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popularity, but Frank didn’t let anyone, male or female, get too close.
    â€œFrank!” he heard his mother call out from upstairs.
    He didn’t respond.
    â€œFrank!” she called louder. “Are you in the kitchen?”
    â€œYeah!” he responded. “I’m busy!”
    â€œJodie’s leotard is on the table in the atrium. Bring it upstairs. We’re late for ballet practice.”
    The huge white cockatoo that his mother kept on an open-air perch in the atrium connected to the kitchen squawked when it saw Frank. The bird preened its feathers and moved back and forth along its perch. Frank picked up the leotard and held it up to the bird’s beak. It leaned forward and pulled at the elastic fabric until a small hole opened.
    Satisfied, Frank walked upstairs with a bowl of cereal in one hand and the leotard in the other. His mother came out of the huge walk-in closet in his sister’s bedroom with a frustrated look on her face. In her left hand was a pink ballet slipper. He could hear the sounds of his eight-year-old sister in the adjacent bathroom.
    â€œHave you seen Jodie’s other ballet slipper?”
    â€œI think the bird ate it,” he said.
    â€œHere, give me that.” His mother snatched the leotard from his hand.
    â€œWe’ll be back after lunch.”
    Returning to his bedroom, Frank turned on his computer. The machine was his only steady companion. He slipped on a pair of headphones connected to a powerful music system in the corner of the room. Frank’s taste went beyond the list of groups familiar to his classmates. Many of the CDs in his storage case came from an underground movement that pushed the message and the music beyond any recognizable category. Some of the screams on the tracks were real.
    The sounds in his ears energized him as did the battle with the faceless combatants who joined him in an invisible world where the ability to weave a web of skillfully orchestrated spells, incantations, and deceptions was considered as pure an art form as a meticulously choreographed demonstration of oriental martial arts. Currently, only Frank and four other members of the group were free. Everyone else was held in chains of darkness until the game was complete.

6
    The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
A LL ’ S W ELL T HAT E NDS W ELL , A CT 4 , S CENE 3
    S cott stopped by Dixon’s Body Shop late Saturday afternoon. On weekends he exercised on the arm bike, a device that allowed him to pump his arms rapidly in circles and generate enough physical activity to elevate his heart rate for aerobic benefit. Perry came out of his office and walked over to the machine as Scott finished a hard forty-five minutes.
    â€œYou’re the Lance Armstrong of the arm bike,” Perry said.
    Still breathing hard, Scott gasped, “I don’t know about that, but I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain in the Alps.” He wiped his face with a towel. “Guess who I had breakfast with this morning at the Eagle?”
    Perry sat down on a bench beside him. “Give me a clue. Male or female?”
    â€œFemale.”
    â€œThat cuts it down considerably. There aren’t that many single females in Blanchard County. Does she live in Catawba?”
    â€œYes, but she’s married.”
    Perry gave Scott a sober look. “Don’t be going down that road.”
    Scott laughed. “I’ll be careful. I’m not interested in a load of buckshot. She’s the teacher at the school who is going to be the sponsor of the mock trial team I told you about. Her last name begins with W .”
    â€œMrs. Willston!” Perry exploded. “I can’t believe it! You had breakfast with her?”
    â€œI ordered a full meal, but she only wanted a piece of cantaloupe. You know, it’s easier for her to eat something soft. Her teeth are not in good shape.”
    Perry’s jaw dropped. “I can’t