Дэймон Найт - Orbit 5

Freddy rubbed his nose. “Maybe if Flo and I sold the car . . .”

Artie proffered a piece of bread to Winston; Winston looked at it distastefully but he took it. “See, he likes me. Hey honey, he likes me.”

“Of course he does,” Edna said with pride. “He’s our son.”

Winston gave her a sudden sharp look which embarrassed her for no reason. Then he finished the bread and cleared his throat.

Artie was saying to Freddy, “. . . and if you can’t get them into Exeter they’re guaranteed for Culver at least.”

“Shhh. honey, he’s going to say something.”

“. . . It ain’t every steamfitter that has a kid in Culver, ya know.”

“Shh.”

Winston spoke. “Wiwyiam Buckwey is a weactionary.”

“Hey Freddy, did ya hear that?”

“I really gotta hand it to you,” Freddy said.

They didn’t go bowling that night after all; they all sat around the living room and first they had Winston read the daily papers to them, even the editorials, and when he was done they listened to him analyze the political situation and then Edna brought them all cake and they had Winston predict the season's batting averages while Artie wrote them down and then Winston wrote a poem about autumn and then Winston began to suck his thumb; Edna sent the other kids to bed and they went, complaining because Winston got to stay up and they knew he was going to end up with the rest of the cake; the grownups listened to Winston some more and then Winston and Artie got into a kind of political argument, Artie must have hurt his feelings a little, calling him a squirt and too young to know anything about anything, because Winston began to sniffle, and Edna said they were going to have to let her put him to bed now, he just looked tired to death.

She took him up to the front room, where they had laid in the complete works of Bulwer-Lytton and the eleventh edition of the Britannica; she showed Winston the globe and the autoclave and the slide rule and the drafting board, thinking he would give little cries of delight and perhaps sit down at the desk at once and compose something on the silent keyboard they had bought him, but instead he clung to her shoulder and wouldn’t even look. Finally she said, “Why honey, what’s the matter?”

“I want my diddy,” Winston said.

She found it finally, a tattered square of blanket jammed in the back of the traveling case, and once she had restored it to him Winston let her give him a bath and put him in his pajamas with the bunny feet; even in his pajamas he had that pedigreed look: his ankles and wrists were small and his fingers were long and she found herself wishing he looked just a little cuddlier, just a little more like one of her babies, but she suppressed the thought quickly.

In bed, she said to Artie, “Just imagine. Right here, our own little Ph.D.” She hugged him. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“I don’t know.” Artie was looking at the ceiling. “I think he’s kind of fresh.”

The Wazikis were awakened by a hubbub in the back yard. Artie found Little Art and some of Little Art’s friends grappling in the early-morning dirt and when he pried them off he found Winston, white and shaken and biting his lip so the other kids wouldn’t see him cry. He extricated Winston and set him on the back stoop and then turned to Little Art and Margie; they sniggered and wouldn’t look at him.

“What’s the matter, Winston?”

But Winston wouldn’t say anything, he only sat there wearing what Artie would learn to call his Hamlet look.

Little Art elbowed Artie, with a dirty snicker. “You got rooked.”

“I what?”

“Dummy here can’t even catch the ball.”

Winston had stopped shaking. “My father couldn’t catch a ball either,” he said coldly, “and he was wunner-up for the Nobel Pwize.”

There was something about Winston’s attitude that Artie didn’t like, but he cuffed Little Art all the same and said, “We didn’t pay for him to catch the ball, dummy. You keep your hands off the merchandise.”

“If he’s so damn smart why can’t he catch the ball?”

“Shut up and come on inside.”

At breakfast Margie brought out her geography homework and Artie and Winston had a little set-to about what was the capital of the Cameroons; Winston was right of course and Edna made Artie apologize and then she had to smooth it over because it was obvious to everybody that the whole thing had put Artie on edge.

“Four-year-old kid. Four-year-old kid.”

“I’m sowwy,” said Winston, who in addition to the 160 I.Q. was nobody’s fool, “they used to make me study all the time.”

“Well they didn’t teach ya manners.”

“There there,” Margie said, trying to smooth the frown from Artie’s brow. “Just wait till you see the terrarium.”

He pushed her fingers away. “What in hell is a terrarium?”

“I don’t know, but Winston and I are going to make one.”

“I don’t want the kid playing with no explosives, and that’s that.”

Winston had on his Hamlet look. “Anything you say, Mr. Waziki.”

Artie decided the kid was trying. “You can call me Pop.”

“O.K., Mr. Waziki.”

At work he found that Freddy Kramer had spread the word; he was something of a celebrity in the shop. By lunch time he was basking in the glow.

“Hundred and sixty,” he said in the face of their doubt and envy, “and he calls me Pop.”

All the same he was more .gratified than he should have been when he came home from work to find Little Art and Winston at it again. Little Art had the Britannica on his lap and he was barking at Winston:

“Who was at the Diet of Worms.”

Winston made a couple of stabs at it and subsided in embarrassment.

“Hey Pop, you been rooked.”

Artie said weakly, “Lay off, kid.”

“Hundred and sixty and he don’t even know who was at the Diet of Worms.”

Winston looked at his hands apologetically. “I’m bwand new.”

“Well you just find out, kid. It’s your business to know.”

Edna swept Winston to her bosom, noting uncomfortably that he was all knees and elbows. “You just lay off him.”

Winston dug his chin in her shoulder. “I want my diddy,” Winston said.

Even Edna had to admit Winston was too intelligent to hang onto a silly piece of blanket, it didn’t look good, and so she had Winston help her wrap up his diddy and put it away, and then they sent him up to his room to learn all he could about Weimeraner dogs and when he came out Artie got into a rage because he hadn’t learned a thing about Weimeraners even though he had the whole V volume of the Britannica to look it up in because never mind what the wise kid kept trying to tell them, Artie knew it was spelled just like it sounds.

And as if he hadn’t learned his lesson Winston had the nerve to dispute Artie over a point of steamfitting, the thing Artie knew best, and when they looked it up it turned out Winston was right. Then Little Artie wanted Winston to leg-wrestle, and expensive as Winston was, Artie let him because he, Artie, was the head of the family and if Winston was going to live with the Wazikis he was going to have to shape up.

The next day Edna had her bridge group and she dressed Winston in his pale tan romper suit, the one with the bunny-rabbit on the pocket, and she propped him up with his pocket Spinoza and the ladies all made a terrific fuss over him, chucking his chm and feeding him fudge and making him recite until finally he got nervous or something and he threw up right on the cretonne slipcover, Edna’s favorite. She cleaned up the mess and brought him back in his blue romper suit but he wasn’t so much of a hit after that.

“Isn’t he kind of sensitive?” Maud Wilson said.