Nervously, Bill said, “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to walk around being Mama; it sort of scares me.”

“Sissy,” Edie said. “You better do it or you may never get out ever again. Well, who do you want to be if not Mama? Tell me and I’ll fix it up; I cross my heart and promise to fall down black and hard.”

“I’ll see,” Bill said. “I’ll talk to the dead people and see what they say about it. Anyhow I don’t know if it’ll work; I had trouble getting out into that little thing, that worm.”

“You’re afraid to try,” she laughed; she tossed the worm away, into the bushes at the end of the school grounds. “Sissy! My brother is a big baby sissy!”

There was no answer from Bill; he had turned his thoughts away from her and her world, into the regions which only he could reach. Talking to those old crummy, sticky dead, Edie said to herself. Those empty pooh-pooh dead that never have, any fun or nothing.

And then a really stunning idea came to her. I’ll fix it so he gets out and into that crazy man Mr. Tree who they’re all talking about right now, she decided. Mr. Tree stood up in the Foresters’ Hall last night and said those dumb religious things about repenting, and so if Bill acts funny and doesn’t know what to do or say, nobody will pay any attention.

Yet, that posed the awful problem of her finding herself containing a crazy man. Maybe I could take poison like I’m always saying, she decided. I could swallow a lot of oleander leaves or castor beans or something and get rid of him; he’d be helpless, he couldn’t stop me.

Still, it was a problem; she did not relish the idea of having that Mr. Tree-she had seen him often enough not to like him—inside herself. He had a nice dog, and that was about all…

Terry, the dog. That was it. She could lie down against Terry and Bill could get out and into the dog and everything would be fine.

But dogs had a short life. And Terry was already seven years old; according to her mother and father. He had been born the same time almost as she and Bill.

Darn it, she thought. It’s hard to decide; it’s a real problem, what to do with Bill who wants so bad to get out and see and hear things. And then she thought, Who of all the people I know would I like most to have living inside my stomach? And the answer was: her father.

“You want to walk around as Daddy?” she asked Bill. But Bill did not answer; he was still turned away, conversing with the great majority beneath the ground.

I think, she decided, that Mr. Tree would be the best because he lives out in the country with sheep and doesn’t see too many people, and it would be easier on Bill that way because he wouldn’t have to know very much about talking. He’d just have Terry out there and all the sheep, and then with Mr. Tree being crazy now it’s really perfect. Bill could do a lot better with Mr. Tree’s body than Mr. Tree is doing, I bet, and all I have to worry about really is chewing the right number of poisonous oleander leaves—enough to kill him but not me. Maybe two would do. Three at the most, I guess.

Mr. Tree went crazy at the perfect time, she decided. He doesn’t know it, though. But wait’ll he finds out; won’t he be surprised. I might let him live for a while inside me, just so he’d realize what happened; I think that would be fun. I never liked him, even though Mama does, or says she does. He’s creepy. Edie shuddered.

Poor, poor Mr. Tree, she thought delightedly. You aren’t going to ruin any more meetings at the Foresters’ Hall because where you’ll be you won’t be able to preach to anybody, except maybe to me and I won’t listen.

Where can I do it? she asked herself. Today; I’ll ask Mama to take us out there after school. And if she won’t do it, I’ll hike out there by myself.

I can hardly wait, Edie said to herself, shivering with anticipation.

The bell for class rang, and, together with the other children, she started into the building. Mr. Barnes was waiting at the ‘door of the single classroom which served all the children from first grade to sixth; as she passed him, deep in thought, he said to her, “Why so absorbed; Edie? What’s on your weighty mind today?”

“Well,” she said, halting, “you were for a while. Now it’s Mr. Tree instead.”

“Oh yes,” Mr. Barnes said, nodding. “So you heard about that.”

The other children had passed on in, leaving them alone. So Edie said, “Mr. Barnes, don’t you think you ought to stop doing what you’re doing with my mama? It’s wrong; Bill says so and he knows.”

The school teacher’s face changed color, but he did not speak. Instead he walked away from her, into the room and up to his desk, still darkly flushed. Did I say it wrong? Edie wondered. Is he mad at me now? Maybe he’ll make me stay after, for punishment, and maybe he’ll tell Mama and she’ll spank me.

Feeling discouraged, she seated herself and opened the precious, ragged, fragile, coverless book to the story of Snow White; it was their reading assignment for the day.

Lying in the damp rotting leaves beneath the old live oak trees, in the shadows, Bonny Keller clasped Mr. Barnes to her and thought to herself that this was probably the last time; she was tired of it and Hal was scared, and that, she had learned from long experience, was a fatal combination.

“All right,” she murmured, “so she knows. But she knows on a small child’s level; she has no real understanding.”

“She knows it’s wrong,” Barnes answered.

Bonny sighed.

“Where is she now?” Barnes asked.

“Behind that by tree over there. Watching.”

Hal Barnes sprang to his feet as if stabbed; he whirled around, wide-eyed, then sagged as he comprehended the truth. “You and your malicious wit,” he muttered. But he did not return to her; he stayed on his feet, a short distance off, looking glum and uneasy. “Where is she really?”

“She hiked out to Jack Tree’s sheep ranch.”

“But—” He gestured. “The man’s insane! Won’t he be– well, isn’t it dangerous?”

“She just went out to play with Terry, the verbose canine.” Bonny sat up and began picking bits of humus from her hair. “I don’t think he’s even there. The last time anybody saw Bruno, he—”

“‘Bruno,’” Barnes echoed. He regarded her queerly.

“I mean Jack.” Her heart labored.

“He said the other night something about having been responsible for the high-altitude devices in 1972.” Barnes continued to scrutinize her; she waited, her pulse throbbing in her throat. Well, it was bound to come out sooner or later.

“He’s insane,” she ‘pointed out. “Right? He believes—”

“He believes,” Hal Barnes said, “that he’s Bruno Bluthgeld, isn’t that right?”

Bonny shrugged. “That, among other things.”

“And he is, isn’t he? And Stockstill knows it, you know it—that Negro knows it.”

“No,” she said, “that Negro doesn’t know it, and stop saying ‘that Negro.” His name is Stuart McConchie; I talked to Andrew about him and he says he’s a very fine, intelligent, enthusiastic and alive person.”

Barnes said, “So Doctor Bluthgeld didn’t die in the Emergency. He came here. He’s been ‘here, living among us. The man most responsible for what happened.”

“Go murder him,” Bonny said.

Barnes grunted.

“I mean it,” Bonny said. “I don’t care any more. Frankly I wish you would.” It would be a good manly act, she said to herself. It would be a distinct change.

“Why have you tried to shield a person like that?”

“I don’t know.” She did not care to discuss it. “Let’s go back to town,” she said. His company wearied her and she had begun to think once again about Stuart McConchie. “I’m out of cigarettes,” she said. “So you can drop me off at the cigarette factory.” She walked toward Barnes’ horse, which, tied to a tree, complacently cropped the long grass.

“A darky,” Barnes said, with bitterness. “Now you’re going to shack up with him. That certainly makes me feel swell.”