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Enough time. Like a baseball bat Kitty slung her stiffened arm so it struck and hurled me toward the tub. I stumbled, staggered off balance, and again Kitty moved, but this time I managed to dodge, and, screaming, I headed for the stairs, calling Cal's name as loudly as I could.

"YA COME BACK HERE AN TAKE YER BATH!" shrieked Kitty.

I pounded on the door of the upstairs bath, screaming for Cal to hear me, but he was in there with the water going full blast, singing at the top of his voice, and he didn't hear. Any minute I expected Kitty to climb the stairs and force me to sit in that tub of filth and death. Daring embarrassment, I turned the knob on the door. Cal had locked it! Oh, damn, damn!

Sliding to the floor, I waited for him to come out. The minute he turned off the water I was up and calling again. Tentatively he cracked open the door, still dripping water from his hair, with a towel swathed about his hips. "What's wrong?" he asked with great concern, drawing me into his arms and bowing his damp face into my hair as I clung to him for dear life. "Why are you acting so frightened?"

I gushed it all out, Chuckles in the basement, how Kitty had used something to wrap about her middle and squeeze the life out of a harmless, helpless little creature.

His face turned grim as he released me and reached for his robe, and, with me in tow, headed for the downstairs bathroom. In the doorway I waited, unable to look at poor Chuckles again. Kitty had disappeared. "There's nothing in the tub, Heaven," he said, coming back to me. "Clean as a whistle . . ."

I looked myself. It was true. The dead hamster and her young were gone. Sparkling-clean tub. Still wearing nothing but a towel, I tagged behind Cal to visit the basement. Empty cage with a wide-open door.

"What ya two doin down there?" called Kitty from above. "Heaven, now ya take yer shower, an hurry up. Don't wanna be late fer church."

"What did you do with Chuckles?" I shrieked when I was in the back hall.

"Ya mean that rat I killed? I threw it away. Did ya want t'save it? Cal," she said, turning to him and looking sweeter than sugar, "she's mad cause I killed a nasty ole rat in t'tub. An ya know I kin't put up with filth like rats in my house." Her deadly cold eyes riveted on me with warning.

"Go on, Heaven," urged Cal. "I'll talk to Kitty."

I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay and fight it out, make Cal see Kitty for what she was, a psycho who should be locked up. Yet I felt too weak and sick to do more than obey. I showered, shampooed, even fixed breakfast, as Kitty protested over and over again, growing more and more vehement, that she'd never seen a hamster, didn't even know what one looked like, would never go alone into the basement no time, no how.

Her pale eyes swung to me. "Hate ya fer tryin t'turn my man against me! I'll go ta t'school authorities an tell em what ya did ta that poor lil critter--an tryin t'put t'blame on me. It were yers, weren't it? I'd neva do nothin so mean . . . ya did it jus t'blame me! Ya kin stay here until ya finish school--then get out! Ya kin go t'hell fer all I kerr."

"Chuckles was pregnant, Kitty! Maybe that made her more than you could stand!"

"Cal, would ya hear this girl lie? I neva saw no hamster--did ya?"

Could Cal believe I could do anything so horrible? No, no, his eyes kept saying. Let it pass this time, please, please.

Why didn't he look for evidence in the garbage can? Why didn't he come right out and accuse Kitty? Why, Cal, why?

The nightmare continued in the church.

"Amazing grace . . .

How sweet the sound . . ."

Everybody was singing reverently. How spaced out I felt standing beside Kitty, dressed in my best new clothes. We looked so fine, so respectably Christian and God-fearing, and all the time the memory of a dear little dead hamster was in my head. Who would believe me if I told?

Kitty dropped her tithe in the passed plate; so did Cal. I stared at the plate, then at the bland face of the deacon who passed it. I refused to put in one penny. "Ya do it," whispered Kitty, giving me a sharp elbow nudge. "Ain't gonna have no friends of mine thinkin yer a heathen, an ungrateful fer all yer blessins."

I stood up and walked out of the church, hearing behind me all sorts of murmurs. Kitty's insanity was coloring everything, making me stare at people and wonder what they were really like inside.

Down the street I started walking fast, leaving Kitty and Cal still in the church. I hadn't gone two blocks before Cal's car was pulling up behind me, with Kitty leaning out to call, "C'mon, kid, don't be silly. Ya kin't go nowhere when ya ain't got more than two bucks--an that belongs ta t'Lord. Get in. Feelin betta, I am. Mind's clear as a bell, though all night an all mornin early it near gave me a fit."

Was she trying to tell me she hadn't known what she was doing when she murdered Chuckles?

Reluctantly I got into the car. Where could I go with only two dollars in my purse?

All the way home from church I thought about what to do. She had felt she had to kill Chuckles. Only crazy people did sadistic things like that. And how was I ever going to find a reasonable excuse for Chuckles' death when next I saw Mr. Taylor?

"You can't tell him," said Cal when we had the chance to be alone, while Kitty was again sleeping to rid herself of a fresh assault of "cluster headaches." "You've got to make it seem that Chuckles died in childbirth . . ."

"You're protecting her!" I cried angrily.

"I believe you, but I also want you to finish high school. Can you do that if we go now to the authorities and try to have her committed? She'll fight us. We'll have to prove her insane, and you know as well as I do that Kitty shows her worst self only to you and me. Her `girls' think she's wonderful, generous, and self-sacrificing. Her minister adores her. We have to convince her to see a psychiatrist, for her own good. And, Heaven, we can play our own game until then, and in the meanwhile I'm putting away extra dollars so you'll have enough money to escape this hellhole."