believe him. We'll, anyway, he's so happy here and making such progress in school that I don't want anything to tarnish it for him, so-' she sighed and smiled. 'He says you asked him about his trading the rat –' 'The pregnant rat,' I nodded. 'He did ask me,' she said. 'Our family uses a sort of telepathy in emergencies.' 'A sort of telepathy-!' My jaw sagged, then tightened. Well, I could play the game, too. 'How interesting!' Her eyes gleamed. 'Interesting aberration, isn't it?' I flushed and she added hastily. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to –to put interpretations into your mouth. But Vincent did hear-well, maybe `feel' is a better word-the ground squirrel crying out against being caged. It caught him right where he lives. I think the block he has in reading is against anything that implies unwilling compulsion – you know, being held against your will – or prevented-' Put her in a pumpkin shell, my memory chanted. The three Billy Goats Gruff were afraid to cross the bridge because 'The other schools,' she went on, 'have restricted him to the reading materials provided for his grade level, and you'd be surprised how many of the stories-' 'And he did hit the rock with Gene:' She smiled ruefully. 'Lifted him bodily and threw him. A rather liberal interpretation of our family rules. He's been forbidden to lift any large objects in anger. He considered Gene the lesser of the two objects. 'You see, Miss Murcer, we do have family characteristics that aren't exactly-mmm-usual, but Vincent is still just a school child, and we're just parents, and he likes you much and we do, too. Accept us?' 'I-' I said, trying to blink away my confusion. 'I-I-' 'Ay! Ay!' Mrs. Kroginold sighed and, smiling, stood up. 'Thank you for not being loudly insulted by what I've told you. Once a neighbor of ours that I talked a little too freely to, threatened to sue-so I appreciate. You are so good for Vincent. Thanks.' She was gone before I could get my wits collected. It had been a little like being caught in a ductless dust- devil. I hadn't heard the car leave, but when I looked out, there was one swing still stirring lazily between the motionless ones, and no one at all in sight on the school grounds. I closed up the schoolroom and went into the tiny two– roomed teacherage extension on the back of the school to get my coat and purse. I had lived in those two tiny rooms for the first two years of my stay at Rinconcillo before I began to feel the need of more space and more freedom from school. Occasionally, even now, when I felt too tired to plunge out into the roar of Winter Wells, I would spend a night on my old narrow bed in the quiet of the canyon. I wondered again about not hearing the car when I sped down into the last sand wash before the highway. I steered carefully back across the packed narrowness of my morning tracks. Mine were the only ones, coming or going. I laid the odd discovery aside because I was immediately gulped up by the highway traffic. After I had been honked at and muttered at by two Coast drivers and had muttered at (I don't like to honk) and swerved around two Midwest tourist types roaring along at twenty-five miles an hour in the center lane admiring the scenery, I suddenly laughed. After all, there was nothing mysterious about my lonely tire tracks. I was just slightly disoriented. MEL was less than a mile away from the school, up over the ridge, though it was good half hour by road. Mrs. Kroginold had hiked over for the conference and the two of them had hiked back together. My imagination boggled a little at the memory of Mrs. Kroginold's strap'n'heel sandals and the hillsides, but then, not everyone insists on flats to walk in. Well, the white rat achieved six offspring, which cemented the friendship between Gene and Vincent forever, and school rocked along more or less serenely. Then suddenly, as though at a signal, the pace of space exploration was stepped up in every country that had ever tried launching anything; so the school started a space unit. We went through our regular systematic lessons at a dizzying pace, and each child, after he had finished his assignment, plunged into his own chosen activity-all unrealizing of the fact that he was immediately putting into practice what he had been studying so reluctantly. My primary group was busy working out a moonscape in the sand table. It was to be complete with clay moon-people – 'They don't have to have any noses' That was Ginny, tender to critical comment. 'They're different! They don't breathe. No air!' And moon-dogs and cats and cars and flowers, and even a moon-bird. 'It can't fly in the sky cause there ain't-isn't any air so it flies in the dirt!' That was Justin. 'It likes bottoms of craters cause there's more dirt there!' I caught Vincent's amused eyes as he listened to the small ones. 'Little kids are funny!' he murmured. 'Animals on the moon! My dad, when he was there, all he saw-' His eyes widened and he became very busy choosing the right-sized nails from the rusty coffee can. 'Middle-sized kids are funny, too,' I said. 'Moon, indeed! There aren't any dads on the moon, either!' 'I guess not.' He picked up the hammer and, as he moved away, I heard him whisper, 'Not now!' My intermediates were in the midst of a huge argument. I umpired for a while. If you use a BB shot to represent the Earth, would there be room in the schoolroom to make a scale mobile of the planetary system? I extinguished some of the fire bred of ignorance, by suggesting an encyclopedia and some math, and moved on through the room. Gene and Vincent, not caring for such intellectual pursuits, were working on our model space capsule which was patterned after the very latest in U.S. spacecraft, modified to include different aspects of the latest in flying saucers. I was watching Vincent leaning through a window, fitting a tin can altitude gauge-or some such-into the control panel. Gene was painting purple a row of cans around the middle of the craft. Purple was currently popular for flying saucer lights. 'I wonder if astronauts ever develop claustrophobia?' I said idly. 'I get a twinge sometimes in elevators or mines.' 'I suppose susceptible ones would be eliminated long before they ever got to be astronauts,' grunted Vincent as he pushed on the tin can. 'They go through all sorts of tests.' 'I know,' I said, 'But people change. Just supposing-' 'Gollee!' said Gene, his poised paint brush dribbling purple down his arm and off his elbow. 'Imagine! Way up there! No way out! Can't get down! And claustrophobia!' He brought out the five syllables proudly. The school had defined and discussed the word when we first started the unit. The tin can slipped and Vincent staggered sideways, falling against me. 'Oh!' said Vincent, his shaking hands lifting, his right arm curling up over his head. 'I-' I took one look at his twisted face, the cold sweat bead– his hairline, and, circling his shoulders, steered him over to the reading bench near my desk. 'Sit,' I said. 'Whatsa matter with him?' Now the paint was dripping one leg of Gene's Levi's. 'Just slightly wampsy,' I said. 'Watch that paint. You're making a mess of your clothes' 'Gollee!' He smeared his hand down his pants from hip to knee. 'Mom'll kill me!' I lifted my voice. 'It's put-away time. Kipper, will you monitor today?' The children were swept into organized confusion. I turned back to Vincent. 'Better?' 'I'm sorry.' Color hadn't come back to his face yet, but it was plumping up from its stricken drawnness. 'Sometimes it gets through too sharply-' 'Don't worry about it,' I said, pushing his front hair up out of his eyes. 'You could drive yourself crazy-' 'Mom says my imagination is a little too vivid-' His mouth corners lifted. 'So 'tis,' I smiled at him, 'if it must seize upon my imaginary astronaut. There's no point to your harrowing up your soul with what might happen. Problems we have always with us. No need to borrow any.' 'I'm not exactly borrowing,' he whispered, his shoulder hunching up towards his wincing head. 'He never did want to, anyway, and now that they're orbiting, he's still scared. What if-' He straightened resolutely. 'I'll help Gene.' He slid away before I could stop him. 'Vincent,' I called. 'Who's orbiting-' And just then Justin dumped over the whole stack of jigsaw puzzles, upside down. That ended any further questions I might have had. That evening I pushed the newspaper aside and thoughtfully lifted my coffee cup. I stared past its rim and
