“Will be what?”

“I think it will be the last time I’m arrested.”

“I find that hard to believe.” He leaned over, scratching one of his dogs behind the ears. “Can’t change breeding, isn’t that right, Avarice?”

The dog purred.

Breeding? Now I was getting mad. “My breeding is fine,” I told him. The Schwa, who’s still mostly petrified, hits me to shut me up, but I don’t. “If you ask me, it’s your breeding that’s all screwed up.”

Crawley raised his eyebrows and gripped his poker. “Is that so.”

“It must take some pretty bad genes to turn someone into a miserable old man who’d send a couple of kids to jail just for trying to get a plastic dog bowl.”

He scowled at me for a long time. The sound of sirens peaked, then stopped right outside. Then he said, “Genes aren’t everything. You failed to take environment into account.”

“Well, so did you.”

There came an urgent knocking at the door, and all the dogs went running toward it, barking. “Mr. Crawley,” said a muffled voice through the door, over the chorus of barks. “Mr. Crawley, are you all right?”

The old man gave the Schwa and me a twisted grin. “Destiny calls.” He rolled off toward the door, calling back to us, “Either of you try to escape and I’ll have you shot.”

I didn’t really believe that, but I also didn’t want to take any chances.

“This is bad, Antsy,” the Schwa said. “Real bad.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Crawley rolled back in about a minute. Amazingly, no police officers were with him. “I told them it was a false alarm.”

The sigh of relief rolled off the Schwa and me like a wave. “Thank you, Mr. Crawley.”

He ignored us. “The police will only give you a slap on the wrist, and since you’re not crying hysterically in terror right now, I assume your parents will not beat you. Therefore I will administer your punishment personally. You will return here tomorrow by the front door, at three o’clock sharp, and begin working off your transgression. If you fail to come, I will find out what your parents do for a living, and I will have them fired.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I’ve found I can do anything I please.”

I thought it was just an idle threat, but then I remembered the great egg shortage. A man like Crawley had more money than God in a good economy, as my father would say, and probably had friends in both high and low places. If he said he’d have my father fired, I figured I should believe it.

“What will you pay us?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s slavery!”

“No,” said Crawley, with a grin so wide it stretched his wrinkles straight. “That’s community service.”