Now, into bed and don’t let me find out you arepleading for anything nasty in the morning when you go for your shower withyour friends here . . ...” Beth played dumb, looked innocent. “Don’t pretend, young lady. I’ve had a complaint from one of yourclassmates that you whispered during the night about wanting to be, ahem,fingerfucked in the shower. Is that true?” Beth paled, then blushed, and shook her head. “Oh, no ma’am. No. Iwouldn’t do. The eight women on the jury could certainly relate well to a mother trying to protect her child.Tuesday morning, bright and early, Tom was called to the witness stand and sworn in.When he'd been seated the prosecutor laid it out for the jury to understand whom this man was, and how he was involved."Mr. Tompkins. You seem to have quite a distinguished record of service to our country," he started with. "Two silver stars, with citations for Valor, numerous Gallantry citations, numerous. I will take samples of Balil’s blood, urine, and a few other sources, place them in the medium, and let the bacteria grow. This device here is a microscope; it uses glass lenses to magnify whatever you’re looking at. I’ll be using it to study the bacterial cultures.What I need is for the five of you to provide similar samples. Your ages, physiques, and diets are all the same as Balil’s. The difference is that I can discount whatever common bacteria you and Balil share and focus on the uncommon. I let out a small sigh of relief when I saw that it had been sitting in the small island of clear, clean space which my family had thoughtfully left around me.Dad helped himself to another thick slice of bread and smeared a thin layer of butter onto it. Then he pointed at my pad with his knife.“Danielle and Faith, am I right? The two girls with Pearl at the football game last night?”I nodded. I was still trying to adjust to my family suddenly being there. It was like I’d been sitting in a dark.