No one took her too seriously, as it was hard to findmuch "boy" in the 5'4 shapely diva who was rarely seen in anything otherthan a mid-length dress a...d that usually in some shade of pink.Janet said being a tomboy was who she needed to be then and in time shefound her own definition of feminity and womanhood. She was confidentthat Steffi would do the same, and that Shelly needed to support herdecision to be herself, even if that self was a jean and ball capwearing second baseman.Shelly and her. I tensed up, but nothing. I expelled the breath I hadn't even realized I had been holding, and turned away from the window to head back to my computer to kill some time. I had taken 2 steps when my body felt like it was on fire from the inside. It was intense, like my blood had become lava, and I gasped in pain, doubling over. I screamed in my thoughts, "Nononononono," but the burning remained. I thought I was going to die; I couldn't fathom how I could possibly survive whatever the hell was. Anyway, the speakeasies closed early enough that the Birdmen had plenty of time to do a thorough job of trashing them before employees showed up the next day. They made a point of leaving the bowling alleys undamaged, so there was never any doubt about their real target. Sometimes, the fire was bad enough that the fire department made a mess, but it was not the Birdmen's doing.Their target for this night was typical in its arrangement. The bowling alley was on the ground floor, the speakeasy. I woke to a sobbing, nearly hysterical daughter/wife clinging to me and declaring, “He’s dead, he’s dead, and there’s blood all over.”I hugged her close and asked, “Who’s dead? Where?”She tugged me off the cot while Rachel rubbed sleep from her eyes and Becky slept on. “On the floor, by the boys’ room, the pilot.”I threw pants on over my skivvies, and dressed only in my tee and pants, I let her lead me barefoot down the hall to the boys’ room. There he was at the entrance, his head in a large.