Lenore raised her eyebrows. “Ridiculous, too?”
“Just what do you do?”
“We form,” she answered, “exactly one hour after the siren. I’m late, but everybody in my section will be because they can’t get their counters working right, or can’t find where they put them, or took them over to the lab for repair. Then we approach the ‘simulated radioactive site.’ Tonight, they told us, they will actually have a small chunk of radiating metal somewhere.
We’re supposed to probe around till we find it.”
He shook his head, inched the car up, braked again and watched as she opened the door.
“Carryon!” he said, saluting her with mock solemnity.
She laughed a little. “I’ve got myself in this, and a date later, when all I want to do is go down with you to our spot by the river and neck.”
“I’ll be home,” he answered, “any evening for the next thirty.”
“And as soon as Mother knows it,” she answered, grimly picking up her instrument, “she’ll raise heaven and earth to make it as nearly impossible as she can for me to see you at all.”
“Still—you being twenty-four—”