one
and his compatriots crouched lower behind the boxes.

Mike Fueyo was the first to speak. "Don't vanish yet," he snapped.
"Let's see who it is."

The internal dissent among the Silent Spooks disappeared as if it had
never been, as they faced a common foe. Once again they fell naturally
under Fueyo's leadership. "If it's cops," he said, "we'll give 'em the
grasshopper play we worked out. We'll show 'em."

"They can't fool with us," another boy said. "Sure. The grasshopper
play."

It was cops, all right. Lieutenant Lynch ran up the stairs waving his
billy in a heroic fashion, followed by a horde of blue-clad officers.

"Where's Malone?" Lynch shouted as he came through the doorway.

"Where's your what?" Mike yelled back, and the fight was on.

Later, Malone thought that he should have been surprised, but he
wasn't. There wasn't any time to be surprised. The kids didn't
disappear.

They spread out over the floor of the room easily and lightly, and the
cops charged them in a great blundering mass.

Naturally, the kids winked out one by one--and re-formed in the center
of the cops' muddle. Malone saw one cop raise his billy and swing it
at Mike. Mike watched it come down and vanished at the last instant.
The cop's billy descended on the head of another cop, standing just
behind where Mike had been.

The second cop, blinded by the blow on his head, swung back and hit
the first cop. Meanwhile, Mike was somewhere else.

Malone stayed crouched behind the boxes. Dorothea stood up and
shouted, "Mike! Mike! We just want to talk to you!"

Unfortunately, the police were making such a racket that this could
not be heard more than a foot or so from the speaker. Lynch himself
charged into the mass, swinging his billy and his free fist, and
laying others out one after the other. Pretty soon the floor was
littered with cops. Lynch was doing yeoman duty, but it was hard to
tell what side he was on.

The vanishing trick Mike had worked out was being used by all of the
kids. Cops were hitting other cops, Lynch was hitting everybody, and
the kids were winking on and off all over the loft. It was a scene of
tremendous noise and carnage.

Malone suddenly sprang to his feet and charged into the melee,
shouting at the top of his lungs and swinging both fists. The first
person he saw was one of the teen-agers, and he charged him with
abandon.

He should, he reflected, have known better. The kid disappeared.
Malone caromed o