cesses of that nascent river many times, on the assumption that there had to be something interesting there, like buried treasure or a vampire's coffin. Maybe even, 0 Rapturous Joy, a lost horse looking for someone to love it. But all she had

ever found were weeds and mud.

"Groan, I have to go in for X-rays tomorrow," Julie was saying. "Those damned hard ridges on the pictures always slice up my gums. I don't know why they can't make them

softer."

"Easy to fix," Colene said brightly. "Just bring the pres -- ident of Code-Ack in for X-rays, and have his gums and roof -- of-mouth cut up by those corners. Make him really have to chew down on them for retakes, and tell him, 'Don't be a difficult child now; those things don't hurt!'

I guarantee: next day those edges would be soft as sponges."

"Yes!" Julie agreed, heartened. "If only we could!" But they both knew that nothing that sensible would ever be done, and that sharp edges would continue to find their helpless victims.

That was just the way of it. The people who manufactured things never actually used them themselves.

As they approached Colene's house, her wandering glance spied something in the ditch. It was probably just a pile of cloth, or garbage tossed from a car; there were creeps who routinely did such things. But she felt a chill, and surge of

excitement. Suppose it was something else?

She said nothing to Julie. She wanted to check this by

herself. Just in case.

They walked on. Julie's house was beyond Colene's house, so Colene turned off. Her parents weren't home at this hour, of course; they both worked.

Not that it mattered. She had ways in her imagination to glorify the empty home. She liked to pretend that the drainage ditch behind was a great river that wended its way past the most illustrious regions: the Charles. Her simple residence became a gloomy mansion on the bank of this river, where death was a familiar presence. Thus it was the Charles Mansion, a takeoff on a grim killer in a text on legal cases. Her folks wouldn't have thought that funny, and her schoolmates wouldn't have caught the allu -- sion. That seemed to be typical of her life: she couldn't relate well to either parents or peers. But she was the only one who realized this.