‘No, thank you. Have you seen my cat?'

‘I saw him go on to the balcony. Let's go look.'

We did - no Pixel. But it was a beautiful clear night; we stopped to look. ‘Lizzie, where are we?'

‘This hotel is near the Plaza, and we're looking north. That's the downtown district, and beyond it, the Missouri River.'

As I expected, Priscilla set new highs for screaming irrelevancy. She blamed everyone - me, Dr Rumsey, Donald, President Patton, the Kansas City school board, and unnamed others, for the conspiracy against her. She did not blame herself for anything.

While she was ranting, Jim shoved an injector against hera tranquilliser, Thorazine, I think, or something about as powerful. We got her imo my car and ovar to the hospital. Bell Memorial used the bed-first-paperwork-later check-in method, so jim got her treatment started at orce. That done, he ordered a barbiturate for 9.o p:m, and authorised a wet pack if she failed to quiet down.

I signed all sorts of papers, showed my American Express card, and we left - back to Jim's office, where he took a sample of my blood and a vaginal smear. ‘Maureen, where was it you sent the boy?'

‘I don't think he had anything to do with it, Jim.'

‘Don't talk like your daughter, you stupid little broad - We don't guess; we find out.'

Jim dug into a reference listing, called a doctor in Grinnell. ‘Doctor, we'll find the lad and send him to you. Are you equipped to do the Morgan test? Do you have fresh reagents and a polariser at hand?'

‘In a college town, Doctor? You can bet your last dollar I do!'

‘Good. We'll track him down and chase him right over to your office, then I'll wait at this telecode for you to call me back.'

We were lucky; Donald was in his dormitory. ‘Donald I want you to go straight to Dr Ingram. His office is downtown, across from Stewart Library. I want you to go right now, this instant.'

‘Mama, what is this all about?' He looked and sounded upset.

‘Call me at home, tonight, from a secure phone, and I'll tell you. I won't discuss it over a screen in the hallway of a dormitory. Go straight to Dr Ingram and do what he tens you to. Hurry'

I waited in Jim's private office for Dr Ingram's call. While I was waiting Jim's nurse finished my tests. ‘Good news,' she said. ‘You can go to the Sunday school picnic after all.'

‘Thanks, Olga.'

‘Too bad about your youngster. But with the drugs we use nowadays she'll be home in a couple of days, as healthy as you are.'

‘We cure ‘em too fast,' Jim said gruffly. ‘Catching something nasty used to teach ‘em a lesson. Now they figure it's no worse than a hangnail, so why worry?'

‘Doctor, you're a cynic,' Olga countered. ‘You'll come to a bad end.'

After an agonising wait, Dr Ingram called back. ‘Doctor, did you have reason to suspect that this patient was infected?'

‘No. But he had to be eliminated, under a VD trace required by Missouri state law.'

‘Well, he's negative on both of those and on two or three other things I checked while I was at it. He doesn't even have dandruff. I don't see why he would be included in a VD search; I think he's still a virgin. How shall I bill this?'

‘To my office.'

They switched off. I asked, ‘Jim, what was that about Missouri state law?'

He sighed. ‘Clap and pox are among the many diseases I must report but for venereal diseases I not only have to report them but also I must co-operate in an effort to find out where the patient contracted the disease. Then public health officers try to follow each infection back to its source - impossible, since the original source is somewhere centuries back in history. But it does serve to thin it out. I know of one case here in town where spotting one dose of clap turned up thirty-seven other cases before it ran off the map, to other cities or states. When the track does that, our public health officers pass along the data to those other jurisdictions and we drop that search.

‘But locating and curing thirty-seven cases of gonorrhoea is worth while in itself, Maureen. The venereal diseases are ones we stand a chance of stamping out, the way we did smallpox, because - do you know the definition of a venereal disease?'

(Yes, I do, but go ahead, Jim.) ‘No.'

‘A venereal disease is one that is so terribly difficult to catch that only intercourse or deep kissing is likely to pass it on. That's why we stand a chance of stamping them out... if only the idiots would co-operate! Whereas there is no chance, none whatever, of stamping out the so-called common cold. Yet people pass on respiratory infections with utter carelessness and aren't even apologetic about it.' He was explosively profane.

I said, ‘Tut, tut! Ladies don't talk that way.'

The screen was blinking and its alarm was sounding as I got home. I dropped my handbag and answered it - Donald.

‘Mama, what's this all about?'

‘Secure phone?' I could not see what was behind him - just a blank wall.

‘I'm in one of the round proof booths at the phone company.'

‘All right' I know of no gentle way to tell a boy that his sister has big and little casino, a full house. So I put it bluntly. ‘Priscilla is ill. She has gonorrhoea and syphilis:

I thought he was going to faint. But he pulled himself together. ‘Mama, this is awful. Are you sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure. I was there when she was tested and I saw the test results. That's why you were tested. I was greatly relieved to learn that you are not the one who gave them to her.'

‘I'll be there at once. Uh, it's about two hundred and forty miles. Coming up, it took me -‘

‘Donald.'

‘Yes, Mama?'

‘Stay where you are. We sent you to Grinnell to get you away from your sister.'

‘But, Mama, these are special circumstances. She needs me -‘

‘She does not need you. You are the worst possible influence on her; can't you get that through your head? She doesn't need sympathy; she needs antibiotics and that is what she is getting. Now leave her alone and give her a chance to get well... and to grow up. And you grow up, tool'

After enquiring about how he was doing with his studies, I shut him off. Then I did something I avoid doing as a matter of principle but sometimes must do through pragmatic necessity; I searched a child's room.

I think a child has a right to privacy but that right is not absolute; his parents have an overriding responsibility for everything under their roof. If the circumstances require it, the child's right to privacy may have to be temporarily suspended.

I am aware that some libertarians (and all children) disagree with me. So be it.

Priscilla's room was as untidy as her mind, but that was not what I was after. I worked slowly through her bedroom and bathroom, trying to check every cubic inch, while leaving her clothes and other possessions as much as possible the way I had found them.

I found no liquor. I found a stash of what I thought was marijuana but I was not sure how to tell ‘grass' when I saw it. That it probably was ‘grass' was made almost certain in my mind by two things: two little packets of cigarette papers under the bottom liner of another drawer, and a lack of any tobacco of any sort, loose or in cigarettes. Are cigarette papers used for any purpose other than rolling cigarettes of some sort?

The last odd thing I found was at the very bottom of a catch-all drawer in her bathroom: a small rectangular mirror, and with it a Gem single-edge blade. She had a big make-up mirror that I had given her, as well as a three-way that was part of her dressing table; why had she bought this mirror? I stared at those two items, mirror and razor blade, then looked elsewhere in her bathroom, and found, as my memory led me to expect, a Gillette razor that required double-edged blades, and an opened packet of double-edged blades - but no Gem razor. I then searched both bathroom and bedroom a second time. I even searched the room and bath that had been Donald's, although I knew them to be as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard; I had cleaned after he left. I did not find a stash of white powder having the appearance of powdered sugar... which proves only that I did not find such a stash.