“Take it from me, you got no chance with that high-maintenance rich girl,” Tom said.

  You’re one to talk, Danny thought, but said, “She’s not that rich. Her dad works at NORAD.”

  “Everybody that lives in that part of Cobalt is rich,” Tom said.

  I live in that part of Cobalt, Danny thought. The boys sat in silence for a minute before Danny said, “Olivia seems nice.”

  Tom nodded.

  Finally Cooper said, “So last night I was on Gears and I was just drifting, chatting, killing people, getting experience—”

  Tom began coughing and gasping for air.

  “What’s happening to you?” Cooper asked with no concern whatsoever.

  “I’m feigning an asthma attack,” Tom said.

  “Why?”

  “So you won’t tell me any more of your Gears of War story.”

  Before either of them got really ticked off, the girls came back.

  “Tom needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” Cooper said to Tony.

  “What?” Tony asked.

  Tom looked embarrassed. “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Can I bring up the cat story now?” Tony said.

  “What cat story?” Tom asked.

  “You’ll see,” Tony said, and began rummaging in her bag.

  The door opened and Mrs. Sloane looked in. She was a striking forty-year-old redhead with green eyes and a pale, nervous face. But then again I’d be nervous too if my spouse was in Afghanistan, Danny thought.

  “Hi, kids,” she said. “Hey, you’re new. Who are you?”

  “Danny,” Danny said.

  “Mom, what is it now?” Tom said with a groan.

  “It’s about your clothes,” Mrs. Sloane said.

  “What about them?”

  “Your clothes are filthy. They’re all wet and covered with mud.”

  “I know. That’s why I put them in the laundry basket.”

  “What were you doing yesterday?” Mrs. Sloane asked.

  “I walked home. Shortcut.”

  “You know, it took us a year to lobby for a school bus to the Springs, and if you don’t ride, they’ll cancel it,” Mrs. Sloane said.

  “Sorry,” Tom said, embarrassed.

  Mrs. Sloane nodded and left.

  “OK, now can I please bring up the cats?” Tony said.

  “What about the cats?” Cooper wondered.

  “Have a look at this,” Tony said, taking out the Cobalt Daily News.

  It got passed around the circle and Danny finally read the story Tony had been pointing at that morning. It wasn’t the one about sewage plants. It was in the bottom left-hand corner of the page, below an advertisement for a guttercleaning service:

  SECOND COBALT CAT FOUND KILLED

  Cobalt animal lovers were urged to keep their pets indoors at night as a second Cobalt-area cat was found eviscerated in the parking lot of the Manitou Road 7-Eleven late last night. “This may be another coyote attack,” said animal welfare officer Kevin Hud. “Or maybe even a mountain lion. If at all possible, keep your pets indoors until spring when other food sources become more plentiful.”

  Mrs. Marie Craven of 16 Beechfield Road was said to be devastated by the loss of her eight-year-old Persian “Tigerfeet.”

  “That’s the second cat they’ve found disemboweled. Beechfield Road is the street two over from my house. Something’s going on,” Tony said when they had all digested the information.

  “Like what?” Tom said with a slight eye roll.

  “Like a serial cat killer, that’s what,” Tony insisted.

  Tom shook his head. “A serial cat killer? Didn’t you read the paper? It was a coyote.”

  “Or a mountain lion,” Cooper said.

  “It was a coyote,” Olivia insisted.

  “It’s not a coyote. It’s not a mountain lion. A coyote doesn’t eat a cat in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven,” Tony said.

  Tom was clearly bored with this line of inquiry and began drumming his fingers on the coffee table in a fidgety, passive-aggressive kind of way. “Sure it does,” he said. “A coyote killed a dog on my granddad’s farm. Came right up to the house. Those things are vicious.”

  “Can we move on to important stuff?” Cooper asked.

  “Yes,” Tom said. “Now, we need to know where the SSU is meeting at lunchtime. We know they’re meeting inside the school somewhere and—”

  “I don’t think it was a coyote. A coyote would have killed it and took it deep into the forest,” Danny interrupted.

  “Thank you,” Tony said, feeling validated.

  “Maybe it was startled,” Tom said. “Come on, people, let’s get with the program here.”

  Tony’s phone rang. “Darn it. We have to go,” she said.

  Danny got up with her. “I should go, too.”

  “Another productive meeting. And I came all the way in from Manitou,” Cooper groaned.

  “So you keep telling us,” Tom said, irritated.

  “Nice meeting you all,” Danny said, and went downstairs with Tony.

  They waited outside the house where it was dark and cold. Tony had a coat, but Danny was just in his school uniform.

  “It’s a nice night,” Danny said.

  It was. The stars were out and there were a dozen planes on big counterclockwise elliptical holding patterns above Denver International.

  “Remember what Bob said?” Tony asked.

  “What? No.”

  “About the UFOs? I saw a UFO once, for real,” Tony said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. A big delta shape, going north along the Front Range. Like a big V with lights on it.”

  “What do you think that was?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot of government stuff going on in Colorado Springs. Probably just a secret plane they haven’t told us about yet.”

  Danny nodded. He liked Tony’s sensible attitude about things. Most kids would have said aliens.

  A car flashed its lights.

  “That’s my dad. Come on. God, you’re shivering. Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, fine. Hey, can I ask you something? What’s your second name?”

  “Meadows, why?”

  “Because you’re going to say something like, ‘Danny, this is my dad’ and then I’ll say, ‘Hello, Mister uhhh.’”

  Tony grinned at him in the dark.

  They walked to the car.

  “Who’s this?” Mr. Meadows asked from the driver’s seat.

  “Dad, this is Danny Lopez from the family that moved in opposite us. Danny, this is my dad.”

  Danny stuck his hand through the window. Tony’s dad shook it. “Hello, Mr. Meadows,” Danny said.

  Tony laughed.

  “You get in the front, Danny; Antonia, you get in back,” Mr. Meadows said.

  He was younger than Danny had been expecting—about forty, square-jawed, dark hair, dark eyes. His voice was raspy, as if he yelled a lot in his job.

  They drove through Colorado Springs, but when they got to Manitou, Tony said, “Oh, wait, can we stop at Safeway for a second? Speaking of cats, I need to get some food for Snowflake.”

  “Just the cat food, nothing else,” Mr. Meadows said as they parked in the Safeway lot.

  “I have a cat, too,” Danny said to make conversation while Tony ran inside.

  Mr. Meadows shook his head. “Cats. Who needs ’em? Not anymore. Not since we invented mousetraps. Selfish, dangerous things. The Egyptians worshipped them, thought they were demons from hell. I wanted a dog. Julia said that dogs are for ego cripples. Who even knows what that means?”

  Danny gave himself a “foot in the mouth” eye roll, nodded, and said, “Yeah, I guess so …”

  Tony ran to the car and jumped in. They drove back to Cobalt listening to Christian rock on Q102.7, which Danny knew the demons would be constantly playing for him if he ever got to hell.

  When they reached Johnson Close, Mr. Meadows parked and everyone got out.

  “Nice meeting you, Danny. Come on in, Tony,” Mr. Meadows announced in a voice loud enough to inform the entire cul-de-sac.

  “I want to ask Danny a question about the homework,” Tony said.

  Mr. Meadows grunted something and went inside.

  “What question?” Danny wondered.

  “There’s no question, I just wanted to say thanks for taking the missing cat seriously,” she said, taking his hand in hers and interlacing her fingers between his.

  “I have a cat myself. I, uh, sorry I didn’t notice it this morning,” Danny mumbled.

  “That’s OK.”

  “So, do you think it’s a coyote or a sicko?”

  “I don’t know. Could be either. It gives me the creeps to think that there’s evil like that in the world.”

  Danny squeezed her hand cautiously. “There is no evil in the world. There’s no magic and no evil. If it’s not an animal, it’s a person; and if it’s a person, he’s doing it for a reason.”

  “Yeah. Creepy either way … I better go inside,” she said.

  She let go of his hand and slipped inside the house.

  Danny stood there in the Meadowses’ driveway for a while. He was grinning, and although it was a brisk, windy night, he didn’t really feel that cold at all.

  The wind in the fir trees sounded like an ocean to Danny. It woke him. He dressed and went downstairs to the chilly ground floor. He pressed the red button in the hall that ignited the thermostat. The night before, Walt had chopped logs and put kindling and newspapers in the fireplace, but Danny didn’t want to light a fire. It seemed … what? Primitive. He put the kettle on the stove and made a pot of instant coffee, and when his mother came down he gave it to her. He even made one for Walt, who immediately went to the fireplace, poured kerosene on a scrunched-up newspaper and shoved it under the kindling. He lit a match and the fire caught.

  “This reminds me of New Hampshire,” he said, rubbing his hands. “OK, everyone, sit where you are and I’ll make breakfast.”

  “Don’t bother, I’m not hungry,” Danny said, but after he saw his mother’s look he said, “Great, thanks.”

  “How old is Jeffrey?” Juanita asked Danny.

  “Why?” Danny wondered.

  “The Sheriff’s Department sent us a flyer saying we have to register all our pets,” Juanita muttered, looking through the mail.

  “And you have to pay a fee, right?” Walt asked.

  “Twenty-five dollars,” Juanita said.

  “Moneymaking scam,” Walt said contemptuously.

  Danny didn’t say anything; he was still thinking of the thirty-five bucks he supposedly owed Tom.

  Walt made huevos rancheros, and it wasn’t too bad for an Anglo.

  But his mom was the real cook.

  When they’d finished breakfast it was still only 7:05. Danny got up.

  “Where are you going?” his mother asked.

  “Payback,” he said, pulling on his puffy North Face coat.

  He went outside into a frozen world.

  No tire tracks or human footprints.

  No dogs, cats, or even birds.

  This was the opposite of Vegas, where something was always going on.

  He broke the virgin snow with the soles of his shoes.

  It was only an inch deep, but ice had frozen on top of the snowfall and it felt like he was walking on a frosted piece of glass. As if he were on the other side of a mirror, like in those books everyone was always trying to get him to read.

  The door opened behind him. Walt looked out.

  “You can’t skateboard on that; you’ll break your neck,” Walt said.

  “I’m not boarding, all right?”

  He glared at Walt until he closed the front door again.

  Danny composed himself and got back into the groove.

  Frozen snow, silent houses, forest, mountain, little entrail-like curls of smoke escaping from the copper chimney tops.

  It was a street from a town in a fairy tale.

  He went across the cul-de-sac to Tony’s house and walked up her drive.

  The family drove a black Mercedes SUV. There was a Jesus fish on the back cargo door and predictable bumper stickers: WWJD?, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, METROPOLITAN FAITH CATHEDRAL—JOIN US!, MCCAIN-PALIN 08.

  Danny hesitated at the front door.

  He didn’t have the moxie that Tony had. He couldn’t just walk into someone’s house, could he?

  Well, she’d done it to him and supposedly that was what this street was all about. An upper-class version of the cup-of-sugar-borrowing ways of the barrio. Mi casa es su casa.

  He wiped his feet on a mat that said SHALOM, and went inside.

  The Christmas tree startled him. It was the middle of January, and there in the massive, oak-paneled living room was a fully lit-up and decorated Christmas tree.

  “Hello?” Danny said.

  No answer.

  “Hello?” he inquired, a decibel or two louder.

  The lights weren’t on, and the house was quiet. He was surprised. He’d taken them for early risers. Somehow he thought all religious people were early risers.

  All the better to ambush Tony, then.

  The living room had a big stone fireplace with family photographs, and there were deer antlers on the wall just like in his house.

  There were old books in a locked glass case.

  A coffee mug sitting on a glass coffee table.

  It felt like a crime scene.

  The staircase was a wide mahogany affair that half curved to the upper part of the house. He kicked the remaining snow off his shoes and walked up it. Tony’s room was easy to find. It said “Tony” on the door.

  Should he knock or just go in and weird her out like she’d weirded him?

  He thought about it for a second.

  Maybe he should get out of there.

  There was a cat at his ankles. White, fluffy, very old, purring. The symmetry of the thing was perfect. Her cat, her room … just as she had taken his cat in his room.

  “What’s your name, kitty?” he asked, bending down, but before the cat could say anything a voice said, “Hold it right there!” in a deep, gravelly, intimidating voice. Danny turned and there was Tony’s father standing in his nightgown and pointing a double-barreled shotgun at him.

  “I’d be well within my rights to shoot you,” Mr. Meadows said.

  “Um,” Danny replied, terrified.

  “At this range, you’d be blown to pieces,” Mr. Meadows said quietly.

  “Please … don’t!” Danny begged.

  Mr. Meadows bit his lip.

  “Have you taken Jesus as your personal savior?” he asked.

  Danny wondered what the correct answer was. They didn’t go to Mass that often. In fact, they never went. One or two times with his cousins and a couple of occasions on the feast day of Guadalupe, when his mom had been trying for another baby. Danny was pretty sure that Walt was an atheist and one of his grandfathers had been a Cherokee medicine man. Was Jesus his personal savior?

  “I think so,” Danny said at last.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Mr. Meadows said.

  “Well, I believe that Jesus existed,” Danny said, trying to keep the croak out of his voice.

  “It’s too late now. Put down the damn cat,” Mr. Meadows said.

  The cat was snuggled against Danny’s chest and hissing at Mr. Meadows. Danny had a fleeting notion that disturbed and intrigued him. He assembled it logically in his head: (1) Cats were pretty good judges of character. (2) Mr. Meadows was a violent man who hated cats. (3) The coyote going around killing cats wasn’t a coyote, but was instead—

  It was an interesting concept, and it might be good to think about it when he wasn’t about to lose control of his bladder or burst into tears or die a violent death.

  “Put down the cat,” Mr. Meadows insisted.

  “No,” Danny said.

  Mr. Meadows smiled. “You think I won’t shoot you and Snowflake? The devil’s agent and his familiar?”

  “Daddy, what are you doing!” Tony said, opening her bedroom door. Her arms were folded across her chest. She looked furious. She was wearing gray sweats and an iCarly nightgown.

  “Caught a burglar red-handed,” Mr. Meadows said. “His life is in my hands now.”

  “Daddy, it’s Danny from across the street, and you and I know the gun’s only loaded with talcum powder to scare the magpies.”

  Mr. Meadows’s brow furrowed. He gave her a withering look and let the gun point at the floor. “Why did you have to tell him that?” he muttered.

  “What were you going to do?” Tony said, standing next to Danny and stroking his back. Mr. Meadows shook his head and looked at his feet. “I don’t know, I thought maybe he would embrace the Lord.”

  “Would that even count … a shotgun conversion?” Tony said.

  “Of course,” Mr. Meadows said.

  “Dad, I want you to apologize to Danny right now,” Tony said.

  “I was well within my rights,” Mr. Meadows said.

  “Apologize or I’ll tell Mom!”

  “Tell me what?” Mrs. Meadows said, coming onto the landing. She was a tall, athletic woman with blond hair and a pasty face that within the hour would no doubt acquire the bronzed shade typical of many women Danny had seen in Colorado Springs.

  She took one look at the situation and coughed.

  And apparently that was enough. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, son,” Mr. Meadows said quickly.

  “Uh, it’s OK. I wasn’t scared, not for a second.”

  Tony and Mrs. Meadows led him downstairs.

  “Andrew works at NORAD,” Mrs. Meadows explained. “He always thinks we should jump to DEFCON 4 as a first response to anything.”

  Danny looked at her to see if she was making a joke, but he couldn’t tell.

  “You want some toast or something, while I get ready?” Tony asked.

  But Danny was still shook up and he did not want Tony or any other members of her crazy family to see that. Maybe it was hilarious to them that the gun had been loaded with talcum powder, but Danny had been genuinely afraid.

  “You know what, I think I’ll wait over at my house. You can come and get me,” he said.

  Tony appeared twenty minutes later in her uniform, thick winter coat, and a little cream-colored wool hat with tassels running from the ears.