JOHN D HAD NOT written a word in his book since his arrival at the beach house.

Coming into the house and finding the girls screaming insults at each other, perfect insults—insults that told him everything he wanted to know about them—well, it had been like the opening of a play. No, it was better than a play. It was like one of those TV shows that presents its most exciting scene before the first commercial to make people watch the rest of the program. If he had written the dialogue himself—he admitted this—he could not have made it better.

He was standing at the window, watching for the girls, when he saw them coming up the beach. He wanted to jump up and down like a child at Christmas who spies gift-laden grandparents. “They’re coming!” he almost yelled to the empty house.

More rudeness, he thought happily. He rubbed his hands like an evil spirit. More insults. More of the awfulness that makes life worthwhile.

They live in human bodies, but lurking beneath the flesh and muscle are—dah-daaaaaah!—the Animal and the Vegetable! Coming soon to your local theater or drive-in.

He smiled. He had not had this much pleasure since he had caught his English teacher in a series of grammatical errors.

Exiled from their planet, this unspeakable duo destroys anything that breathes or grows. Starring in their original roles are—dah-daaaaaah!—the Animal and the Vegetable! Also appearing nightly, in person, at Pipe Island.

He stepped closer to the window. He noticed that Deanie, the Vegetable, was walking in front, head up, one hand holding her hair, one hand pulling her bathing suit down in back.

The Animal was walking behind her, slowly, head down, hands dangling at her sides, as reluctant—let’s face it, John D decided—as a mule.

He watched them without blinking. Then, as soon as he saw them start over the dunes, he crossed the room, flopped down on the sofa, and picked up a magazine. He pretended to look at an advertisement for lingerie.

He heard the screen door open. It would be Deanie, he knew, waiting on the porch, holding the door for Clara. “Come on,” she said impatiently.

Yes, come on, John D urged.

“No!”

Clara remained—John D could picture it—with her legs planted in the sand.

Deanie said, “Listen, the car’s gone, so they’re all at the grocery store. You heard them say they were going.”

He heard the faint sound of Clara’s answer. She was probably saying, he decided, that she didn’t want to come in the house even if no one was there. She never wanted to come in the house again as long as she lived. He loved it when he knew exactly what people were saying.

He drew in a breath of anticipation and licked his lips. It was Deanie who interested him at the moment.

She didn’t disappoint him. “Come on,” she said. Her voice was rising with excitement. “Listen, Clara, this will give us a chance to snoop in their suitcases!”

“Oh, all right.”

He heard her start up the stairs and clomp across the porch.

“You take his,” Deanie said. “I’ll take hers.”

“All right.”

Clara came through the living room door first. “Deanieeee,” she bawled as she caught sight of John D on the sofa.

“What is it now?”

Deanie came in, pulling at her bathing suit. She paused as she saw John D reading his magazine. He held the magazine up slightly so that they could not see that he had been looking at an advertisement for lingerie.

Deanie clapped one hand over her mouth. John D took her gesture as one of horror, the gesture of a person who has said something so terrible, that even now, too late, she is trying to seal her mouth shut.

He smiled to himself. If he had planned it, he couldn’t have made it more perfect. He watched her, careful to keep his pleasure in her distress hidden.

Then abruptly his pleasure began to fade. Deanie’s shoulders were shaking. Her eyes met his and squeezed shut with laughter.

John D straightened on the sofa. A small frown pulled his eyebrows together.

With her hand over her mouth Deanie ran from the room. She ran like someone who was going to be sick, but instead of going into the bathroom, she went into her bedroom and flopped across the bed Then the sounds of her helpless laughter, smothered in the covers, came to him.

John D let his magazine drop down into his lap. He looked at Clara.

Clara looked back. For a moment it was as if they were playing a game to see who would blink first. Then Clara turned and left the room.

“What’s so funny?” she asked her sister.

In the bedroom Deanie tried to speak, but she was laughing too hard. She buried her face in the spread. The bed rattled with her laughter.

“What is so funny?” Clara demanded. She herself was closer to tears than laughter. She wanted to shake her sister. Deanie did this all the time—laughed so long over some secret hilarity that Clara got red in the face waiting to hear it. Then, Clara thought, her face growing redder, then it turned out to be nothing—someone had mayonnaise on their chin or toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

“What is so funny?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“He—” Deanie was trying to speak now. “He—he—he—”

Her words had the sound of more laughter, but in the living room John D had the uncomfortable feeling she was beginning a sentence about him.

“He what?” Clara asked angrily.

Deanie finally got it out. “He—he—was reading Modern Bride magazine!”

Then she gave herself up to her laughter, no longer trying to smother it. She flipped over on her back, laughed up at the ceiling, whooped.

John D looked down at the magazine, at the bride on the cover. Modern Bride magazine. Six Steps to Becoming a More Beautiful Bride. Trousseau Tips. He felt a flush redden his cheeks. He had not even known what he was reading.

“There is nothing funny about that,” John D commented.

The line of displeasure between his eyes deepened. His dark eyebrows touched. He let the magazine drop onto the floor, then kicked it under the sofa.

For the first time since he had arrived at the beach house, John D had spoken a sentence that did not contain exactly five words, and he was too angry to care. His pale eyes burned.

In the bedroom Clara’s clear voice echoed John D’s thoughts. “I really don’t see anything funny about him reading a bride magazine.”

“I do,” Deanie said. Her laughter subsided. She wiped her eyes. “I mean, here he was, acting so superior—like this big intellectual like he was Einstein and we were Heckle and Jeckle—and then the minute we’re out of the house, he’s poring over a bride magazine.” Her laughter bubbled again.

“He’ll hear you,” Clara warned.

“Who cares? At least I got one good laugh out of the two weeks.”

Deanie lay still for a moment, worn out from all her laughter, as limp as a child who had been tickled too much. Then she pulled herself up, went into the bathroom, and began to run water in the basin.

She inspected her face in the mirror, right side, left side. Over her shoulder she said, “Don’t let me go out in the sun again without my tanning butter.”

Clara sat down on the bed. She began rubbing her feet against each other to get the sand off. She heard John D mutter “Idiots” in the living room.

She glanced down at the dusting of sand on the floor beneath her feet. “This is going to be a miserable vacation,” she said.

Deanie leaned out the bathroom door and grinned. “I don’t know. I’m beginning to enjoy it.”