wrote the address of her appointed father's hypoalter, Conrad
Manz, with an indelible pencil on the skin just below her
armpit.
During the morning, her father and mother had spoiled
the family rest day by quarrelling. It was about Helen's hypo-
alter delaying so many shifts. Bill did not think it very
important, but her mother was angry and threatened to com-
plain to the Medicorps.
The lunch was eaten in silence, except that at one point
Bill said, 'It seems to me Conrad and Clara Manz are guilty
of a peculiar marriage, not us. Yet they seem perfectly hap-
py with it and you're the one who is made unhappy. The
woman has probably just developed a habit of taking too
much sleeping compound for her rest-day naps. Why don't
you drop her a note?'
Helen made only one remark. It was said through her teeth
and very softly. 'Bill, I would just as soon the child did not
realize her relationship to this sordid situation.'
Mary cringed over the way Helen disregarded her hearing,
the possibility that she might be capable of understanding, or
her feelings about being shut out of their mutual world.
After lunch Mary cleared the table, throwing the remains
of the meal and the plastiplates into the flash trash disposer.
Her father had retreated to the library room and Helen was
getting ready to attend a Citizens' Meeting. Mary heard her
mother enter the room to say good-bye while she was wiping
the dining table. She knew that Helen was standing well-
dressed and a little impatient, just behind her, but she pre-
tended she did not know.
'Darling, I'm leaving now for the Citizens' Meeting.'
'Oh. . . yes.'
'Be a good girl and don't be late for your shift. You only
have an hour now.' Helen's patrician face smiled.
'I won't be late.'
'Don't pay any attention to the things Bill and I discussed
this morning, will you?'
'No.'
And she was gone. She did not say good-bye to Bill.
Mary was very conscious of her father in the house. He
continued to sit in the library. She walked by the door and she
could see him sitting in a chair, staring at the floor. Mary
stood in the sun room for a long while. If he had risen from
the chair, if he had rustled a page, if he had sighed, she
would have heard him.
It grew closer and closer to the time she would have to
leave if Susan Shorrs was to catch the first school hours of
her shift. Why did children have to shift half a day before
adults?
Finally, Mary thought of something to say. She could let
