q. Because of what he said, we knew we had to make a policy change.

1. Two women sitting in fifth row: one turned halfway round to see if anyone else was here, and she was the girl at the foundation with the big earrings who gave me and Gustave some jobs and had the new phone number, and her name was Amy; the other woman was older and turned halfway the other way to look, and she was looking like I was feeling, and she had come out of the bright, sunny office that Amy had gone into and then Amy came out after her and there was a man’s voice still in there talking Spanish so I didn’t know if it was to them or he’s on the phone. "We know these people," I whispered to Gustave, who had his fur earflaps down—he had put on his hat again. He stood like a tree, like once before in the street, but we’re inside now.

2. The singers broke off and were yakking like they’d been doing it all along, and then the piano stopped and Lady Luisa said, "I know this music from somewhere. It is imitation something -di." And Mr. North laughed like he was singing and said, "Are you accusing my young friend of—"

3. But then the very small woman who had consultation with Senora Wing who predicted she was going to take off her clothes came out onstage and wasn’t wearing the trenchcoat but had overalls and a red shirt like the red socks mother gave me, and had a big hammer. "Is that sheetrock you ordered really coming today? I’m all set to—" "I cannot allow the rehearsal to be interrupted by a piece of sheetrock!" cried Luisa ("My dear/’ said big North), but the small woman with the hammer said, "You stopped singing. You were talking."

4. The man at the piano stood up with red hair and beard and we did not know him and he said, "Sheetrock be damned; we need the rest of the score." Gustave said to me, "I saw him before." Suddenly, the little one saw us.

5. A spotlight came on and moved around between Luisa and North, who argued how he was to carry a letter across the stage and whether he would open it on one note or on another note but he couldn’t wait too long. The older woman in the fifth row said why not hand it over and then take it back and open it, and North said, "Who am I to hand it to? The man isn’t here." Luisa started to cry and stopped and was mad and said, "He should open it before he comes onstage; he is saving his own life by reading it before someone else reads it." The woman next to Amy asked Luisa if she wanted a cup of tea, and Luisa said, "If we don’t drink it we get a terrible headache," and they both laughed, and the small woman acted mad and pointed at us.

6. They all looked toward us at the back, and Gustave turned to look back also, and I knew that what I had seen on his head before he put his big cap back on was blood, and I was not sure he understood that the policy change was that we would have to begin opening our envelopes when we deemed it necessary for IMU security.

7. I feared for my bike and remembered riding down Fifth Avenue with light behind me like making me a new person, and I turned to tell Gustave he better hand over the music, but there behind us was Santee/Spence smiling and in position nobody’s going to take away. We were going to have to build on more than outside known fact. Santee/Spence said, "Delivery? I’ll take it, Gustave." Behind me, I heard Luisa singing, "Oh speak no more, no more against me, O gentle son O how the wheel becomes me, O heart in twain, I have no breath to breathe my life out—" cut off but very beautiful and I was not thinking what my mother would think any more, only that I was scared and thinking.