“Stop thinking about what the neighbours will say and think about how I feel for once!” rapped his wife. “You had an easy day today—”
“The hell I did! Those damned lawyers—!”
“You were sitting in a nice quiet office! If it hadn’t been for Buddy, I’d have had more than even my usual kind of hell! I think Dr Hend had a terrific idea. I’m impressed.”
“Typical!” Jack grunted. “You can’t cope with this, buy a machine, you can’t cope with that, buy another machine . . . Now it turns out you can’t even cope with your own son. I’m not impressed!”
“Why, you goddamned—!”
“Look, I paid good money to make sure of having a kid who’d be bright and talented and a regular all-around guy, and I got one. But who’s been looking after him? You have! You’ve screwed him up with your laziness and bad temper!”
“How much time do you waste on helping to raise him?” She confronted him, hands on hips and eyes aflame. “Every evening it’s the same story, every weekend it’s the same—‘get this kid off my neck because I’m worn out!’ ”
“Oh, shut up. It sounds as though he’s finally dropped off. Want to wake him again and make things worse? I’m going to fix a drink. I need one.”
He spun on his heel and headed downstairs. Fuming, Lorna followed him.
By the door of Tim’s room, Buddy remained immobile except that one of his large green ears swivelled slightly and curled over at the tip.
At breakfast next day Lorna served hot cereal—to Buddy as well as Tim, because among the advantages of this model of Friend was the fact that it could eat anything its assigned family was eating.
Tim picked up his dish as soon as it was set before him and threw it with all his might at Buddy. The Friend caught it with such dexterity that hardly a drop splashed on the table.
“Thank you, Tim,” it said, and ate the lot in a single slurping mouthful. “According to my instructions you like this kind of cereal, so giving it to me is a very generous act. Though you might have delivered the dish somewhat more gently.”
Tim’s semi-angelic face crumpled like a mask made of wet paper. He drew a deep breath, and then flung himself forward across the table, aiming to knock everything off it on to the floor. Nothing could break—long and bitter experience had taught the Pattersons to buy only resilient plastic utensils—but spilling the milk, sugar, juice and other items could have made a magnificent mess.
A hair’s breadth away from the nearest object, the milk-jug, Tim found himself pinioned in a gentle but inflexible clutch.
“It appears that it is time to begin lessons for the day,” Buddy said. “Excuse me, Mrs Patterson. I shall take Tim into the back yard where there is more space.”
“To begin lessons?” Lorna echoed. “Well—uh . . . But he hasn’t had any breakfast yet!”
“If you’ll forgive my saying so, he has. He chose not to eat it. He is somewhat overweight, and one presumes that lunch will be served at the customary time. Between now and noon it is unlikely that malnutrition will claim him. Besides, this offers an admirable opportunity for a practical demonstration of the nature of mass, inertia and friction.”
With no further comment Buddy rose and, carrying Tim in effortless fashion, marched over to the door giving access to the yard.
“So how has that hideous green beast behaved today?” Jack demanded.
“Oh, it’s fantastic! I’m starting to get the hang of what it’s designed to do.” Lorna leaned back in her easy chair with a smug expression.
“Yes?” Jack’s face by contrast was sour. “Such as what?”
“Well, it puts up with everything Tim can do—and that’s a tough job because he’s pulling out all the stops he can think of—and interprets it in the most favourable way it can. It keeps insisting that it’s Tim’s Friend, so he’s doing what a friend ought to do.”
Jack blinked at her. “What the hell are you talking about?” he rasped.
“If you’d listen, you might find out!” she snapped back. “He threw his breakfast at Buddy, so Buddy ate it and said thank you. Then because he got hungry he climbed up and got at the candy jar, and Buddy took that and ate the lot and said thank you again, and . . . Oh, it’s all part of a pattern, and very clever.”
“Are you crazy? You let this monstrosity eat not only Tim’s breakfast but all his candy, and you didn’t try and stop it?”
“I don’t think you read the instructions,” Lorna said.
“Quit needling me, will you? Of course I read the instructions!”
“Then you know that if you interfere with what a Friend does, your contract is automatically void and you have to pay the balance of the rental in a lump sum!”
“And how is it interfering to give your own son some more breakfast in place of what the horrible thing took?”
“But Tim threw his dish at—!”
“If you gave him a decent diet he’d—!”
It continued. Above, on the landing outside Tim’s door, Buddy kept his furry green ears cocked, soaking up every word.
“Tim!”
“Shut up, you fucking awful nuisance!”
“Tim, if you climb that tree past the first fork, you will be on a branch that’s not strong enough to bear your weight. You will fall about nine feet to the ground,
