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when Miss Penny—she loved fairy tales—and she gave a lot of feeling to the words when she read. I can still hear her saying, ‘The deep, dark woods.’ I was third runner-up for Miss Dogwood last year and I believe the reason I didn’t get it was because it came across that I just can’t stand trees.”
    Mozie nodded sympathetically.
    “Oh, here’s the road. I was about to pass it. It’s so overgrown it doesn’t even look like a road.”
    She turned the car into the boarded-up Esso station, pulled on the hand brake, and the car skidded to a stop beside the rusty gas pumps. The two of them fell silent.
    Mozie was holding his cap against his chest as if for protection. He and Batty had gotten these hats free at the opening of Ace Hardware. They were white with yellow bills, and when Batty’s sister first saw them, she said, “Well, if it isn’t the Quack-Quacks.”
    He looked out the car window at the deserted gas station. Beyond, the overgrown road was like a secret lane to nowhere.
    The pause continued until Mozie said, “I guess I better get out.”
    “I’ll be right here. I’m going to keep the engine running, and when you get through, we’ll scratch off.”
    “Right.”
    “How long you think it’s going to take you?”
    “Ten minutes to get to the greenhouse, one minute to turn on the sprinkler, and thirty seconds to get back.”
    Valvoline looked blank for a minute and then smiled. “I get it. You’re going to be running back.”
    “Yes,” Mozie said emphatically.
    “Let’s see. How many minutes was that?”
    “Eleven and a half.”
    “I’ll give you fifteen.”
    Mozie nodded. “But don’t leave!” he added, turning to her.
    “I won’t. There’s a pay phone right over there, and first thing, I’ll call your mom. I want to ask her something about my dress anyway. I think it needs more sequins.”
    Mozie didn’t want to get out of the car. He knew how their dog Flexie used to feel when they arrived at the vet’s. Flexie would jump in the backseat. They’d open the back door and she’d jump in the front seat. As a last resort, she would crouch down on the floor and tremble.
    Valvoline reached over and opened the door for him. There was nothing to do now but get out.
    He put on his cap. Remembering Batty’s sister’s rude remark about the caps, he turned the bill to the back. He wished earnestly that the other Quack-Quack was at his side.
    “Here I go,” he said.
    He got out of the car and started across the hot tarmac toward the old road.
    The air was still and heavy. Nothing seemed to be moving in the entire universe except his slow feet. He might as well have had on fins, he thought, he was walking so awkwardly.
    He glanced back over his shoulder. Valvoline was locking all the doors of the car.
    He faced forward. Manfully, but slowly, Mozie headed up the road. The sign ahead read DEAD END.

The Sound of Thunder
    M OZIE PAUSED OUTSIDE THE greenhouse.
    It was a huge old building constructed twenty years ago by the town’s only millionaire, Mr. Downs. Hobart Downs had had a love of exotic tropical plants, and he raised them in the greenhouse and brought them up to the big house on trucks.
    After Mr. Downs’s death, the mansion and the greenhouse fell into disuse. The house burned to the ground during an electrical storm, and the greenhouse and gardener’s cottage had been bought two years ago by Professor Orloff.
    Mozie pushed open the door. The faint creak of the hinges brought goose bumps to his arms. He wished for Batty. He knew Valvoline was waiting at the old Esso station, but that wasn’t like having Batty right behind him. He longed to hear Batty say, “I’m right behind you, pal, and I won’t push.”
    Mozie took a deep, purposeful breath because he didn’t want to risk having that heady, peculiar air of the greenhouse in his lungs. He took one step inside the greenhouse, one more step to the sprinkler system.
    His hand reached for valve X. He turned the valve and