"As I hung up the phone I reflected on how easy it had been to make three people happy at the same time - KM, Matt, and me. Before the hour was up Mat...t would be balls deep in the hottest woman he was ever likely to know.When I got home that night KM could not wait to tell me about her evening. She wouldn't even wait until we went to the bedroom, but pulled me down on the living room floor. As she lifted her skirt and lowered herself onto my face she was saying, "I can't believe how wicked I can. "Are you okay?" I'm fine," said Margaret automatically. "I'm just a silly old woman sometimes." You're not old," said Julia, also automatically. Then, with shock, her eyes registered the sprinkling of silver strands mixed in with her mother's normal dark brown hair."And you're only silly once in a while, so far," said Hank, who realized, more than any of the others, that something important had happened. His attempt at levity was a test, to see how much things had suddenly changed.Margaret. Yeah, like I NEED encouragement.Haley’s turn:“Mizz Dasson, here’s my dilemma,” I said. Mizz Dasson is one of the high school guidance counselors. She had the kids with last names of A through L. She kept me even though I changed my name from Buckley to Simon.“Go ahead, Haley. I’m listening.”“I’m idling. I haven’t been challenged in class yet this year.”She regarded me carefully. I wonder how many kids come in and say something like that.“I’ve heard that one before, Haley. Just that the last one. ..That fifth week, the designed complement of the trainees at the centre was reached with the arrival of IS29/11 and IS29/12.Eleven was Jennifer Butcher. At nineteen, she was only one year older than Bennie Hemming, whom she knew. Dark haired, tall, pale, slim and intense, she'd secluded herself in her room the day she finished her last examination and refused to talk to her father at all. Her mother had left trays of food outside her room and perhaps half the time some, or all, of the food had.