"Alexa?"
There was no answer. Hanako had fallen asleep, but only for fifteen more minutes, nothing to be alarmed about. And she knew perfectly well that her daughter always got her breakfast and her things fixed before she went to school. She claimed her self-sufficiency - and she increased it in recent weeks, Hanako noted - and that was no cause for concern to her mother. But now, she had not heard him running down the stairs, nor the scandal of the hairdryer on nor her plea in the bathroom, in front of the mirror.
A silence that did not quite please Mrs. Bell and the beginning of her anger would increase. She didn't know it, but she sensed it very, very within her motherly common sense.
The hallway to her daughter's room was just as silent. She took the door handle and as soon as she
