socket in the ceiling. The windows
were hung with heavy blankets to keep the light from shining out.

The kids didn't notice anything except each other. Malone took a
couple of deep breaths and began to look around.

All things considered, he thought, the kids had fixed the place up
pretty nicely. The unused warehouse had practically been made over
into an apartment. There were chairs, beds, tables, and everything
else in the line of furnishings for which the kids could conceivably
have any use. There were even some floor lamps scattered around, but
they weren't plugged in. Malone guessed that a job would have to be
done on the warehouse wiring to get the floor lamps in operation, and
the kids just hadn't got around to it yet.

By now the boys were practically standing toe-to-toe, ripping
air-blueing epithets at each other. Not a single hand was lifted.

Malone stared at them for a second, then turned to Dorothea. "We'll
wait till they calm down a little," he whispered. "Then you go out and
talk to them. Tell them we won't hurt them or lock them up or
anything. All we want to do is talk to them for awhile."

"All right," she whispered back.

"They can vanish any time they want to," Malone said, "so there's no
reason for them not to listen to--"

He stopped suddenly, listening. Over the shouting, screaming, and
cursing of the kids, he heard motion on the floor below.

Cops?

It couldn't be, he told himself. But when he took out his radiophone,
his hands were shaking a little.

Lynch's voice was already coming over it when Malone thumbed it on.

"...so hang on, Malone! I repeat: We heard the ruckus, and we're
coming in! We're on our way! Hang on, Malone!"

The voice stopped. There was a click.

Malone stared at the handset, fascinated and horrified. He swallowed.
"No, Lynch!" he whispered, afraid to talk any louder for fear the kids
would hear him. "No! Don't come up. Go away. Repeat: Go away! Stay
away, Lynch!"

It was no use. The radiophone was dead.

Lynch, apparently thinking Malone's set had been smashed in the fight,
or else that Malone was unconscious, had shut his own receiver off.

There was absolutely nothing that Malone could do.

The kids were still yelling at the top of their voices, but the
thundering of heavy, flat feet galumphing up from the lower depths
couldn't be ignored for long. All the boys noticed it at about the
same time. They jerked their heads round to face the stairway. Mal