The crickets were so thick on the floor that in places he couldn't even see the carpet. The crickets jump ing on him made him want to scream, and walking was very slow when he had to keep brushing them off, and finally he just stopped brushing them off, even though he couldn't stand the way it felt to have their feet on his naked legs. He couldn't brush them off because they were here in his children's bedroom and he had to get rid of them and so what did it matter whether he was comfortable or not?

They were coming up from a small gap in the back of the boys' closet. He could see them crawling out, first the antennas and then their black, mechanical bodies, their legs like pistons. Robot crickets, that's what they are, he thought. Somebody made them.

And then he thought, 1 made them. Crickets from hell. A plague of crickets. A sign to me that God saw the way I bullied that woman today and he knows that I secretly loved doing it, that I loved the power I had over her. So just like Pharaoh, I get a plague.

DeAnne was in the room now, holding several garbage bags and a broom and dustpan. "You'll have to hold the dustpan while I sweep," she said. "I can't bend over that far these days."

"Forget the dustpan," said Step. "They'd just jump off. I'll hold the bag open for you. But first we've got to stop them from coming in."

"You found the place?"

"A crack between the floor and the wall in the back of the closet. Do we have any rags?"

"All the old socks," she said.

"Get them wet and we'll jam them in," he said.

"Wet? Why?"

"Oh, please, DeAnne, I don't know, just do it." He wasn't really sure why. He just had some vague idea that if the socks were wet then he could jam them in tighter and they'd stay in place better and it would do a better job of keeping the crickets from coming through.

It took all the socks DeAnne had been saving for dustcloths, but when he had jammed them in, no more crickets were able to come through.

Then the hard part started. The crickets were not inclined to hold still, and so it seemed an almost sisyphean task. Step would keep the bottom of the garbage bag flat on the floor by holding down two corners with his feet, and then hold the top open as far as he could with his hands, while DeAnne tried her best to sweep them in. All the while, of course, they were jumping up at Step's head and onto his arms and legs; yet he couldn't let go of the bag to brush them off, he could only shudder and shake his head. The boldest of the crickets seemed to enjoy this, and hung on for the ride until Step finally asked DeAnne to sweep them off.

Gradually they began to make progress, especially after Step figured out that by spraying Raid into the garbage bag itself from time to time, he could convince the ones they had already caught to stay put. It took an hour before all the visible crickets were collected and the bags tied tightly and carried out to the garage. Then began the hunt for the strays.

They pulled the kids out of their beds, one by one, and perched them sleepily in Step's and DeAnne's room, where there were no crickets remaining; then they closed the door. Since the kids had slept right through the time when masses of crickets were moving around, there was a good chance that they wouldn't see any of the crickets at all, and therefore wouldn't have nightmares about them later.

I hope we're so lucky, thought Step.

They found three crickets that had crept down into Robbie's sheets, which meant that DeAnne would not think of anything less than stripping down all the beds and changing the sheets-even the top bunk, Stevie's bed, where no cricket could possibly have reached. But finally it was done. All the crickets were gone, or at least if there were any left they had the sense to stay out of sight and not chirp. DeAnne proposed bathing the kids again but Step told her to forget it. "These weren't dung beetles, honey, they were crickets, and let's let the kids get back to sleep."

They already were asleep, sprawled in a tangle on top of Step's and DeAnne's bed, but one by one Step carried them back to their rooms and DeAnne tucked them into bed. In moments they were sleeping again.

"Wouldn't it be nice," Step said to DeAnne as she tucked Betsy into her clean sheets, "wouldn't it be nice if all the bad things in life could happen in their sleep and we could make them go away without them ever knowing what happened?"

"I've got to wash," said DeAnne. "I can still feel cricket feet all over me." She shuddered. "I'm surprised I didn't go into labor."

Now that she mentioned it, he still felt the tickling of those tiny feet, and it got worse the more he thought about it. "You get the first shower," he said, "but make it snappy."

She didn't make it snappy, but he understood. When it was his turn, he had to soap himself up and rinse himself off three times before he finally felt clean enough to dry off and go to bed. And even then, he inspected the sheets, though no cricket had jumped on their bed and he knew it, he knew it, but he still had to look. He had to be sure.

"Tomorrow, the exterminators," he said as he finally pulled the covers up over him.

"Yes," she said, "I already tho ught of that. I'll call Bappy to find out if they have some kind of contract, like with Terminex or somebody."

The next morning he was late to work, of course, later than usual, because he had lost so much sleep the night before. He came in to find a memo sitting on top of his desk. It was from Ray Keene, and even though it was addressed to everybody Step knew that it was aimed at him.

It has come to my attention that some employees have been abusing our relaxed attitude toward work hours. Therefore a new policy is instituted beginning tomorrow. All employees must be at their work stations promptly at eight-thirty. Lunch is to be taken from twelve noon to twelve-thirty, the only exceptions being that those who must work the telephones will be assigned half-hour shifts between I 1:30 and 1:00. Anyone arriving even five minutes late in the morning or taking a lunch even five minutes over thirty minutes will be dismissed on the spot. The only exceptions are for medical reasons or genuine, documented family emergencies.

Step wanted to storm into Dicky's office and call him every name he could think of. But he couldn't. If only Arkasian had come through. If only Step had a contract with somebody else, a way to get out of this place. It would be such a joy to tell Dicky Northanger exactly what he thought of him. Instead, Step put the memo into his attache case, locked it again, and then headed for the pit.

The pit was silent when Step came in, and for a moment he thought that they all blamed him for this. But their silence, he realized, was because Dicky was in the room, leaning over the shoulder of one of the programmers. Since Dicky rarely came into the pit, this was in itself significant-but then, perhaps Dicky was doing it in order to stifle the outrage that they were all no doubt feeling. Well, that was fine with Step. The longer Dicky hung around in the pit, the more their anger would focus on him instead of on Step.

"Glass," said Step. "I need you in my office, if you can. I'm having some trouble with the way hyphenation is handled and I think there's a system to it that you can explain to me." They had worked all of this out the week before, but Dicky certainly wouldn't know that.

It didn't matter. "Glass will not go into your office right now," said Dicky. "And there is no reason for you to be in the pit. Glass is helping me work with my programming staff, and that takes precedence over anything the manual- writing staff needs. In fact, you should make a list of your questions and leave them on my desk, and I will get the answers for you. The programming staff has been inclined to goof off, and I am not allowing any further distractions."