From the distant school building the bell rang. School was over for the day and Weiss would have to make his move now. I could see him, still kneeling at the padlock. I didn't see the large handles of a bolt cutter sticking up, and it would take him a few minutes either to pick the lock or cut it. But once inside he could simply move along the fence leisurely, pretending to inspect the chain link.

I reached the edge of the clump of trees and hurried through.

I stepped carefully over small heaps of garbage —beer cans, plastic soda bottles, chicken bones and other less pleasant objects —and came to the far end, pausing only for a moment at the last tree to make sure that Weiss was still there, fiddling with the lock. The van was in the way and I could not see him, but as far as I could tell the gate was still closed. I took a deep breath, drawing in the darkness and letting it flow through me, and then I stepped out into the bright sun.

I moved to the right, almost at a run, to come at him from the rear, around the back end of the van. Silently, carefully, feeling the stretch of dark wings all around me, I crossed the space to the van, came around the back end and paused as I saw the figure kneeling by the gate.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw me. “Whus hapnin'” the man said. He was about fifty, black, and very definitely not Weiss.

“Oh” I said, with my usual wit. “Hello.”

“Damn kids put superglue in the lock” he said, turning back around to face the lock.

“What were they thinking?” I said politely. But I never got to find out what they were thinking, because far away across the field, in the street in front of the main gate, I heard the sound of car horns, followed by the crunch of metal. And much closer at hand, actually inside my head, in fact, I heard a voice hissing, Stupid! And without pausing to wonder how I knew that the accident had been Weiss ramming Rita, I jumped up onto the fence, hooked myself over to the other side, and took off at a run across the playing field.

“Hey!” the man at the lock called, but for once I did not mind my manners and wait to hear what he had to say.

Of course Weiss would not cut the lock —he didn't need to. Of course he didn't have to get into the school and try to outwit or overcome hundreds of wary teachers and savage children. All he had to do was wait outside in the traffic, like a shark swimming the edge of the reef and waiting for Nemo to swim out. Of course.

I ran hard. The field seemed a little uneven, but it was all short and well-kept grass and I was able to hit a very good pace. I was just congratulating myself on being in good enough shape to stay at top speed when I raised my eyes for a moment to see what was going on. It was not a good idea; my foot caught on something almost instantly and I pitched face forward at a really wonderful velocity. I tucked into a ball and rolled through a somersault and a half before I flopped out flat on my back on top of something lumpy.

I jumped up and took off running again, with a slight limp from a twisted ankle, and a vague picture of a fire ant mound, now flattened by my human cannonball act.

Closer now; voices raised in alarm and panic from the street and then a scream of pain. I could see nothing but a jumble of cars and a clot of people straining forward to look at something in the middle of the road. I went through the small gate in the fence, onto the sidewalk and around to the front of the school. I had to slow down to work my way through the crowd of kids, teachers and parents, clustered at the pick-up spot at the front door, but I pushed through as quickly as I could and on out into the street. I moved back up to a run to cover the last 150 feet or so, to where traffic had stopped and coalesced around two cars that had come together in an untidy clump. One of them was Weiss's bronze-colored Honda.

The other car was Rita's.

There was no sign of Weiss. But Rita herself leaned against the front bumper of her car with a look of numb shock on her face, holding Cody by one hand and Astor by the other. Seeing them all together, safe and sound, I slowed to a walk for the last few paces.

She looked at me with no change in expression. “Dexter” she said.

“What are you doing here?” I was just in the neighborhood” I said. “Ouch.” And the ouch was not mere random cleverness: all across my back a hundred fire ants I had apparently picked up when I fell bit me at the same time as if by some telepathic signal. “Is everyone all right?” I said, pulling frantically to get my shirt off.

I pulled the shirt over my head to see the three of them staring at me with a look of mildly annoyed concern. “Are you okay?” Astor said. “Because you just took your shirt off in the middle of the street.”

“Fire ants” I said. “All over my back.” I slapped at my back with the shirt, which did no good at all.

“A man rammed us with his car” Rita said. “And he tried to grab the children.”

“Yes, I know” I said, twisting myself into shapes a pretzel would envy as I tried to get at the fire ants.

“What do you mean, you know?” Rita said.

“He got away” a voice said behind us. “Moved pretty fast, considering.” I turned in mid-ant slap to see a uniformed cop, panting from his apparent chase of Weiss. He was a youngish guy, rather fit looking, and his name tag said Lear. He had stopped and was staring at me. “This isn't clothing optional here, pal” he said.

“Fire ants,” I said. “Rita, could you give me a hand, please?”

“You know this guy?” the cop asked Rita.

“My husband” she said, and she let go of the children's hands, somewhat reluctantly, and began to slap at my back.

“Well” Lear said, “anyway, the guy got away. He ran clear over to US 1 and headed for the strip malls. I called it in, they'll do a BOLO, but ...” He shrugged. “Gotta say he ran pretty good for having a pencil stuck in his leg.”

“My pencil” Cody said with his strange and very rare smile.

“and I punched him really hard in the crotch” Astor said.

I looked down at the two of them through my red cloud of ant bite pain. They looked so smug and pleased with themselves; and to be honest, I was very pleased with them, too. Weiss had done his worst —and theirs was just a bit worse. My little predators. It was almost enough to stop the ant bites from hurting. But only almost especially since Rita was smacking the bites as well as the ants, causing added pain.

“Got yourself a couple of real scouts here” Officer Lear said, looking at Cody and Astor with an expression of slightly worried approval.

“Just Cody” Astor said. “And he's only been to one meeting.” Officer Lear opened his mouth, realized he had nothing to say, and closed it again. He turned to me instead and said, “The tow truck will be here in a couple of minutes. And EMS will want to take a look, just to make sure everybody's okay”

“We're okay,” said Astor.

“So,” Lear went on, “if you wanna stay with your family, I can maybe get this traffic going?” I think that will be all right” I said. Lear looked at Rita and raised an eyebrow, and she nodded.

“Yes” she said. “Of course.”

“All right” he said. “The Feds will probably want to talk to you.

I mean, about the attempted kidnapping.”

“Oh my God” Rita said, as if hearing that word made it all real.

I think the guy was just a random crazy” I said hopefully. After all, I already had enough trouble without the FBI looking into my family life.

Lear was not impressed. He looked at me very sternly. “It's kidnapping,” he said. “With your kids.” He stared at me for a moment to make sure I knew that word, then turned and waggled his finger at Rita. “Make sure you all see the EMS people.” He looked back at me with no expression. “And maybe you better get dressed, all right?” And then he turned and stepped out into the street and began to wave at the cars in an attempt to get traffic moving again.