Henry Kuttner: The Best of Henry Kuttner

“Well, don’t enroll Scotty in your course,” Jane requested. “He isn’t ready to be a Philosophiae Doctor. I hold no brief for a child genius, especially when it’s my son.”

“Scotty would probably be better at it than Betty Dawson,” Paracline grunted.

“He died an enfeebled old dotard at five,” Jane quoted dreamily. “I want your olive.”

“Here. By the way, I like the shoes.”

“Thank you. Here’s Rosalie. Dinner?”

“It’s all ready, Miz Pa’dine,” said Rosalie, hovering. “I’ll call Miss Emma ’n’ Mista’ Scotty.”

“I’ll get ’em.” Paradine put his head into the next room and roared, “Kids! Come and get it!”

Small feet scuttered down the stairs. Scott dashed into view, scrubbed and shining, a rebellious cowlick aimed at the zenith. Emma pursued, levering herself carefully down the steps. Halfway, she gave up the attempt to descend upright and reversed, finishing the task monkey-fashion, her small behind giving an impression of marvellous diligence upon the work in hand. Paradine watched, fascinated by the spectacle, till he was hurled back by the impact of his son’s body.

“Hi, Dad!” Scott shrieked.

Paradine recovered himself and regarded Scott with dignity. “Hi, yourself. Help me in to dinner.

You’ve dislocated at least one of my hip joints.”

But Scott was already tearing into the next room, where he stepped on Jane’s new shoes in an ecstasy of affection, burbied an apology and rushed off to find his place at the dinner table. Paradine cocked up an eyebrow as he followed, Emma’s pudgy hand desperately gripping his forefinger.

“Wonder what the young devil’s been up to.”

“No good, probably,” Jane sighed. “Hello, darling. Let’s see your ears.”

“They’re clean. Mickey licked ’em.”

“Well, that Airedale’s tongue is far cleaner than your ears,” Jane pondered, making a brief examination. “Still, as long as you can hear, the dirt’s only superficial.”

“Fisshul?”

“Just a little, that means.” Jane dragged her daughter to the table and inserted her legs into a high chair. Only lately had Emma graduated to the dignity of dining with the rest of the family, and she was, as Paradine remarked, all eaten up with pride by the prospect. Only babies spilled food, Emma had been told. As a result, she took such painstaking care in conveying her spoon to her mouth that Paradine got the jitters whenever he watched.

“A conveyor belt would be the thing for Emma,” he suggested, pulling out a chair for Jane. “Small buckets of spinach arriving at her face at stated intervals.”

Dinner proceeded uneventfully until Paradine happened to glance at Scott’s plate. “Hello, there.

Sick? Been stuffing yourself at lunch?”

Scott thoughtfully examined the food still left before him. “I’ve had all I need, Dad,” he explained.

“You usually eat all you can hold, and a great deal more,” Paradine said. “I know growing boys need several tons of foodstuff a day, but you’re below par tonight. Feel O.K.?”

“Uh-huh. Honest, I’ve had all I need.”

“All you want?”

“Sure. I eat different.”

“Something they taught you at school?” Jane inquired. Scott shook his head solemnly.

“Nobody taught me. I found it out myself. I use spit.”

“Try again,” Paradine suggested. “It’s the wrong word.”

“Uh-s-saliva. Hm-m-m?”

“Uh-huh. More pepsin? Is there pepsin in the salivary juices, Jane? I forget.”

“There’s poison in mine,” Jane remarked. “Rosalie’s left lumps in the mashed potatoes again.”

But Paradine was interested. “You mean you’re getting everything possible out of your food — no wastage — and eating less?”

Scott thought that over. “I guess so. It’s not just the sp-saliva. I sort of measure how much to put in my mouth at once, and what stuff to mix up. I dunno. I just do it.”

“Hm-m-m,” said Paradine, making a note to check up later. “Rather a revolutionary idea.” Kids often get screwy notions, but this one might not be so far off the beam. He pursed his lips. “Eventually I suppose people will eat quite differently — I mean the way they eat, as well as what. What they eat, I mean. Jane, our son shows signs of becoming a genius.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a rather good point in dietetics he just made. Did you figure it out yourself, Scott?”

“Sure,” the boy said, and really believed it.

“Where’d you get the idea?”

“Oh, I—” Scott wriggled. “I dunno. It doesn’t mean much, I guess.”

Paradine was unreasonably disappointed. “But surely—”

“S-s-s-spit!” Emma shrieked, overcome by a sudden fit of badness. “Spit!” She attempted to demonstrate, but succeeded only in dribbling into her bib.

With a resigned air Jane rescued and reproved her daughter, while Paradine eyed Scott with rather puzzled interest. But it was not till after dinner, in the living room, that anything further happened.

“Any homework?”

“N-no,” Scott said, flushing guiltily. To cover his embarrassment he took from his pocket a gadget he had found in the box, and began to unfold it. The result resembled a tesseract, strung with beads.

Paradine didn’t see it at first, but Emma did. She wanted to play with it.

“No. Lay off, Slug,” Scott ordered. “You can watch me.” He fumbled with the beads, making soft, interested noises. Emma extended a fat forefinger and yelped.

“Scotty,” Paradine said warningly.

“I didn’t hurt her.”

“Bit me. It did,” Emma mourned.

Paradine looked up. He frowned, staring. What in— “Is that an abacus?” he asked. “Let’s see it, please.”

Somewhat unwillingly, Scott brought the gadget across to his father’s chair. Paradine blinked. The “abacus,” unfolded, was more than a foot square, composed of thin, rigid wires that interlocked here and there. On the wires the colored beads were strung. They could be slid back and forth, and from one support to another, even at the points of jointure. But — a pierced bead couldn’t cross interlocking wires.

So, apparently, they weren’t pierced. Paracline looked closer. Each small sphere had a deep groove running around it, so that it could be revolved and slid along the wire at the same time. Paradine tried to pull one free. It clung as though magnetically. Iron? It looked more like plastic.

The framework itself — Paradine wasn’t a mathematician. But the angles formed by the wires were vaguely shocking, in their ridiculous lack of Euclidean logic. They were a maze. Perhaps that’s what the gadget was — a puzzle.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Uncle Harry gave it to me,” Scott said, on the spur of the moment. “Last Sunday, when he came over.” Uncle Harry was out of town, a circumstance Scott well knew. At the age of seven, a boy soon learns that the vagaries of adults follow a certain definite pattern, and that they are fussy about the donors of gifts. Moreover, Uncle Harry would not return for several weeks; the expiration of that period was unimaginable to Scott, or, at least, the fact that his lie would ultimately be discovered meant less to him than the advantages of being allowed to keep the toy.

Paradine found himself growing slightly confused as he attempted to manipulate the beads. The angles were vaguely illogical. It was like a puzzle. This red bead, if slid along this wire to that junction, should reach there — but it didn’t. A maze, odd, but no doubt instructive. Paradine had a well-founded feeling that he’d have no patience with the thing himself.

Scott did, however, retiring to a corner and sliding beads around with much fumbling and grunting.