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, speed, speed is a, uh tricky thing.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding as if seriously considering the matter. “That’s what we’re talking about, then, is it? A tricky thing.”

“Tricky,” agreed Sina.

“Hmmm,” said Mr. Hastings. Then, still balanced precariously on his knees on the saggy mattress, he silently measured and remeasured what I was sure he had measured properly the first time. I got the impression he was stalling, giving her a chance to come clean, but Sina remained stoically silent.

“This meteor seemed to move with consistent speed?” he asked at last, changing his tactic, and appearing nonchalant as if he didn’t really care about the meteor although it had been clear before that he hung on Sina’s every word. I had the feeling that he didn’t believe a word she said and was hoping to thus crack her open.

Sina, borrowing from Crying Alice, said, “Well, it appeared contiguous.”

This seemed to stump Mr. Hastings, who wrote something down. Perhaps, Subject has less than perfect command of the English language.