Wrinkle in Time

picture. ‘His hair’s sort of the same colour as mine, and he keeps forgetting to have it cut. Mother usually ends up doing it for him — she bought clippers and stuff — because he won’t take the time to go to the barber.’

Calvin studied the picture. ‘I like him,’ he announced judiciously. ‘Looks kind of like Charles Wallace, doesn’t he?’

Meg laughed again. ‘When Charles was a baby he looked exactly like father. It was really funny.’

Calvin continued to look at the picture. ‘He’s not handsome or anything. But I like him.’

Meg was indignant. ‘He is too handsome.’

Calvin shook his head. ‘Nah. He’s tall and skinny like me.’

‘Well, I think you’re handsome,’ Meg said. ‘Father’s eyes are kind of like yours, too. You know. Really blue. Only you don’t notice his as much because of the glasses.’

‘Where is he now?’

Meg stiffened. But she didn’t have to answer because the door from lab to kitchen slammed, and Mrs Murry came in, carrying a dish of stew. ‘Now,’ she called, ‘I’ll finish this up properly on the stove. Have you done your homework, Meg?’

‘Not quite,’ Meg said, going back into the kitchen.

‘Then I’m sure Calvin won’t mind if you finish before dinner.’

‘Sure, go ahead.’ Calvin fished in his pocket and pulled out a wad of folded paper. ‘As a matter of fact I have some junk of mine to finish up. Math. That’s the one thing I have a hard time keeping up in. I’m okay on anything to do with words, but I don’t do as well with numbers.’

Mrs Murry smiled. ‘Why don’t you get Meg to help you?’

‘But, see, I’m several grades above Meg.’

‘Try asking her to help you with your math, anyhow,’ Mrs Murry suggested.

‘Well, sure,’ Calvin said. ‘Here. But it’s pretty complicated.’

Meg smoothed out the paper and studied it. ‘Do they care how you do it?’ she asked. ‘I mean, can you work it out your own way?’

‘Well, sure, as long as I understand and get the answers right.’

‘Well, we have to do it their way. Now look, Calvin, don’t you see how much easier it would be if you did it this way?’ Her pencil flew over the paper.

‘Hey!’ Calvin said. ‘Hey! I think I get it. Show me once more on another one.’

Again Meg’s pencil was busy. ‘All you have to remember is that every ordinary fraction can be converted into an infinite periodic decimal fraction. See? So 3/7 is 0·428571.’

‘This is the craziest family.’ Calvin grinned at her. ‘I suppose I should stop being surprised by now, but you’re supposed to be dumb in school, always being called up on the carpet.’

‘Oh, I am.’

‘The trouble with Meg and math,’ Mrs Murry said briskly, ‘is that Meg and her father used to play with numbers and Meg learned far too many short cuts. So when they want her to do problems the long way round at school she gets sullen and stubborn and sets up a fine mental block for herself.’

‘Are there any more morons like Meg and Charles around?’ Calvin asked. ‘If so, I should meet more of them.’

‘It might also help if Meg’s handwriting were legible,’ Mrs Murry said. ‘With a good deal of difficulty I can usually decipher it, but I doubt very much if her teachers can, or are willing to take the time. I’m planning on giving her a typewriter for Christmas. That may be a help.’

‘If I get anything right nobody’ll believe it’s me,’ Meg said.

‘What’s a megaparsec?’ Calvin asked.

‘One of father’s nicknames for me,’ Meg said. ‘It’s also 3·26 million light years.’

‘What’s E = mc²?’

‘Einstein’s equation.’

‘What’s E stand for?’

‘Energy.’

‘m?’

‘Mass.’

‘c²?’

‘The square of the velocity of light in centimetres per second.’

‘By what countries is Peru bounded?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I think it’s in South America somewhere.’

‘Who wrote Boswell’s Life of Johnson?’

‘Oh, Calvin, I’m not any good at English.’

Calvin groaned and turned to Mrs Murry. ‘I see what you mean. Her I wouldn’t want to teach.’

‘She’s a little one-sided, I grant you,’ Mrs Murry said, ‘though I blame her father and myself for that. She still enjoys playing with her doll’s house, though.’

‘Mother!’ Meg shrieked in agony.

‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry’ Mrs Murry said swiftly. ‘But I’m sure Calvin understands what I mean.’

With a sudden enthusiastic gesture Calvin flung his arms out wide, as though he were embracing Meg and her mother, the whole house. ‘How did all this happen? Isn’t it wonderful? I feel as though I were just being born! I’m not alone any more! Do you realize what that means to me?’

‘But you’re good at basketball and things,’ Meg protested. ‘You’re good in school. Everybody likes you.’

‘For all the most unimportant reasons,’ Calvin said. ‘There hasn’t been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn’t me.’

Meg took a batch of forks from the drawer and turned them over and over, looking at them. ‘I’m all confused again.’

‘Oh, so ’m I,’ Calvin said gaily. ‘But now at least I know we’re going somewhere.’

Meg was pleased and a little surprised when the twins were excited at having Calvin for supper. They knew more about his athletic record and were far more impressed by it than she. Calvin ate five bowls of stew, three saucers of strawberry jelly and a dozen cookies, and then Charles Wallace insisted that Calvin should take him up to bed and read to him. The twins, who had finished their homework, were allowed to watch half an hour of TV. Meg helped her mother with the dishes and then sat at the table and struggled with her homework. But she could not concentrate.

‘Mother, are you upset?’ she asked suddenly.

Mrs Murry looked up from a copy of an English scientific magazine through which she was leafing. For a moment she did not speak. Then,‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Again Mrs Murry paused. She held her hands out and looked at them. They were long and strong and beautiful. She touched with the fingers of her right hand the broad gold band on the third finger of her left hand. ‘I’m still quite a young woman, you know,’ she said finally, ‘though I realize that that’s difficult for you children to conceive. And I’m still very much in love with your father. I miss him quite dreadfully’

‘And you think all this has something to do with father?’

‘I think it must have.’

‘But what?’

‘That I don’t know. But it seems the only explanation.’

‘Do you think things always have an explanation?’

‘Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we’re not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.’

‘I like to understand things,’ Meg said.

‘We all do. But it isn’t always possible.’

‘Charles Wallace understands more than the rest of us, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes.’