In spite of herself, Linda giggled. "He's not dumb, Mark." Then her giggle faded away. "Anyhow, if you want to change your mind about tonight, it's okay."

Mark shook his head. "What are we supposed to do, pretend we don't like each other just because of JeffLaConner?"

As they approached the school, Mark stopped walking. Parked in front was a sky-blue station wagon with the words rocky mountain high emblazoned on its sides. Someone Mark didn't recognize was behind the wheel, but JeffLaConner was getting out of the passenger side. Mark frowned. "What's that?" he asked.

Linda frowned. "Rocky Mountain High-it's the sports clinic," she said, "and that's one of their cars. Jeff must have been out there this morning." Glancing nervously at Mark, she added, "M-Maybe we ought to go around to the side door."

But it was already too late. JeffLaConner had seen them and, after saying something to the driver, was starting toward them. To their surprise, he was smiling. Despite Jeff's smile, however, Mark could sense Linda's tension as the big football player approached.

"Hi, Linda," Jeff said, and when she made no reply, his smile faded and was replaced by an embarrassed look. "I-Well, I wanted to apologize for last night."

Linda's lips tightened, but she still said nothing.

"I wasn't feeling very good," Jeff went on. "Anyway, I shouldn't have done what I did."

"No," Linda said stiffly. "You shouldn't have."

Jeff took a deep breath, but didn't argue with her. "Anyway," he went on, "after I got home I got worse, and finally I had to go see Dr. Ames."

Linda frowned uncertainly. "How come? What was wrong?''

Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. He gave me a shot and I spent the night at the clinic, but I'm fine now."

Mark had only been half listening, for he'd been preoccupied by the mark he'd noticed on Jeff's wrist. The skin was abraded and bright red. Now he asked: "What did they do? Tie you down?"

Jeff gazed at him curiously, and Mark nodded at the other boy's wrist. Still not sure what Mark meant, Jeff looked down. Seeing the red mark on his right wrist, he raised his other hand, and as his arm bent, the cuff of his sleeve moved up a couple of inches. His left wrist, too, was ringed with an angry red welt.

He stared at the marks blankly.

He hadn't the slightest idea where they might have come from.

Sharon Tanner collapsed the last of the packing boxes, added it to the immense pile next to the back door, then wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "You were right," she said, glancing at the clock over the sink. "Only eleven-thirty, and it's all done. And dear God," she added, dropping into the chair opposite Elaine Harris, "don't let me have to do this again for at least five years!" She took a sip of cold coffee from the mug in front of her, grimaced, spat the coffee back into the mug, then got up and emptied the mug into the sink.

"All it takes is organization," Elaine replied.

"And extra hands," Sharon told her. "Why don't you show me around the stores, then I'll treat you to lunch." She looked down at her jeans and sweatshirt and smiled ruefully. "But nowhere fancy. I just don't feel like changing."

Fifteen minutes later Sharon pulled her car into the nearly empty lot behind the Safeway store and shook her head in amazement. "Not like San Marcos. There, I'd be lucky to find a spot after cruising the lot for ten minutes."

"Here, everybody walks," Elaine reminded her.

"Great," Sharon groaned. "And how do you get everything home?"

"Ever heard of a shopping cart?" Elaine retorted. "You know, the little wire gizmos old ladies drag around? Well, prepare yourself to enter the world of old-ladydom!" She laughed out loud at the horrified expression on Sharon's face. "Don't worry. I felt like an idiot the first time I did it, but now I've gotten so I like it. Of course," she added, patting her ample thigh, "I ought to walk even more than I do, but I figure I should get full credit for making the effort. Come on."

They crossed the parking lot, rounded the corner of the market, then came out into the tiny village itself. Although she'd been in the village almost every day this week, Sharon still gazed at it in wonder, for unlike the strip malls of San Marcos-where everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere else, moving quickly, oblivious to everything around them-here she saw small clusters of people, sitting on the wrought-iron-and-wood benches that had been placed on the boardwalk in front of almost every store, or chatting idly in the middle of the brick street itself. Practically everyone either waved or spoke to Elaine as the two women wandered among the shops, gazing into the windows. Sharon made a few purchases at the drugstore and stepped into what was labeled a hardware store, but actually seemed to have a little of everything, including books, clothes, and furniture- and where, at Elaine's insistence, Sharon bought a collapsible shopping cart-then they went back to the Safeway.

At first it appeared to Sharon to be very much like any other supermarket she'd been in. But as she moved through the aisles, checking items off the long list she'd been building up all week, she noticed something strange.

In the bakery department, she searched in vain for a loaf of white sandwich bread. Finally deciding the store was out, she was about to settle for a loaf of whole wheat instead, when she realized that all the shelves were full, as if the department had just been stocked. Frowning, she asked Elaine if she'd seen any white bread.

Elaine shook her head. "There isn't any around here. The store gets all their bread from a bakery in Grand Junction. Super sourdough and great seven-grain. But no white bread."

"Swell," Sharon commented. "I don't suppose Mark will mind, but what am I going to tell Kelly? She loves peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches on white bread, with no butter on the honey side, so by the time she eats it, the bread's like eating honeycomb."

"It does the same thing with whole wheat," Elaine replied.

Sharon shook her head dolefully. "Obviously you've forgotten what nine-year-olds are like. Substitutions of what they like are 'gross,' and mothers who make substitutions obviously have no regard for their children's health, because there's no way the kid will eat it, even if he-or in this case, she-starves to death." She took a deep breath, dropped a loaf of honey berry into her cart, then chuckled. "Well, at least she can't give me the 'everybody else has white bread' line."

They moved on through the store, and Sharon paused in front of a small display of soft drinks.

There was nothing there except mineral water, in an array of different natural flavors. She looked at it with disgust. "I hate this stuff," she said. "Where's the real pop?"

Elaine shook her head. "This is it. Anybody who wants anything else brings it in from outside. But nobody does. Mineral water's good for you, and once you get used to it, you get so you like it."

Sharon stared at her friend. Was she serious? She couldn't be! This was a Safeway, wasn't it?

As they kept moving through the aisles, Sharon noticed more and more discrepancies between this market and the ones she was used to.

The fresh-produce department was twice as large as any she'd seen before, and she had to admit that the fruits and vegetables were better than any she'd seen in California. The same for the meat department.

But in the frozen-food section, she found the supply limited to a few vegetables and a little premium-brand ice cream-the kind with no preservatives in it. She turned to face Elaine squarely, her expression quizzical. "What is this?" she asked. "A supermarket or a health-food store?"

"It's a supermarket," Elaine protested. "But they just don't carry any junk food, that's all."

"Junk food!" Sharon protested. "They barely carry anything at all that my family likes! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for fresh vegetables. But Kelly likes popsicles, and Mark is absolutely crazy about frozen fried chicken. And what are the kids supposed to do if Blake and I want to go out by ourselves? Where are the TV dinners?"