The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (71 page)

"I'm sure I'll like it."

"Well, if you do like that sort of thing, it's what
you've been waiting all your life in vain for. Nobody else has done it."
Tim stopped, and blushed as red as a beet. "I see what grandmother means.
Once you get started bragging, there's no end to it. I'm sorry, Peter."

"Give me the story. I don't mind, Tim—brag all you like
to me; I understand. You might blow up if you never expressed any of your
legitimate pride and pleasure in such achievements. What I don't understand is
how you have kept it all under for so long."

"I had to," said Tim.

The story was all its young author had claimed. Welles
chuckled as he read it, that evening. He read it again, and checked all the
moves and the strategy of them. It was really a fine piece of work. Then he
thought of the symphony, and this time he was able to laugh. He sat up until
after midnight, thinking about the boy. Then he took a sleeping pill and went
to bed.

The next day he went to see Tim's grandmother. Mrs. Davis
received him graciously.

"Your grandson is a very interesting boy," said
Peter Welles carefully. "I'm asking a favor of you. I am making a study of
various boys and girls in this district, their abilities and backgrounds and
environment and character traits and things like that. No names will ever be mentioned,
of course, but a statistical report will be kept, for ten years or longer, and
some case histories might later be published. Could Timothy be included?"

"Timothy is such a good, normal little boy, I fail to
see what would be the purpose of including him in such a survey."

"That is just the point. We are not interested in
maladjusted persons in this study. We eliminate all psychotic boys and girls.
We are interested in boys and girls who succeed in facing their youthful
problems and making satisfactory adjustments to life. If we could study a
selected group of such children, and follow their progress for the next ten
years at least—and then publish a summary of the findings, with no names
used—"

"In that case, I see no objection," said Mrs.
Davis.

"If you'd tell me, then, something about Timothy's
parents—their history?"

Mrs. Davis settled herself for a good long talk.

"Timothy's mother, my only daughter, Emily," she
began, "was a lovely girl. So talented. She played the violin charmingly.
Timothy is like her, in the face, but has his father's dark hair and eyes.
Edwin had very fine eyes."

"Edwin was Timothy's father?"

"Yes. The young people met while Emily was at college
in the East. Edwin was studying atomics there."

"Your daughter was studying music?"

"No; Emily was taking the regular liberal arts course.
I can tell you little about Edwin's work, but after their marriage he returned
to it and . . . you understand, it is painful for me to recall this, but their
deaths were such a blow to me. They were so young."

Welles held his pencil ready to write.

"Timothy has never been told. After all, he must grow
up in this world, and how dreadfully the world has changed in the past thirty
years, Dr. Welles! But you would not remember the day before 1945. You have
heard, no doubt of the terrible explosion in the atomic plant, when they were
trying to make a new type of bomb? At the time, none of the workers seemed to
be injured. They believed the protection was adequate. But two years later they
were all dead or dying."

Mrs. Davis shook her head, sadly. Welles held his breath,
bent his head, scribbled.

"Tim was born just fourteen months after the explosion,
fourteen months to the day. Everyone still thought that no harm had been done.
But the radiation had some effect which was very slow—I do not understand such
things—Edwin died, and then Emily came home to us with the boy. In a few months
she, too, was gone.

"Oh, but we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. It
is hard to have lost her, Dr. Welles, but Mr. Davis and I have reached the time
of life when we can look forward to seeing her again. Our hope is to live until
Timothy is old enough to fend for himself. We were so anxious about him; but
you see he is perfectly normal in every way."

"Yes."

"The specialists made all sorts of tests. But nothing
is wrong with Timothy."

The psychiatrist stayed a little longer, took a few more
notes, and made his escape as soon as he could. Going straight to the school,
he had a few words with Miss Page and then took Tim to his office, where he
told him what he had learned.

"You mean—I'm a mutation?"

"A mutant. Yes, very likely you are. I don't know. But
I had to tell you at once."

"Must be a dominant, too," said Tim, "coming
out this way in the first generation. You mean—there may be more? I'm not the
only one?" he added in great excitement. "Oh, Peter, even if I grow
up past you I won't have to be lonely?"

There. He had said it.

"It could be, Tim. There's nothing else in your family
that could account for you."

"But I have never found anyone at all like me. I would
have known. Another boy or girl my age—like me—I would have known."

"You came West with your mother. Where did the others
go, if they existed? The parents must have scattered everywhere, back to their
homes all over the country, all over the world. We can trace them, though. And,
Tim, haven't you thought it's just a little bit strange that with all your pen
names and various contacts, people don't insist more on meeting you? Everything
gets done by mail. It's almost as if the editors are used to people who hide.
It's almost as if people are used to architects and astronomers and composers
whom nobody ever sees, who are only names in care of other names at post office
boxes. There's a chance—just a chance, mind you—that there are others. If there
are, we'll find them."

"I'll work out a code they will understand," said
Tim, his face screwed up in concentration. "In articles—I'll do it—several
magazines and in letters I can inclose copies—some of my pen friends may be the
ones—"

"I'll hunt up the records—they must be on file
somewhere—psychologists and psychiatrists know all kinds of tricks—we can make
some excuse to trace them all—the birth records—"

Both of them were talking at once, but all the while Peter
Welles was thinking sadly, perhaps he had lost Tim now. If they did find those
others, those to whom Tim rightfully belonged, where would poor Peter be?
Outside, among the puppies-Timothy Paul looked up and saw Peter Welles's eyes
on him. He smiled.

"You were my first friend, Peter, and you shall be
forever," said Tim. "No matter what, no matter who."

"But we must look for the others," said Peter.

"I'll never forget who helped me," said Tim.

An ordinary boy of thirteen may say such a thing sincerely,
and a week later have forgotten all about it. But Peter Welles was content. Tim
would never forget. Tim would be his friend always. Even when Timothy Paul and
those like him should unite in a maturity undreamed of, to control the world if
they chose, Peter Welles would be Tim's friend—not a puppy, but a beloved
friend—as a loyal dog loved by a good master, is never cast out.

Hiram Taine came awake and sat up in his bed.

Towser was barking and scratching at the floor.

"Shut up," Taine told the dog.

Towser cocked quizzical ears at him and then resumed the
barking and scratching at the floor.

Taine rubbed his eyes. He ran a hand through his rat's-nest
head of hair. He considered lying down again and pulling up the covers.

But not with Towser barking.

"What's the matter with you, anyhow?" he asked
Towser, with not a little wrath.

"Whuff,"
said Towser, industriously
proceeding with his scratching at the floor.

"If you want out," said Taine, "all you got
to do is open the screen door. You know how it is done. You do it all the
time."

Towser quit his barking and sat down heavily, watching his
master getting out of bed.

Taine put on his shirt and pulled on his trousers, but
didn't bother with his shoes.

Towser ambled over to a corner, put his nose down to the
baseboard and snuffled moistly.

"You got a mouse?" asked Taine.

"Whuff,"
said Towser, most emphatically.

"I can't ever remember you making such a row about a
mouse," Taine said, slightly puzzled. "You must be off your
rocker."

It was a beautiful summer morning. Sunlight was pouring
through the open window.

Good day for fishing, Taine told himself, then remembered
that there'd be no fishing, for he had to go out and look up that old
four-poster maple bed that he had heard about up Woodman way. More than likely,
he thought, they'd want twice as much as it was worth. It was getting so, he
told himself, that a man couldn't make an honest dollar. Everyone was getting
smart about antiques.

He got up off the bed and headed for the living room.

"Come on," he said to Towser.

Towser came along, pausing now and then to snuffle into
corners and to whuffle at the floor.

"You got it bad," said Taine.

Maybe it's a rat, he thought. The house was getting old.

He opened the screen door and Towser went outside.

"Leave that woodchuck be today," Taine advised
him. "It's a losing battle. You'll never dig him out."

Towser went around the corner of the house.

Taine noticed that something had happened to the sign that
hung on the post beside the driveway. One of the chains had become unhooked and
the sign was dangling.

He padded out across the driveway slab and the grass, still
wet with dew, to fix the sign. There was nothing wrong with it—just the
unhooked chain. Might have been the wind, he thought, or some passing urchin.
Although probably not an urchin. He got along with kids. They never bothered
him, like they did some others in the village. Banker Stevens, for example. They
were always pestering Stevens.

He stood back a way to be sure the sign was straight.

It read, in big letters:

HANDY MAN And under that, in smaller lettering:

 
fix anything
And under that:

ANTIQUES  FOR  SALE

What have you got to trade?

Maybe, he told himself, he'd ought to have two signs, one
for his fix-it shop and one for antiques and trading. Some day, when he had the
time, he thought, he'd paint a couple of new ones. One for each side of the
driveway. It would look neat that way.

He turned around and looked across the road at Turner's
Woods. It was a pretty sight, he thought. A sizable piece of woods like that
right at the edge of town. It was a place for birds and rabbits and woodchucks
and squirrels and it was full of forts built through generations by the boys of
Willow Bend.

Some day, of course, some smart operator would buy it up and
start a housing development or something equally objectionable and when that
happened a big slice of his own boyhood would be cut out of his life.

Towser came around the corner of the house. He was sidling
along, sniffing at the lowest row of siding and his ears were cocked with
interest.

"That dog is nuts," said Taine and went inside.

He went into the kitchen, his bare feet slapping on the
floor.

He filled the teakettle, set it on the stove and turned the
burner on underneath the kettle.

He turned on the radio, forgetting that it was out of
kilter.

When it didn't make a sound, he remembered and, disgusted,
snapped it off. That was the way it went, he thought. He fixed other people's
stuff, but never got around to fixing any of his own.

He went into the bedroom and put on his shoes. He threw the
bed together.

Back in the kitchen the stove had failed to work again. The
burner beneath the kettle was cold.

Taine hauled off and kicked the stove. He lifted the kettle
and held his palm above the burner. In a few seconds he could detect some heat.

"Worked again," he told himself.

Some day, he knew, kicking the stove would fail to work.
When that happened, he'd have to get to work on it. Probably wasn't more than a
loose connection.

He put the kettle back onto the stove.

There was a clatter out in front and Taine went out to see
what was going on.

Beasly, the Hortons' yardboy-chauffeur-gardener, et cetera,
was backing a rickety old track up the driveway. Beside him sat Abbie Horton,
the wife of H. Henry Horton, the village's most important citizen. In the back
of the truck, lashed on with ropes and half-protected by a garish red and
purple quilt, stood a mammoth television set. Taine recognized it from of old.
It was a good ten years out of date and still, by any standard, it was the most
expensive set ever to grace any home in Willow Bend.

Abbie hopped out of the truck. She was an energetic,
bustling, bossy woman.

"Good morning, Hiram," she said, "can you fix
this set again?"

"Never saw anything that I couldn't fix," said
Taine, but nevertheless he eyed the set with something like dismay. It was not the
first time he had tangled with it and he knew what was ahead.

"It might cost you more than it's worth," he
warned her. "What you really need is a new one. This set is getting old
and—"

"That's just what Henry said," Abbie told him,
tartly. "Henry wants to get one of the color sets. But I won't part with
this one. It's not just TV, you know. It's a combination with radio and a
record player and the wood and style are just right for the other furniture,
and, besides—"

"Yes, I know," said Taine, who'd heard it all
before.

Poor old Henry, he thought. What a life the man must lead.
Up at that computer plant all day long, shooting off his face and bossing
everyone, then coming home to a life of petty tyranny.