Rita sighed, already tired of the neighborhood grocery store. The products on offer were gray and rancid, and she turned away in disgust from a woman intently inspecting a package of ground beef with yesterday’s sell-by date.

Today was special, and Rita would not settle for anything less than a perfect treat.

The moon hung in the dark night like a single, severed buttcheek, pale as—

No, that was terrible.

The moon was a Swiss cheese hole, but inversed, because it was cheese-colored and the sky around it was—

No. That was even worse somehow.

The early morning commuter train from Boston screeches into the station at historic Concordia, the affluent community where a sports jacket is required at the town dump and where geese are prohibited from flying in over the town line.

Silver Dollar Davis sat on the tailgate of his friend’s pick-up truck, aiming binoculars at Old Man Pollard’s farmhouse. The ridge overlooking the farm was a favorite party spot for local teens, close enough to town for an occasional food run, but far enough out in the sticks to avoid nosy parents and local law enforcement.

It also provided the perfect vantage for recon.

The Adventure Suits arrived a day earlier than advertised. Bernard weighed the package in his hands—next to nothing! He tossed it happily in the air and with the catch had to fight the urge to tear it open. He should wait for Maggie.

It wasn’t easy. He thought of trying his on to greet her at the door when she got home… But, no, he could wait. He played with the package a moment longer and then set it reverently on the kitchen counter with the mail.