Superintendent Bauer's legs snapped sharply forward with each

 step he took, but his watch, attached by an unusually tawdry length of

 rope to his trousers, swung lazily and arrthymically near his knees.

 "Beloved tenants," he bgan, "I cannot allow any of you to leave this room

 until it is clear who bored the enormous hole through the roof of this

 building and, subsequently, through my lavatory. I've already ascertained

that -- Tolliver, stop fidgeting!" None of them had been quite the same

 since the drilling occurred, but Tolly in particular was now rarely seen

 without a stutter in his gait and a good-luck charm in his fist. In add-

 ition, Bauer had started lending him clothes. Tolliver looked like a pogo

 stick whose parentswere sending it to boarding school.

          While Bauer traversed the room (questioning them higher floors

first, with exceptions for those who lived near the elevator), poor old

Maureen tried not to injure herself knitting. Someone had stolen her last

 pair of needles, and rather than replacing them, she'd moved from yarn to

pipe cleaners. Her first magnum opus of this period was still taking shape

as she finished dribs and drabs of it. A pattern marked 'Head' lay at her

side.

        "D-do you think he'll find it before he gets to us?" Tolly asked

Maureen . "I've g-got people I need to call. You know, my jet's missing.

 Model j-j-jet. Probably the same guy as your hat pins." "Needles." "W-w-

 whatever."

           Maureen quietly slid a foot over to the base of Tolliver's

chair in the hope of damping his rattling without hurting his feelings.

 To her annoyance, he not only still rattled but outright clattered, teeth

and buttons and nails and snaps all agitating against the unfairness of 

their essential immobility. Maureen's shoelaces jiggled in sympathy. Tolly

rose out of his chair like a pop-up book streetlamp and tottered forward.

       Bauer shielded his eyes.

      Tolliver exploded, blowing a perfectly circular hole in the floor.

As everyone gathered around to look at the curiously uncharred remains now

settling in a heap in the basement, shouts of recognition went up. "My

 recycling bin!" "My needles!" "That's your watch chain, sir!" "My manu-

script!"

       Maureen slid on a pair of pipe-cleaner gauntlets from her purse and

donned the new helmet. She was ready not for this battle, but for the next

one. Across the room, Bauer's pocket change jingled brightly.



written for Cyndy P. at the Someday 9/19/01