As they stepped away from the stairs, the air became unbearably hot and thick.

Why did she feel so strange? Was it just because they were invading their father's domain? Doing something he had told them not to do?

Margaret gasped. The sudden change in temperature was suffocating.

"Yuck! It's so hot in here!"

"It's so moist," Diane said. "Good for your hair and skin."

She held back, gazing in both directions. The basement was divided into two large, rectangular rooms. To the left, an unfinished rec room stood in darkness. She could barely make out the outlines of the Ping-Pong table in the center of the room.

"We studied the rain forest in school," Casey said. "Maybe Dad's building a rain forest."

"Maybe," Margaret said uncertainly.

The workroom to the right was brightly lit, so bright they had to blink and wait for their eyes to adjust. Beams of white light poured down from large halogen lamps on tracks in the ceiling.

"Wow! Look!" Casey cried, his eyes wide as he stepped excitedly toward the light.

Reaching up toward the lights were shiny, tall plants, dozens of them, thick-stalked and broad-leafed, planted close together in an enormous, low trough of dark soil.

"It's like a swamp or something," Diane said. "Did your father really grow these things in just five or six weeks?"

"It's like a jungle!" Margaret exclaimed, following Casey into the white glare.

"Ooh. Feel this one," Diane said.

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure," Margaret replied, staring at the enormous red tomatoes on a slender, yellow stalk.

Margaret glanced over to find her friend rubbing her hand over a large, flat leaf the shape of a teardrop. "Diane -- we shouldn't touch --"

The plants, in fact, resembled jungle plants -- leafy vines and tall, treelike plants with long, slender tendrils, fragile-looking ferns, plants with gnarled, cream-colored roots poking up like bony knees from the soil.

"I know, I know," Diane said, not letting go of the leaf. "But just rub your hand on it."

Margaret reluctantly obeyed. "It doesn't feel like a leaf," she said as Diane moved over to examine a large fern. "It's so smooth. Like glass."

"It's too hot down here," Casey complained. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head and dropped it onto the floor.

The three of them stood under the bright, white lights, examining the plants for several minutes, touching the thick stalks, running their hands over the smooth, warm leaves, surprised by the enormous size of the fruits some of the plants had produced.

He stuck out his tongue at her. Then his pale blue eyes grew wide and he seemed to freeze in surprise. "Hey!"

Diane laughed.

"This one --" He pointed to a tall, treelike plant. "It's breathing!"

"What a bod!" Diane teased him.

"What's your problem?" Diane asked, seeing the amazed expressions on Casey's and Margaret's faces.

But Margaret heard it, too. She grabbed Casey's bare shoulder and listened. Yes. She could hear breathing sounds, and they seemed to be coming from the tall, leafy tree.

"Casey -- what's the matter?" Margaret asked, hurrying over to him.

"Casey's right," Margaret said softly, listening to the steady, rhythmic sound. "You can hear it breathing."

"Don't touch it," Margaret warned, giving the breathing plant one final glance, then joining the others.

"It -- stopped," Margaret said.

"What could that be?" Diane asked, hurrying over to Casey.

"No. Really," Margaret protested.

Diane rolled her eyes. "Maybe it has a cold. Maybe its vine is stuffed up." She laughed at her own joke, but her two companions didn't join in. "I don't hear it." She moved closer.

But Casey reached out to the glass door on the front of the booth. "I just want to see if this opens," he said.

"Stop it, you two," Diane scolded. "You're not going to scare me."

Silence.

Margaret's eyes followed the wires to a similar glass booth a few feet away. Some kind of electrical generator stood between the two booths and appeared to be connected to both of them.

All three of them listened.

"Hey -- look at this!" Casey had already moved on to something else. He was standing in front of a tall glass case that stood on the other side of the plants. It looked a little like a phone booth, with a shelf inside about shoulder-high, and dozens of wires attached to the back and sides.

He grabbed the glass -- and his eyes went wide with shock.

His entire body began to shake and vibrate. His head jerked wildly from side to side. His eyes rolled up in his head.

"Oh, help!" he managed to cry, his body vibrating and shaking harder and faster. "Help me! I -- can't stop!"