But Mom, when she returned a little later, refused to give them the satisfaction of a single question. She did walk past the sideboard several times, but they could never catch her looking directly at the box. And once, when she had to move it aside to make room for her morning’s setting of rolls, she seemed not even to notice that the shoe box was a stranger in her kitchen.
Richard Holt grinned at the Allens, and they grinned sheepishly back at him. “If there’s any teasing going on around here,” he said quietly, “I don’t think we’re doing it.”
“Did I hear you say you wanted a cheese sandwich?” Mom said. Her eyes were twinkling.
“Eh—why, yes, I believe I could manage one—even after all that dinner,” Richard Holt admitted.
Some time later, as Sandy crawled into bed and snapped of the light at his elbow, he murmured his usual last request to Ken. “Don’t forget to open the window.”
Ken slid the frame up several inches and shivered as the cold air struck him. “It’s snowing,” he said.
There was no answer. Sandy was already asleep.
But Ken was still wide awake ten minutes later. He turned over and tried counting sheep, but the ruse didn’t work.
“Serves me right,” he muttered, “for eating that cheese sandwich.” He turned over once more.
When another ten minutes had gone by he slid out from under the covers.