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they could work on him-in their odd, undoing way of working. And the stranger
and I exchanged wavery smiles of congratulations when Mr. Kroginold finally
opened his eyes.
So that was it. After it was all over, I got the deep, breath-drawing feeling
I get when I have finished a most engrossing book, and a sort of
last-page-flipping-feeling, wistfully wishing there were more-just a little
more!
Oh, the loose ends? I guess there were a few. They tied themselves quite
casually and briskly in the next few days.
It was only a matter of moments after Mr. Kroginold had sat up and smiled a
craggy smile of satisfaction at the packet he had brought back with him that
Ron said, "Convenient." And we spiraled down-or so it felt to me to the Earth
beneath while Jemmy, fingers to our stranger's wrist, communicated to him in
such a way that the stranger's eyes got very large and astonished and he
looked at me-at me! -questioningly. I nodded. Well, what else could I do? He
was asking something, and, so far, every question around these People seemed
to have a positive answer! So it was that we delivered him, not to the FBI in
Washington, but to his own doorstep at a launching base somewhere deep in his
own country. We waited, hovering under our unlight and well flowed, until the
door swung open and gulped him in, instrument packet, my blanket, and all.
Imagination boggles at the reception there must have been for him! They surely
knew the capsule had been destroyed in orbit. And to have him walk in-!
And Mr. Kroginold struggled for a couple of days with "Virus X" without
benefit of the company doctor, then went back to work.
A couple of weeks later they moved away to another lab, half across the
country, where Mr. Kroginold could go on pursuing whatever it is he is
pursuing.
And a couple of days before they left, I quite unexpectedly gave Vincent a
going-away gift.
That morning Vincent firmed his lips, his cheeks coloring, and shook his head.
"I can't read it," he said, and began to close the book.
"That I don't believe," I said firmly, my flare of exasperation igniting into
sudden inspiration. Vincent looked at me, startled. He was so used to my
acceptance of his reading block that he was shaken as I .
"But I can't," he said patiently.
"Why not?" I asked bluntly.
"I have a block," he said as flatly.
"What triggers it?" I probed.
"Why-why Mother says anything that suggests unhappy compulsion-"
"How do you know this story has any such thing in it?" asked. "All it says in
the title is a name-Stickeen."
"But I know," he said miserably, his head bent as he flicked the pages of the
story with his thumb.
"I'll tell you how you know," I said. "You know because you've read the story
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already."
"But I haven't!" Vincent's face puckered. "You only brought this book
today!"
"That's true," I said. "And you turned the pages to see how long the story
was. Only then did you decide yon wouldn't read it-again!"
"I don't understand-" Wonder was stirring in his eyes.
"Vincent," I said, "you read this whole story in the time it took you to turn
the pages. You gulped it page by page and that's how you know there's unhappy
compulsion in it. So, you refuse to read it-again."
"Do-do you really think so?" asked Vincent in a hopeful half whisper. "Oh,
Teacher, can I really read after all? I've been so ashamed! One of the People,
and not able to read!"
"Let's check," I said, excited, too. "Give me the book. I'll ask you
questions-" And I did. And he answered every single one of them!
"I can read!" He snatched the book from me and hugged it to him with both
arms. "Hey! Gene! I can read!"
"Big deal!" said Gene, glancing up from his labor on the butcher paper spread
on the floor. He was executing a fanciful rendition, in tempera, of the
Indians greeting Columbus in a chartreuse, magenta and shriek-pink jungle. "I
learned to read in the first grade. Which way do a crocodile's knees bend?"
"All you have to remember," I said to a slightly dashed Vincent, "is to slow
down a bit and be a little less empathetic." I was as pleased as he was. "And
to think of the time I wasted for both of us, making you sound out your words-
"But I need it," he said. "I still can't spell for sour apples!"
Vincent gave me a going-away present the Friday night that the Kroginolds came
to say goodbye. We were sitting in the twilight on the school porch. Vincent,
shaken by having to leave Rinconcillo and Gene, and still thrilling to knowing
he could read, gave me one of his treasures. It was a small rock, an odd
crystalline formation that contrived at the same time to be betryoidal. In the
curve of my palm it even had a strange feeling of resilience, though there was
no yielding in it when I pressed my thumb to it.
"Daddy brought it to me from the moon," he told me, and deftly fielded it as
my astonishment let it fall. "I'll probably get another one, someday," he said
as he gave it back to me. "But even if I don't, I want you to have it."
Mr. and Mrs. Kroginold and I talked quietly for a while with no reference to
parting. I shook them a little with, "Why do you suppose that stranger could
send his thoughts to Vincent? I mean, he doesn't pick up distress from
everyone, very apparently. Do you suppose that man might be from People like
you? Are there People like you in that part of the world?"
They looked at each other, startled. "We really don't know!" said Mr.
Kroginold. "Many of our People were unaccounted for when we arrived on Earth,
but we just assumed that all of them were dead except for the group around
here-"
"I wonder if it ever occurred to Jemmy," said Mrs. Kroginold thoughtfully.
After they left, disappearing into the shadows of the hillside toward MEL, I
sat for a while longer, turning the moon-pebble in my hands. What an odd
episode! In a month or so it would probably seem like a distant dream; melting
into my teaching years along with all the other things past. But it still
didn't seem quite finished to me" Meeting people like the Kroginolds and the
others, makes an indelible impression on a person. Look what it did for that
stranger-
What about that stranger? How was he explaining? Were they giving him a hard
time? Then I gulped. I had just remembered. My name and address were on a tape
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