Leave me alone,” Connie whispered.“Hey, you know that old woman down the road, the one with thechickens and stuff — you know her?”“She’s dead!”“Dead? What? You know her?” Arnold Friend said.“She’s dead —”“Don't you like her?”“She’s dead — she’s — she isn’t here any more —”“But don’t you like her, I mean, you got something against her? Somegrudge or something?” Then his voice dipped as if he were conscious ofa rudeness. He touched the sunglasses perched on top of his head as ifto make sure they were still there. “Now you be a good girl.”

She put out her hand against the screen. She watched herself push thedoor slowly open as if she were safe back somewhere in the other door-way, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into thesunlight where Arnold Friend waited.

Ellie turned for thefirst time and Connie saw with shock that he wasn’t a kid either — hehad a fair, hairless face, cheeks reddened slightly as if the veins grew tooclose to the surface of his skin, the face of a forty-year-old baby. Conniefelt a wave of dizziness rise in her at this sight and she stared at him as ifwaiting for something to change the shock of the moment, make it allright again.