It was a deliberate sort of hole, perfectly placed, dead center. The thought of Herb Fowler making the holes made Homer Wells shiver. He remembered the first fetus he'd seen, on his way back from the incinerator-how it appeared to have fallen from the sky. He recalled the extended arms of the murdered fetus from Three Mile Falls. And the bruise that was green-going-to-yellow on Grace Lynch's breast. Had Grace's journey to St. Cloud's originated with one of Herb Fowler's prophylactics?

In St. Cloud's he had seen anguish and the plainer forms of unhappiness-and depression, and destructiveness. He was familiar with mean-spiritedness and with injustice, too. But this is evil, isn't it? wondered Homer Wells. Have I seen evil before? He thought of the woman with the pony's penis in her mouth. What do you do when you recognize evil? he wondered.

He looked out Wally's window-but in the darkness, in his mind's eye, he saw the eroded, still unplanted hillside behind the hospital and the boys' division at St. Cloud's; he saw the thick but damaged, sound-absorbing forest beyond the river that carried away his grief for Fuzzy Stone. If he had known Mrs. Grogan's prayer, he would have tried it, but the prayer that Homer used to calm himself was the end of Chapter 43 of David Copperfield. There being twenty more chapters to go, these words were perhaps too uncertain for a prayer, and Homer spoke them to himself uncertainly-not as if he believed the words were true, but as if he were trying to force them to be true; by repeating and repeating the words he might make the words true for him, for Homer Wells:

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go {380} by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.

But all that night he lay awake because the phantoms of those days were not gone. Like the tiny, terrible holes in the prophylactics, the phantoms of those days were not easy to detect-and their meaning was unknown-but they were there.

In the morning Wally left, halfheartedly, for the university in Orono. The next day, Candy left for Camden Academy. The day before the picking crew arrived at Ocean View, Homer Wells-the tallest and oldest boy at Cape Kenneth High School-attended the first class meeting of Senior Biology. His friend Debra Pettigrew had to lead him to the laboratory; Homer got lost en route and wandered into a class called Wood Shop.

The textbook for Senior Biology was B. A. Bensley's Practical Anatomy of the Rabbit; the text and illustrations were intimidating to the other students, but the book filled Homer Wells with longing. It was a shock for him to realize how much he missed Dr. Larch's wellworn copy of Gray's. Homer, at first glance, was critical of Bensley; whereas Gray's began with the skeleton, Bensley began with the tissues. But the teacher of the class was no fool; a cadaverous man was Mr. Hood, but he pleased Homer Wells by announcing that he did not intend to follow the text exactly-the class, like Gray's, would begin with the bones. Comforted by what, for him, was routine, Homer relished his first look at the ancient yellowed skeleton of a rabbit. The class was hushed; some students were repulsed. Wait till they get to the urogenital system, thought Homer Wells, his eyes skimming over the per^ct bones; but this thought shocked him, too. He realized he was looking forward to getting to the poor rabbit's urogenital system.

He had a lateral view of the rabbit's skull; he tested himself with the naming of parts-it was so easy for him: cranial, orbital, nasal, frontal, mandible, maxilla, {381} premaxilla. How well he remembered Clara and the others who had taught him so much!

As for Clara, she was finally put to rest in a place she might not have chosen for herself-the cemetery in St. Cloud's was in the abandoned part of town. Perhaps this was appropriate, thought Dr. Larch, who supervised Clara's burial, because Clara herself had been abandoned -and surely she had been more explored and examined than she had ever been loved.

Nurse Edna was shocked to see the departing coffin, but Nurse Angela assured her that none of the orphans had passed away in the night. Mrs. Grogan accompanied Dr. Larch to the cemetery; Larch had asked her to come with him because he knew that Mrs. Grogan enjoyed every opportunity to say her prayer. (There was no minister or priest or rabbi in St. Cloud's; if holy words were in order, someone from Three Mile Falls came and said them. It was a testimony to Wilbur Larch's increasing isolationism that he refused to send to Three Mile Falls for anything, and that he preferred Mrs. Grogan- if he was forced to listen to holy words at all.)

It was the first burial that Wilbur Larch had wept over; Mrs. Grogan knew that his tears were not for Clara. Larch wouldn't have buried Clara if he'd thought that Homer Wells would ever be corning back.

'Well, he's wrong,' Nurse Angela said. 'Even a saint can make a mistake. Homer Wells will be back. He belongs here, like it or not.'

Is it the ether? Dr. Larch wondered. He meant, was it the ether that gave him the sense, increasingly, that he knew everything that was going to happen? For example, he had anticipated the letter that arrived for F. Stone-forwarded from Fuzzy's P.O.box address. 'Is this some sick joke?' Nurse Angela asked, turning the envelope around and around.

'I'll take that, please,' Dr. Larch said. It was from the board of trustees, as he had expected. That was why {382} they'd wanted those follow-up reports from him and why they'd requested the addresses of the orphans. They were checking up on him, Larch knew.

The letter to Fuzzy began with cordial good wishes; it said that the board knew a great deal about Fuzzy from Dr. Larch, but they wished to know anything further about Fuzzy's 'St. Cloud's experience'-anything, naturally, that he wanted to 'share' with them.

The 'St. Cloud's experience' sounded to Wilbur Larch like a mystical happening. The attached questionnaire made him furious, although he did amuse himself by trying to imagine which of the questions had been conceived by the tedious Dr. Gingrich and which of them had flowed from the chilling mind of Mrs. Goodhall. Dr. Larch also had fun imagining how Homer Wells and Snowy Meadows and Curly Day-and all the otherswould answer the silly questionnaire, but he took the immediate business very seriously. He wanted Fuzzy Stone's answers to the questionnaire to be perfect. He wanted to be sure that the board of trustees would never forget Fuzzy Stone.

There were five questions. Every single one of them was based upon the incorrect assumption that every child must have been at least five or six years old before he-or she- was adopted. This and other stupidities convinced Wilbur Larch that Dr. Gingrich and Mrs. Goodhall were going to be easy adversaries.

1. Was your life at St. Cloud's properly supervised? (Please include in your answer if you ever felt that your treatment was especially affectionate, or especially instructive; we would certainly want to hear if you felt your treatment was ever abusive.)

2. Did you receive adequate medical attention at St. Cloud's?

3. Were you adequately prepared for your new life in a foster home, and do you feel your foster home was carefully and correctly chosen? {383}

4. Would you suggest any possible improvements in the methods and management of St. Cloud's? (Specifically, would you feel things might have gone more smoothly for you if there had been a more youthful, energetic staff in residence-or perhaps, simply a larger staff?)

5. Was any attempt made to integrate the daily life of the orphanage with the life of the surrounding community?

'What community?' screamed Wilbur Larch. He stood at the window in Nurse Angela's office and stared at the bleak hillside where Wally had wanted to plant apple trees. Why hadn't they come back and planted the stupid trees, even if all that business was just to pleaise me? Larch wondered.