The Age Altertron (7 page)

T
hat afternoon, Rodney and Wayne and Becky and Grover,
inspired by Becky’s suggestion, all agreed to set up their business, which they
named
Calamity Solutions,
Wayne built a receptionist’s desk for Becky
out of a large cardboard box. He also found a nursery room chair that she could
sit in. Wayne and Grover had just started to put together another desk for use
when there were interviews to be conducted, when the front door opened and into
the parlor walked a man in his thirties accompanied by a teenage girl. The man
was familiar to the foursome but the teenage girl was not.

“Hello, children,” said the man, shaking hands with each of the employees of
Calamity Solutions, Inc. “Do you know me? Do I need to tell you who I am?”

“You’re Mayor Stovall,” said Rodney, who had been busy writing interview questions
like “What is your level of urgency on a scale of one to forty-five?”

“If you are looking for your son Jackie, Mr. Mayor, we don’t know where he
is.”
“Well, to be honest, I
have
been looking for him, ever since the first
hours of this latest change to our town. But what else is new? My son is like
a dusty sun beam that cannot be swept beneath the rug. And now I hear that he
is in trouble again. But there is something more important that I have come
to talk about. May we see the Professor?”
“But I don’t know who your companion is,” said Rodney, indicating the teenage
girl with a nod of his head.
The girl grinned and then winked. “You don’t know?”
Rodney shook his head. Becky and Grover shook their heads. Wayne said, “But
I feel like I’ve heard that voice before.”
“What if I were to say: ‘And now Wayne McCall will lead us all in the Pledge
of Allegiance.’?”
Wayne had been trying to cut out a place for legs in the cardboard box desk,
using a pair of blunt children’s scissors. He was having trouble holding the
scissors the way they should be held, but he was determined not to give up.
Now the scissors dropped from his hands. His jaw dropped too. “Is that
you
,
Miss Lyttle?”
“It
is
me! Look at me! I look just the way I did when I was sixteen.
Sweet sixteen. And my eyesight is so good I don’t have to wear my glasses anymore.
Isn’t it wonderful, children? Do you know what I did yesterday? I helped two
of the other teachers from our school lead a milk cow all the way up to the
school roof. It was hilarious!”
Wayne didn’t know what to say to this. Neither did his companions.
The Mayor’s face now took on a serious, all-business look. “We have a petition
we would like to present to Professor Johnson, if you would so kind as to—”
“A petition?” interrupted Rodney.
“Yes,” said Miss Lyttle.
“Well, I will have to interview you first. No one sees the Professor until an
interview is given. Now, as you can see, I don’t have an interview desk yet,
so if you will follow me over to the Professor’s sofa, we will proceed.”
“He is very good at this,” whispered Becky to Wayne.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Wayne, rolling his eyes.
“Now,” said Rodney, struggling to pull himself up onto the sofa.
“Would you like me to give you a boost?” asked the Mayor.
“No. That will not be necessary.” Rodney continued to try very hard to pull
himself up, but his little arms were too weak. He finally decided to conduct
his interview from the floor.
“Now, what is the nature of your petition, Mr. Mayor?”
“We’d like the Professor to cease work on the machine—what is it called?”
“The Age Altertron.”
“Yes, yes. This Age Altertron he is building. We would like for him to stop.”
“Why would you want to do that?” said Rodney.
“Because there are some people who—how shall I put this?— who are receiving
some benefit from the way things now stand. Let us take Miss Lyttle, for instance.
She likes being sixteen again. She has more energy and more—more—”
“
Verve
,” said Miss Lyttle, trying to be helpful. “I have much more verve
now. Also, my vision is 20/20 again!”
“Thank you, Miss Lyttle. Now let us take myself, for instance. About the time
I turned forty I began to develop a little arthritis in my hands and a little
rheumatism in my back. It has only gotten worse with age. With my body clock
being reversed, both of my ailments have vanished. So, you see that for some
of us, there is great benefit to what has happened to this town. Perhaps it
would not be fair to
those
people to restore things to the way they were
before.”
“Tell him the other reason, Mayor,” said Miss Lyttle, who was still smiling.
She was, no doubt, still thinking about how hilarious it was to take a milk
cow up to a roof.
“Yes, tell Rodney—and
me—
the other reason,” said the Professor, who had
just stepped quietly into the parlor.
“Hello, Professor,” said Mayor Stovall, standing up and extending his hand to
shake. “I’m so glad you decided to take a break from your work.” Professor Johnson
took the Mayor’s outstretched hand and shook it formally and without pleasure.
“And you know Miss Lyttle, the children’s teacher, I believe.”
“Hello,” said Miss Lyttle, blushing a little.
“So, you have given the first reason why you want me to stop my work on the
Altertron. Now give me the second,” said the Professor.
The Mayor took a deep breath. “Well, we have a theory—see, we non-Professor
types have theories too.”
“Go on.”
“And our theory is this: whatever unknown party is responsible for all the things
that happen to this town, whether it’s for good or bad—”
“Mostly bad, Mayor. But go on.”
“Well, we theorize that perhaps they are merely waiting to deliver a change
to this town that we will agree to. And if we agree to that change, for example,
this turning back all of our body clocks by eleven-and-a half years—”
“Eleven years, eight months, one week, four days, and thirteen hours to be more
precise. However, I cannot be exact to the very minute and second without further
calculation.”
‘Yes, yes,” said the Mayor, taking out a handkerchief to blot his perspiring
forehead and neck. “Well, our thinking is that the— um—unknown party, whatever
it is—might be happy that we’ve found a change we like. And if that is the case,
why, they might just go and leave us alone. It is worth a try, don’t you think?
Especially since the other way—the constant building of new contraptions to
undo new challenges—well,
that
doesn’t seem to be working all that well,
does it? Just think, Russell: no more peach town or lemon town or bubbly town,
or talking in numbers or having flippers for hands. No more of any of those
things. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to finally be a normal, average American town
again? And perhaps they will even remove the force field and then I’ll be able
to take my family to Hawaii for a vacation. And who knows? Maybe Jackie will
become a Hawaiian and decide not to come back home!”
The Mayor laughed at his own joke, but no one joined him.
“And what happens to all of the limbo children?” asked the Professor. “Will
they
ever get to go to Hawaii, or will they have to live the remainder of
their days in a cloud?”
Miss Lyttle raised her hand as if she were one of her more enthusiastic pupils.
“I would like to say something. I would like to suggest that your time might
be better spent, Professor, using your scientific abilities to find the missing
children, rather than working on this silly machine.”
“It isn’t silly!” exclaimed Becky.
“Not only is it not silly, it’s probably the best way we have to bring our friend
Petey and all the other missing children back to Pitcherville,” added Rodney.
“And do you feel that way too, Professor?” asked Mayor Stovall.
Professor Johnson nodded.
“Then I will have no choice but to put it to a town vote. And since the voting
age in Pitcherville is twenty-one, I have no doubt that we will win, because
it is the older citizens of this town who have the most to gain by leaving things
the way they currently are.”
“And when do you intend to have your vote, Mr. Mayor?”
‘Well, today is Tuesday and we must properly notify everyone and get the ballots
printed. I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to hold this vote by Thursday.”
“So that gives me two days to finish my machine.”
“You would do best to suspend your efforts now, Professor,” said the Mayor matter-of-factly,
“and go and get some rest. Who knows how long it will take you to finish your
invention, if ever?”
“I will nonetheless try,” said the Professor gloomily. “I owe it to the lost
children to at least do that much. Good day to you both.” Grover tried to open
the door for the Mayor and for Miss Lyttle but he couldn’t reach the knob. So
he stood beside the door with his arm in the air as if he were giving them permission
to depart.
As Miss Lyttle passed, she said, “I hope in eleven or twelve years after we
have grown back to our former ages, I’ll see you all in my class again.”
“And
I
hope it’s even sooner than that. Like maybe
Friday
!” shouted
Wayne, who then added under his breath, “you cow hater.”
Then they were gone. Professor Johnson dropped into a chair and began to massage
his temples. “I’m so tired,” he said in a soft, sad voice.
“I wish there was some way we could help you,” said Rodney.
“You’ve all been most helpful by keeping people from interrupting my work. But
I had to come out here to see what was important enough to bring the Mayor to
my home. I’m sorry now that I ever left my laboratory. However, it is good to
know where things stand.”
“You are doing the right thing,” said Becky. She toddled over to the Professor’s
chair so that she could pat his hand to soothe him. Professor Johnson’s hand
was long and bony just like Abraham Lincoln’s. The Professor gave her a smile,
then patted her tiny hand in return. He gave his own knees a strong slap and
rose with a groan from the chair. “There is much work to do.”
Without saying another word, the weary Professor shuffled slowly and heavily
back to his lab.

ate the next night, Aunt Mildred came into the boys’
bedroom. A ringing telephone had awakened them, but in their groggy state they
believed they had dreamed the sound. Just as they began to drift back off to
sleep, their aunt spoke.

“Boys, it’s Professor Johnson on the line. He wishes to speak to you. I will
hold the phone up so you can both hear him.”
“Hello, Rodney. Hello, Wayne.” A dark, melancholy tone infused the Professor’s
voice. “I’m afraid that I have some sad news to report.”
“Yes, what is it?” asked Wayne, speaking for both of the boys.
“I won’t be able to finish the machine before the vote is taken tomorrow. I
have already heard how the vote is leaning and it looks quite bad.”
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” said Aunt Mildred, who was listening in.
“I have always said that my machines should not be engaged without proper and
thorough testing.”
“That’s right,” said Rodney.
“Yet I haven’t enough time left to test this one in order to guarantee its success.
Therefore, I must make a fateful decision: do I go ahead and flip the switch
tonight and cross my fingers and hope that something good will come of it, or
do I throw in the towel and walk away?”
“What is the
bad
that might come from it?” asked Rodney.
“Who knows? Perhaps the machine will just sit there and do nothing. Or perhaps
something will happen that we can’t predict. That is the risk. Now here is the
question: is it worth the risk—the chance for us to bring Petey and the other
children back? To restore this town to the way it was?”
“You are asking
us
?” said Wayne.
“Yes. I am seeking the opinion of my worthy and trusted apprentices in the field
of cataclysmic science. Should I flip the switch and pray for a positive outcome?”
Rodney and Wayne considered the question while their aunt did a little praying
herself, right then and there.
to us. Just you watch. And you won’t
be able to help us. And Wayne and I are still too young to do anything on our
own. So there is the other reason why you should flip the switch tonight. Because
if you don’t, then things could get much, much worse.”
“And what do
you
have to say, Wayne?”
“Ditto to everything that Rodney just said.”
“You have nothing more to add?”
“Just one more thing, Professor. I would like to say ‘Good luck, Professor Johnson.’”
“Thank you, Wayne.”

T
hat night Wayne dreamed he was in the jungle and had
come upon a massive boa constrictor. The snake was friendly at first and did
not bite him, but Wayne remembered from a science report he once wrote about
the world’s largest snakes that boas do not generally bite. They
constrict
. After a while
the boa grew tired of being friendly and decided to slither up to Wayne and
do some constricting. The enormous snake twined itself around Wayne’s arms and
chest and thighs. It tightened its vise-like hold upon him, and in no time at
all Wayne couldn’t breathe. He’s going to suffocate me! he thought in his dream,
as he thrashed back and forth in bed.

At the same time that Wayne was being squeezed by one of the largest snakes
in the world, his brother Rodney was having a nightmare of his own. He was also
being squeezed. But it wasn’t a snake that was doing the squeezing. In fact,
Rodney couldn’t see the agent of his trouble. Invisible hands were pulling invisible
sashes to make his clothes tighter and tighter. Rodney wondered, is this a madman’s
straitjacket I’m wearing?

Usually, with nightmares that become
too
frightening, the brain will
end the story by waking the dreamer up. Now both boys woke, almost in the same
instant. They realized that the boa constrictor and the tight straitjacket-like
clothing had been figments of their dreams. But if this were so, why didn’t
the squeezing they were feeling go away?

The answer was simple. Rodney and Wayne looked down to see that their toddler’s
pajamas, which had a pattern of cowboys and cowgirls on them, were straining
with great difficulty to contain their bodies, which were suddenly much too
big for them. Rips appeared in the chest and arms, and big tears ripped through
fabric in the legs of the pajamas. It was as if both boys had grown up so fast
inside their miniature P.J.’s that there wasn’t time even to take them off!

Wayne switched on the lamp that sat on a little table between the two beds.
His eyes grew big. “Rodney, look at us! We aren’t babies anymore!” He ripped
the left-over pajama-top fabric so that he could breathe better. Then he looked
down as his chest.

Rodney tore apart his own pajama top and looked down to see that he had hair
upon his chest as well. “And my hair is gray,” Rodney noted.

“So is mine,” said Wayne. “Bring your face to the light, Rodney, so I can see
it better.”
Rodney leaned into the dim light of the lamp, which had leather fringe around
the bottom to make it look like a cowboy lamp. “Your face, Rodney—it’s kind
of old-looking.”
Both of the boys’ heads looked gaunt and narrow in the temples, and furrowed
in the forehead. The cheeks and jowls were wider and puffier, as cheeks and
jowls often become with age
“How old?”
“Well, look at mine. How old do you think
I
look?”
“About the Professor’s age, I guess. Probably a little older.”
“How old is the Professor?”
“Well, Aunt Mildred baked him a cake for his birthday in February and she wouldn’t
put candles on it because she said it might burn the house down.”
“That doesn’t tell us how old he is, Rodney. Will you wake up and think?”
Rodney chewed on his lip for a moment. “I know that his birthday is February
29. It’s the leap year day that only happens every four years. And this year—1956—is
a leap year, which means that the Professor has to be an age that is divisible
by four. And so I believe he is either sixty or sixty-four or sixty-eight. I
would say sixty-four.”
“Do you think we’re in our sixties too?” Wayne felt the top of his head. “Hey,
Rodney, I still have some hair.”
“But it’s pretty gray.”
The boys grew silent, each pondering their new predicament. Then Rodney said,
“I think the Professor has added too many years to everyone’s ages. Instead
of adding eleven years and eight months to put us back to where we were, he
added over sixty years.”
“Why would the Professor do that?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose, Wayne. Remember that he said he wasn’t certain
what might happen when he turned the machine on.”
“What does that mean, Rodney, for the town?”
Rodney thought about this for a moment. “Well, I would guess that if all those
years have been added to
our
true ages, then all those years have also
been added to
everybody’s
ages. That means we now live in a town with
a whole lot of really old people.”
“You mean like the Professor? Like Aunt Mildred?”
Rodney nodded.
“How old do you think Aunt Mildred is now?”
“115. Maybe 120.”
“Gee, that’s pretty old, Rodney. I hope she isn’t dead.”
“Me too. Let’s go find out.”
The two boys who now had the voices and bodies of men in their sixties, got
out of bed and, without stopping to find some clothes, raced to their great
aunt’s bedroom. The door was shut. They knocked. They waited.
Then Wayne said to the door, “Aunt Mildred? Aunt Mildred, are you still alive?”
“Don’t ask her if she’s still alive,” said Rodney. “Don’t ask people questions
that can only be answered one way!”
“But that’s the way I want her to answer it. I want her to say ‘yes.’”
“Well, she isn’t saying anything. And she didn’t say anything when we knocked,
either. We’d better go in and check on her.”
Wayne opened the door, and the boys stepped inside. “Turn on that reading lamp,”
said Wayne, pointing to the standing lamp that Aunt Mildred used to read her
romance novels and her issues of
Ladies’ Home Journal
in her comfy arm
chair. Rodney switched on the lamp. It cast a dim light around the room. But
it was enough light for Rodney and Wayne to see their great aunt lying in her
bed.
“Get a little mirror,” said Wayne. “We should hold a mirror up to her mouth,
like they do in the movies, to see if she’s still breathing.”
“I have a better idea,” suggested Rodney. “I’ll take her pulse.” Rodney reached
under the blanket and gently pulled out Aunt Mildred’s arm. It was very thin
and scored with veins that ran up and down it. The skin was loose and blotched
with dark age-spots. Rodney took the wrist between his fingers and felt for
a pulse.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No—wait. There’s a beat. Okay, where is the next one? There’s another one.
Her heart rate sure is slow.”
“Probably because she’s the oldest person in the world, Rodney! But this is
good. She isn’t dead.”
Just then, Aunt Mildred opened her eyes. Calmly, she looked at the boys and
said in a small and feeble voice, “Hello, Rodney. Hello, Wayne. Is it morning
yet?”
“No, Aunt Mildred,” said Wayne. He looked at the Big Ben alarm clock that sat
next to the bed. “It’s just a little past midnight.”
“What’s wrong? Why are you two out of bed and why do you both look like middle-aged
men?”
“Because we
are
middle-aged men, Aunt Mildred,” said Wayne. “Rodney thinks
that we must be in our sixties. Say, is that middleaged or old?”
“It depends on whom you ask, dear,” said Aunt Mildred. She spoke in a breathy,
slightly labored voice. The boys leaned in to hear her better. “If you are thirteen,
then someone who is in his sixties could be considered quite old. But if you
are as old as I feel right now, sixty-something could be considered quite young.”
“Well, you probably feel old, Aunt Mildred, because you’re 115, maybe even older,”
said Wayne bluntly.
”Oh.”
“Although that isn’t your real age,” added Rodney.
“I know that, dear. My mind is just as sharp as it’s always been. It’s my body
that feels worn out. Oh my word! I just thought of something.”
“What is it, Aunt Mildred?”
“My friend Mrs. Craddock at the Shady Rest Nursing Home— I knit socks for her
and take her chocolate pudding—she must now be as old as one of those big ancient
tortoises at the zoo. Maybe older!
Rodney and Wayne nodded, not knowing how to respond. Wayne thought how strange
it was that his great aunt should be talking about reptiles when he had just
been dreaming of them. Sometimes Wayne’s mind wandered to things that were slightly
off the subject at hand.
“Well, let me rest, boys, and then in the morning, you will have to serve me
breakfast in bed, because I don’t think I have enough strength to go down to
the kitchen. I would like something easily digestible. And don’t forget the
cinnamon.” Aunt Mildred closed her eyes.
“I’m going to the Professor’s house,” said Wayne.
“Right now?” said Rodney.
“I have to find out if he’s all right.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” interjected Aunt Mildred drowsily. “If he’s like me he
probably just wants to sleep.”
“But I don’t think we should wait until tomorrow, Aunt Mildred.”
Aunt Mildred didn’t respond. She had fallen back to sleep.
“I suppose you’re right about checking on the Professor,” whispered Rodney to
his brother as he closed the door behind him. “We’ll only toss and turn and
worry the rest of the night. But we should first try to reach him on the phone.”
The boys used the telephone in their father’s bedroom, happy to call someone
without assistance. Wayne let the phone ring a dozen times but the Professor
didn’t pick up.
“Now I’m
really
worried,” he said.
“Let’s go over there,” said Rodney.
The two boys walked to their father’s closet and began looking for shirts and
pants and shoes that they could wear, since all the clothes in their own closet
were sized for thirteen-year-old boys. “I think we are now the same size as
Dad,” said Wayne, just as Rodney pulled out his father’s favorite Hawaiian shirt.
It was yellow and had pineapples on it.
“Hey, do you remember this shirt?” asked Rodney, holding the shirt up to show
his brother.
Wayne smiled. “I sure do. Dibs!”
“You can’t call dibs on something that’s already in the custody of another person.”
“That shirt isn’t in your custody, Rodney. It’s still on the hanger.”
“And I’m holding the hanger, goofball.”
“So, do you want to wear Dad’s Hawaiian shirt, Rodney?”
“Uh huh.”
“But I want to wear it too…and it’s still on the hanger…and I said dibs.”
“You’re such a goofball, Wayne. My hand touched it first. That’s what counts.”
“Can we rock-scissor-paper for it?”
“No.”
“So, go ahead and put it on, if you want to wear it so bad.” “Okay.”
“Go ahead.”
“Okay.”
“Go right ahead.”
“No, I changed my mind.
You
go right ahead. Here.” “No, I don’t want
to wear it.
You
wear it.”
“No…I don’t think so.”
The boys grew silent. They were both thinking about their father, about how
much he liked this particular shirt, which was the shirt he often wore when
he was out trimming the hedge or washing his pride and joy: his two-toned blue
and white 1955 Ford Fairlane. (This was a special memory of Wayne’s; he loved
cars just as much as his father did, and was additionally crushed to learn that
the Fairlane had disappeared right along with his dad.)
Wayne reached out and touched another of their father’s shirts. It was a polo
shirt—the shirt he liked to play golf in. Now they saw their father’s fishing
shirt, with a lure still hooked to one of its many pockets, and the brown and
white striped shirt he sometimes wore to his office where he wrote his books.
Rodney had said that the vertical stripes made their dad look like a football
official. “Better that than a convict!” laughed Wayne, thinking of the stripes
going in a different direction.
Wayne sniffed. He smelled a scent in the closet that he knew, the scent of Mitch
McCall’s aftershave. It was almost as if Mr. McCall was right there in the closet
handing the boys his clothes to wear.
In the end, neither Rodney nor Wayne wore the Hawaiian shirt. They found a couple
of old shirts and pants from the back of the closet. These were clothes their
dad hadn’t worn for many years, and they didn’t carry such strong memories for
the boys.
On their way to the Professor’s house Rodney and Wayne noticed something very
odd about many of the other houses up and down the street. They all had their
lights on. Perhaps the same things were happening in these houses that had happened
in the McCall home: children suddenly catapulted into middle and old age, older
family members suddenly made very old and frail and unable to rise from their
beds. There would then be urgent telephone calls between concerned relatives
and concerned friends. And people would go to each other’s houses and drink
lots of coffee and shake their heads and say “tut, tut” and “can you believe
it?” and try to make some sense out of this latest calamity. It would end up
being a very long night for many of the families of Pitcherville, just as it
was proving to be a very long night for Rodney and Wayne.
For one thing, the back door that led into the Professor’s lab was locked.
“That’s funny,” said Rodney. “Professor Johnson hardly ever locks this door.”
The twins took turns knocking, but no one came to answer the door. Wayne began
to feel guilty. “What if he hears the knocking and he’s too weak to make it
down the stairs?”
“Well, there is only one thing we can do now, Wayne. We have to get a house
key from Mrs. Ferrell.”
On their way to the Ferrell house Wayne said, “I wonder if Petey’s back.”
“And all the other children,” said Rodney. “Say, Petey only lives a block away.
Let’s go over and make sure that he’s okay too.”
As Rodney and Wayne suspected, the Ragsdale house had all of its lights on,
like the others. Rodney rang the doorbell. After only a moment an old woman,
perhaps in her eighties, answered the door.
“Hello? What is it? Who are you?” she said.
“It’s Rodney and Wayne.”
“Oh my goodness! You are grown-up men. Rodney and Wayne—you won’t believe it!
I’ve got my Petey Weety back! Petey! Petey! Come see who’s here! It’s your friends
Rodney and Wayne McCall. They’re all grown up just like you!”
Petey came to the door. He was completely bald. This fact made his steel plate
stand out even more. Petey’s face had aged, but standing next to his mother
he did not look so terribly old. Besides the plate in his head, there was another
reason Rodney and Wayne were able to recognize Petey rather easily, even though
so many years had been added to his age. It was his smile. Petey Ragsdale smiled
wide. Sometimes his smile would stretch all the way across his face.
“Hi Rodney. Hi Wayne. So I guess this is what we’ll look like when we’re old.”
“I guess so,” said Rodney. “Welcome home.”
“How did you get home?” asked Wayne.
“No idea. One minute I’m trying to get some sleep in that crazy cloud place.
It was really hard since there was never anything to sleep on. You just float.
Then the next minute—kazam! Here I am on the floor of my room and there’s a
pain in my side and my neck aches.”
Rodney and Wayne remembered that their friend liked to sleep on the floor of
his bedroom like an Indian. While this was an easy thing for an eleven-year-old
to do, it would not be recommended for a man in his sixties.
“Still, it’s great that I’m home. Look at Mom. She’s a lot older now. She doesn’t
look it, though, does she?”
Mrs. Ragsdale blushed. “That is what I’ve missed about my Petey Weety! He always
says the sweetest things!” Mrs. Ragsdale reached over as if to tousle her son’s
hair. But since he didn’t have any, she pulled her hand back and looked a little
embarrassed.
“Come in, boys. We are celebrating Petey’s return. We will do that for a while
and then we’ll spend some time being appalled at what had to happen to bring
him home. But for right now, let’s all be festive!”
Mrs. Ragsdale led her two guests into the living room. Sitting on the sofa were
two old men and a woman who appeared to be in her sixties. Rodney knew immediately
who was who. “Hello, Mr. Ragsdale,” he said. “Hello, Mr. Craft. Hi Becky.”
“Hi,” said Becky. She had a strange look on her face, which made it hard to
tell how she was feeling about what had just happened to her. Her hair was gray
and she had pronounced crow’s feet about her eyes. She also had some folds in
her neck that were similar to those starting to show on her mother’s neck before
she disappeared, although Becky’s were deeper.
“Becky is very happy, aren’t you, Becky, that all the little children are back?”
Mr. Craft patted his now sixty-something-year-old daughter on her knee. He did
this slowly and stiffly as old people will sometimes do things, as if moving
too quickly or fluidly was either an impossibility or was to be avoided because
of the chance of injury.
Becky nodded.
“But this last hour hasn’t been easy for her.”
Becky shot her father a disapproving look, which told him to be quiet.
“I’m sorry, pumpkin,” said the very old Mr. Craft, whose face was creased with
too many wrinkles to count. “I wasn’t thinking. So boys, did you hear that Mr.
Armstrong is out of his bathtub now? He came out the minute his little Darvin
and his little Daisy showed up. Of course they aren’t so little now, but he
was glad to have them, and they were all so glad to be reunited with each other
that they all climbed right back into that big empty bathtub as a family and
just hugged and hugged on each other.”