Within the perfectly spherical globe, shining golden snow was falling and gilding the comically formal penguins. Dora watched their plastic faces intently. Outside, the weather was less fine and golden. Icy sleet whipped through the air and stung any exposed hands and faces. The door swung wide to admit a blast of the arctic, and a too-thin, too-pale teenager.

"Hey Adorable," he greeted her, shrugging off his wet coat. "Holding down the fort?"

She looked at a spot somewhere to the left of his shoulder and asked, "Why do you ask all the wrong questions? You don't ask what you want to know, ever!"

David grimaced. "Someday, you'll learn when not to interrogate people. God knows you're perceptive enough."

"You don't say what you really mean either. When you said 'perceptive enough,' you meant too perceptive. I See too much."

"No, Adorable. You figure out too much. You're only six, but you act like you're sixty." He sighed, and sat cross-legged on the wooden floor so that their faces were level and their eyes could meet. "Listen. I try to level with you most of the time, but if I occasionally don't, assume I have good reason, and let it slide, okay?"

"When you said 'are you holding down the fort,' didn't you really mean, 'is she dead yet?'" Dora asked.

"Please, don't bother with subtlety," he said sardonically, flinching at her bald statement.

"Well, she is," Dora said.

"Did you See how?"

"Heart problems."

He nodded. "You're packed?"

"Of course. You are too."

"Good girl. Okay." He took a breath, and with a gesture toward the snow globe, said "Put that down now, and let's get going."

She left the snow globe at the edge of the window seat where she had been watching for him. David held open the door and picked up the pair of suitcases she had stacked there.

Halfway to the door, she froze for a moment, and glanced briefly back at the toy penguins in their miniature transparent universe.

"Oh well, I suppose it doesn't really matter all that much at this point," she said, more to herself than to her brother.

She snatched up her shoulder bag and knapsack and headed out into the cold. David followed a moment later, letting the door fall shut with a mighty crash.

Inside, the snow globe slipped from the window seat and shattered on the floor, the imperturbable penguins scattering across the wood on their pieces of glass and mirror, suspended calmly on paper-shallow lakes.