Dad rearranged one of the coffee mugs on the pile of papers it had already left smeary brown rings on. "I've been talking to Billy. You did really well in your last standardized tests, did I tell you?"

He hadn't. I'd thought he should've had the results by now and had begun to worry. I'd been trying to be extra careful since Mom died because I knew social services was just aching to take me out of my weird life at the Institute, but I could have missed something important because since Mom died I just did miss stuff, and sometimes it was important.

"And I know" — he hesitated — "I know you've been keeping up with your woodcraft." The one thing he would let me out of his sight to do without a huge argument was go out for a day with one of the Rangers — as long as we were back the same night. And it was the one thing that would turn the telescope I was looking through around too. For a few hours. "You're fourteen and a half."

Fourteen years, nine months and three days, I wanted to say, but I didn't.

"And — well — Billy says you're more than ready to — uh — "

Tie my shoes without someone supervising? I thought, but I didn't say that either, not only because my shoes have Velcro straps. I knew Dad was doing the best he could. So was I.

"Well, I wondered, would you like to take your overnight solo? I know you were — we were — " He hesitated again. "Your first solo is overdue, I know. And Billy says you'll be fine. And the weather looks like holding. SO

"Yes," I said. "I'd love to." I tried not to sound sarcastic. I almost forgot to say thanks. Almost. But I did say it.

If I'd been twelve I'd've gone whooping out of the Institute offices to the Ranger offices which are right across the tourist center lobby and reception area, and probably telling everyone on the way, Nate in the ticket booth, Amanda in the gift shop, poor Bob doing detention in the cafe, Jo and Nancy answering questions as they shepherded gangs of tourists to and from the bus stop, and anybody else I recognized, but I was nearer fifteen than fourteen and it had been a long almost-three years in a lot of ways. I walked slowly through Nancy's busload (ID-ing the f.l.'s among them at first glance), waved at Nate, and told Dan, at the front Ranger desk, that whenever Billy had a moment I'd like to talk to him.

"He's hiding down at the caves," said Dan. "You could go find him." I've forgotten to tell you about the caves. As soon as the first geologist set foot near Smokehill they knew there had to be caves here. The Native Americans had known for a long time, but after a bad beginning they'd kind of stopped telling the European pillagers anything they didn't have to, so Old Pete may be the first whiteface to have done more than guess. The caves near the Institute aren't very good ones compared to what there is farther in, like under the Bonelands, but these little ones near the front door were busy being developed for tourists, so they weren't going to be much use for hiding in much longer.

Getting the work done was a huge nuisance and everybody who lived here hated it, but we are always desperate for money (I should just make an acronym of it: WAADFM, like some new weird alternative radio station), so we were going ahead with it. Of course in the short term this meant money we badly needed elsewhere was getting spent on making the caves touristproof . . . and tourists coming to the caves was going to mean more staff to keep an eye on them and more upkeep because tourists are incredibly destructive even when they’re behaving themselves, but the grown ups (including a lot of bozo outside consultants — for cheez sake, what does some pointy head from Baltimore or Manhattan know about a place like Smokehill?) all seemed to think it was going to be worth it in the end, if we lived that long. Dad had told me that the caves were going to fund him hiring another graduate student, maybe even full-time, because he didn't think he was ever going to get one otherwise. I was sure hiring anybody was a bad idea because it would mean we could, and everybody would cut our grants accordingly.

Billy was sitting by one of the little pools near the entrance. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the dark — the construction crews had gone home for the day, and turned off all the lights — I could see both his lantern and its reflection in the water. I went up to him as quietly as I could, but the caves are totally quiet except for the drip of water (and the bats) and on the pebbly path with the inevitable echo I sounded like someone falling through a series of windows CRASH CRUNCH CRASH only without the screaming.

If you'll pardon the expression from someone who wants to grow up to be a scientist, there's something almost magical about our caves, even the little boring ones near the park entrance. Maybe all caves are like this and I just don't know the analytical squashed-flat-and-labeled word for it. But there's a real feeling of another world, another world that needs some other sense or senses to get at it very well, in our caves. I suppose you could say it's something about underground, lack of sunlight, nothing grows here but a few creepy blind things and sometimes even creepier rock formations, but that doesn't explain it. Cellars aren't magical. The old underground bomb shelter that's now a really boring museum in Wilsonville isn't magical. Our caves are magical.

It could have been the weird shadows that lantern light throws but the moment Billy looked up I knew he was worried about something besides more tourists. I was used to Dad worrying. He'd been worried about something since Mom disappeared, and once she died it's like his worry metastasized and now he worried about everything — and I worried about the holes it made in him, all the gnawing worry. If I lost any more family there wouldn't be any left. As I looked at Billy I wondered what I was missing. Like that the world's total Draco australiensis numbers were still falling and there had been only a few hundred left when they died out in the wild. Like that even with the zoo Smokehill was barely surviving. I knew both of these things. But dragons are so hard to count maybe they were wrong about there being fewer of them. Maybe they were just getting even harder to count. And Smokehill had always barely survived, from Old Pete on. But Dad's a worrier. Billy isn't.

"What's wrong?" I said.

Billy shook his head. He was a good grown-up, but he was still a grown-up, and grown-ups rarely talk about grown-up trouble to kids. Eric took the question "What's wrong?" from a kid as a personal attack, even when it was something like a zoo-food shipment not arriving when it should and it was perfectly reasonable to be worried. I'd often wished Dad would talk about missing Mom to me more. Not only because then I could talk to him back. We could barely mention her at all.

At least Billy didn't lie to me. "Nothing you can do anything about. Nothing I can do anything about either. That's what's wrong." He shook his head again and then looked at me, visibly changing the subject. "What's up?"

I thought again of how I'd've felt if this'd happened three years ago. It was almost hard to get the words out. "Dad says I can do my first solo. Hike into the park and stay overnight." I felt as if I needed to apologize for interrupting him for such a lame reason. It could have waited. "Dan told me I could find you here."

Billy nodded. My solo wasn't news to him — Dad would have discussed it with him first. Even though I knew this was logical and responsible and necessary and all that it made me feel about four instead of almost fifteen. I wasn't really tying my shoes by myself. Dad and Billy were both watching me. I wished Snark was there. Snark was my responsibility. And furthermore he didn't seem to mind. That's being a dog, I guess, not minding being totally dependent on someone who may talk over your head to someone else about you and not let you in on it till everything's already been decided.