"I'm sorry, Rose, but the answer is no," Laura told her daughter. "You can't take Spot to school for Show and Tell."

"Why not?" asked Rose.

"Well, honey, they don't allow pets in school. I don't think you could hold onto him the whole time he was there, anyway. He'd run away and get lost. And what if he had to pee or poop?"

"I could take him outside..."

"By the time you realized it, it would be too late and there would be a big mess to clean up. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to think of something else to take."

Rose stuck her bottom lip out.

"Why don't you take pictures of Spot." Almanzo got the photograph album out and opened it. "See? We took this one right after we got him, and then this one is from last week. Why don't you take both pictures and pass them around? That way, your classmates can see how much he's grown."

"Well...all right."

When Rose met her friends at the bus stop the next morning, she showed them the photographs and asked what they were taking.

"This is a maraca my Uncle Tomas brought me from Puerto Rico." Tom showed his friends the maraca. It was painted yellow and had a red chili pepper on the side.

"I'm gonna show off my monkey my Granny made me from a sock," said Marcy.

Soon the bus arrived, and the children climbed aboard. All the way to school, Rose worried that her classmates wouldn't think her pictures of Spot were as interesting as Tom's maraca or Marcy's sock monkey.

At last it was time for Show and Tell. One by one, Miss Sims called the children to the front. Rose was the next to last child, right before George Young.

"This is my puppy, Spot," she began. "He was just six weeks old when we got him back in June. Here's another picture to show how big he is now!"

She passed the pictures around to all the children.

"Thank you, Rose," said Miss Sims when the pictures were passed back up to the front. "George, you may come up and show the class what you have now."

Grace was playing softball with her classmates when she heard the siren.

"Drop!" shouted Coach Madison.

Panicked, the students ran into the gym, where they lined the walls, crouching as close to them as possible, and covering their heads as well as they could.

About fifteen minutes passed. Then Grace heard Coach Madison's voice again.

"It was only a test. You may resume the softball game, but remember, next time, it might be the real thing."

Grace and the others went back to playing softball, but she still had the jitters and so kept dropping the ball, and as a result, her team lost. As the class was headed back inside to change, she struck up a conversation with Sharon Bergen.

"Do you think the Russians would really bomb us?" she asked.

Sharon shrugged. "They might. They hate us, don't they?"

"But why do they hate us?"

"I don't know. I guess because we have free speech and all that and they don't."

Grace thought of her niece and nephew, Austin and Audrey. What would an atomic bomb do to them?

She shuddered.

After school, she went by Albert and Sylvia's house on the way home. She always loved to see the twins, any chance she got. When she rang the doorbell, Sylvia appeared right away, holding Audrey.

"Grace, am I glad to see you! I can't get the twins settled. I fed Austin and put him down for a nap and was in the middle of feeding Audrey when Austin woke up and started crying. Can you help?"

"Sure!" Grace entered the house, where she saw Austin lying in the play pen in the living room, screaming his lungs out. She went to him and picked him up.

She wrinkled her nose. "Ooh, you stink!"

"He probably needs a diaper change," said Sylvia.

Grace fetched a clean diaper and lay Austin on the changing table. She took the poopy diaper off him, cleaned his bottom, and put the clean diaper on him. Then she sat in the rocking chair with him and rocked him back to sleep.

"Thanks so much!" said Sylvia.

"It's no problem at all," Grace replied. "I love helping out with the twins."

When both babies were asleep, Grace stayed and visited with her sister-in-law for awhile.

"How was school today?" asked Sylvia.

"We had a duck and cover drill today," Grace replied. "It was pretty scary. Did you have those when you were in school?"

Sylvia shook her head. "The war was still going on then, so that was an even scarier time."

"I'll bet!"

Patty had a nagging pain in her stomach all day. She tried to ignore it, but as time passed, it got worse and worse.

"Are you all right?" asked Albert as he saw her grimace and clutch her right side.

"Yeah." She tried to smile. "Must be something I ate."

It was almost time to go home, and the pain was unbearable.

"I need to go...to the hospital..." she gasped, right before everything went black.