Clifford Simak: Out of Their Minds

"I will not," the Devil screamed. "Not all my work undone!"

Sancho Panza flung the dipper on the sidewalk and clutched the pail in both his bands, poised to hurl its entire contents on the Devil.

"Hold!" the Devil shouted. "Avast that cursed water! I do entirely yield and pledge everything you ask."

"Then," Don Quixote said, with a certain courtliness, "our mission here is done."

I didn't see them go. There wasn't even a flicker of their going. They just suddenly were gone. There was no Devil, no Don Quixote, no Sancho Panza and no unicorn. But Kathy was running toward me and I thought it strange she could run so well with her ankle sprained. I tried to jerk my foot free of the fence so I could get up to greet her, but the foot was tightly stuck between the palings and I could not get it loose.

She went down on her knees beside me. "We're home again!" she cried. "Horton, we are home!"

She leaned down to kiss me and across the street the crowd cheered loudly and ribaldly at the kiss. "My foot is stuck," I said.

"Well, pull it loose," she told me, smiling through tears of happiness.

I tried to pull it loose and couldn't. It hurt when I pulled on it. She got up and went to the fence and tried to work it free, but it still stayed stuck.

"I think the ankle's swelling," she said and sat down upon the sidewalk, laughing. "The two of us," she cried. "We have something with our ankles. First mine, now yours."

"Your ankle is all right," I said.

"They had magic at the castle," she told me. "A most wonderful old magician with a long white beard and a funny cap and gown with stars all over them. It was the nicest place I've ever seen. So genteel and polite. I could have stayed forever if you had been there with me. And the unicorn. He was the nicest, sweetest thing. You saw the unicorn?"

"I saw the unicorn," I said.

"Horton, who are those men coming down across the lawn?"

I had been so busy looking at her and so glad that she was back, that I'd not been looking at the lawn. When I did look, I saw them. The President was in the lead, running toward the fence, and behind him streamed the other people who'd been in the room.

The President reached the fence and stopped. He regarded me with something less than friendliness.

"Horton," he demanded, "what the hell is going on out here?"

"My foot is caught," I said.

"To hell with your foot," he said. "That isn't what I mean. I swear I saw a knight and a unicorn."

The others were crowding close up against the fence.

A guard shouted from up by the gate. "Hey! Everybody look! There's a car coming down the street!"

Sure enough, there was.

"But what about his foot?" Kathy asked, indignantly. "We can't get it loose and his ankle's swelling. I'm afraid it's sprained."

"Someone had better get a doctor," said the Secretary of State. "If the cars are running, the phones may be working, too. How are you feeling, Horton?"

"I'm all right," I said.

"And get someone down here with a hacksaw," said the

President. "For the love of God, we got to saw his foot loose."

So I stayed there on the sidewalk and Kathy sat beside me, waiting for the doctor and the hacksaw man.

Disregarding the crowd inside the fence, some of the White House squirrels came sneaking out on the sidewalk to see what was going on. They sat up most daintily, with their forepaws crossed upon their chest, begging for a handout.

And the cars, more and more of them, went on rolling past.