"A prisoner of love," said Puck, and then he started singing it.

When grownups started singing old rock songs, the conversation was over. Mack had his pants on, and he better get home.

"You going to set her free?" asked Puck.

"You get me a can of panther repellent and a big stick, I get that glass open."

"Is that a lie or a promise?"

"If she's really in one of those jars."

"That's a good point," said Puck. "What if you open the wrong one."

"I told you."

"You told me nothing. You always tell me nothing."

"I told you it was Queen Mab in that jar."

"That's probably just another lie."

"I don't lie," said Puck. "These days, I don't even spin." He demonstrated how slowly he moved when he tried to turn himself around.

Mack didn't wait to watch. He headed out of the bedroom and out of the house. When he reached the sidewalk, he turned around to look, and the Skinny House was gone.

Mack reached down into his pants pocket and found the five-dollar bill he carried around in case of emergencies. Like having a magic wand. You have a five-dollar bill and you want a drink or some candy or a bus ride, then you got it. Small magic, but magic just the same.

Puck's magic—now, that was big time. But it seemed to Mack that maybe Puck wasn't the one did that magic. He didn't seem all that powerful. Couldn't make Mack do anything. Maybe he was trapped in that house the way that fairy queen was trapped in the lantern in the woods.

If he wasn't lying about what those lanterns were about. Had he really been there and seen the lights? Was he really so small and flightless that he couldn't get to either lantern? When Mack was telling the story, Puck nodded his head like he knew all about it, but then from his questions it seemed like he'd never been there, had no idea what it took to get there from here.

Puck hadn't even known that Mack would have pants in the closet. And did each one of those pairs of pants have his five-dollar bill in the pocket? If he was ever running short of money, could he come back here and get another Lincoln from the extra pants? Or would they be gone if he ever came back?

Mack turned away from the house and looked up the street and then took a step forward, then back, until he saw the house come into view again through the corner of his eye.

Had to make sure the house wasn't gone for good. What if he wanted to go back? Had to make sure he could.

Then he turned and ran home in the predawn light. A few cars out and running. Dr. Marvin heading out to put big tits into some woman or liposuck the fat out. Mack waved at him, and Dr.

Marvin waved back.

Miz Smitcher was standing by her car when Mack jogged up to the house. Mack remembered that she was covering the early shift this week.

"Where you been?" she asked.

"Don't scare me like that, Mack Street," she said softly. "You all I got."

My mother lives in this neighborhood, Miz Smitcher. Did you know that? Did you keep that from me? You lying to me all my life, or you didn't know?

Out loud, Mack said, "I didn't mean to. I won't do it again."

"Until the next time you don't mean to but it just happens."

Mack hung his head, showing his shame.

She touched the back of his head. Not rubbing his hair, like Mr. Christmas did. Just touching him. Laying her big nurse hand on his head like she laid it on her patients at the hospital. Felt good.

Felt like a promise that everything going to turn out okay.

She took her hand away and his head felt cold without it.

"I be home late tonight, kind of working half a double," said Miz Smitcher.

"I'll do my homework the minute I get home."

"Don't wait dinner for me, what I'm saying."

"I won't."

She got in the car and backed out of the driveway and pulled out into the street. He watched her out of sight, then went into the house and took a shower.

When he came out, he heard a voice from the kitchen. "Mack Street, when you get dressed, would you mind coming in here and talking to me?" It was Mrs. Tucker, Ceese's mom. It was plain she knew that Miz Smitcher was gone, so it was Mack she wanted to talk to. She didn't sound agitated—in fact, she sounded downright perky. But it wasn't like adults came calling on him every day. Had to be something wrong, and had to be she thought he had something to do with it or knew something about it, so whatever it was, Mack was probably going to wish it wasn't happening.

Didn't make him dress any faster; didn't make him dress any slower. He'd find out what it was, deal with it as best he could. Mack wasn't one to worry, or at least he didn't go to great lengths to avoid facing whatever was coming at him.

Once he had his briefs on, he paused for a moment before putting on his pants. They weren't too dirty to wear—though they did look as though they had made the passage through the woods. Thing is, he wasn't sure he could trust them. He'd read plenty of stories about magic stuff that disappeared at midnight or some other inconvenient time. But at least he'd have his briefs on, if the pants vanished off his butt. So he pulled on the pants and padded into the kitchen where Mrs. Tucker was sipping tea and looking a little tense.

Ceese was sitting in the chair next to her. Well, that was no big deal, Ceese probably didn't have a morning class.

"It's just a little thing," she said. "Hardly worth mentioning, but it's been bothering me since it happened last night." And then she stopped.

Mack looked at Ceese, who was staring at the table looking solemn.

"I brought Ceese along because he's going to be a policeman now," said Mrs. Tucker. "Not that I think any crime has been committed!"

"And not that I know a thing about police work yet," said Ceese. "I just signed up to train for the test."

"You're going to be a cop?" asked Mack, fascinated. "You never hit anybody in your life."

"I did so," said Ceese, "but that ain't what decides you on being a cop. The idea is you try not to hit anybody, but if you have to, then you know how. Same thing with guns. You hope to be a cop who never has to fire a gun at a person, but if the time comes when you got no choice, then you know how to do it right."

"So why you doing it, Ceese?" asked Mack. "I thought you were going to build bridges."

"I was going to design electronics," said Ceese. "Lots of different kinds of engineering, Mack.

But I was bored. Didn't feel like anything I was doing mattered to anybody. Being a cop, now, that matters. You make a difference. You keep people safe."

"Like you looked after me," said Mack.

"Like that."

"So what do you think I done wrong?"

"No," protested Mrs. Tucker. "We don't think you did a thing that's wrong. In fact, if you did it, then it definitely wasn't wrong, but I just have to know."

"Know what?" asked Mack.

"What happened to the leftover chili I was heating up for Winston and me for supper last night."

Mack knew at once what happened to it, and it pissed him off. If the magic at Skinny House could arrange for half a dozen copies of his pants to hang from hooks in a closet, why couldn't it simply copy Mrs. Tucker's chili out of her fridge instead of stealing it?

But he couldn't very well say so. He could just imagine how they'd react if he said, I ate it, but not from your fridge, it got magically transported to the fridge at an invisible house down the street, so when I ate it I didn't know I was eating yours. But it sure was delicious. I did my hot-mouth dance when I ate it.

"That's what we don't know," said Ceese patiently.

Mack just sat there, looking back and forth between them.

"I was preparing dinner," said Mrs. Tucker. "I checked in the fridge to make sure there was enough chili for the two of us, and there was. And then I went to the sink and washed the corn on the cob and cut up some bananas to put with a can of mandarin oranges to make a little fruit salad. And when I came back from the can opener with the oranges to drain off the liquid into the sink, there was the chili dish, freshly washed and still wet, in the drain-dry beside the sink. And a spoon."