The Ugly Little Boy

And all he could say was, "That's all right. Don't mention it, Miss Fellowes."

It became a settled routine. Jerry returned three days later, and four days after that. The second visit lasted as long as the first; the third one was extended to two hours, and that remained the rule thereafter.

There was no repetition of the staring and shoving of the first visit. The two boys eyed each other a little fretfully when Jerry-without either of his parents-was brought through the Stasis barrier the second time; but Miss Fellowes quickly said, "Here's your friend Jerry again, Timmie," and Timmie nodded in acknowledgment of Jerry's presence without any show of hostility. He was starting to accept Jerry as a fact of life in the bubble, like the visits of the anthropologists or the tests administered by Dr. Jacobs.

"Say hello, Timmie."

"Hello."

"Jerry?"

"Hello, Timmie."

"Now you say, 'Hello, Jerry,' why don't you, Timmie?"

A pause. "Hello, Jerry."

"Hello, Timmie."

"Hello, Jerry." v

"Hello, Timmie."

"Hello, Jerry-"

They wouldn't stop. It had become a game. They were both laughing. Miss Fellowes felt relief flooding her spirit. Children who could be silly together were children who weren't likely to start punching each other the moment she turned her back on them. Children who made each other laugh weren't going to hate each other.

"Hello, Timmie."

"Hello, Jerry."

"Hello-"

And another thing. Jerry didn't seem to be having any trouble understanding what Timmie was saying. Not that "Hello, Jerry" was a particularly complicated series of sounds, but plenty of adult visitors to the dollhouse had failed completely to comprehend even a syllable of Tim-mie's speech. Jerry didn't have an adult's preconceptions about enunciation and pronunciation, though. Timmie*s thick-tongued ma

"Would you like to play with the blocks again?" Miss Fellowes asked.

Enthusiastic nods. She brought them in from the other room and dumped them on the floor.

Quickly the boys divided them once again into approximately equal heaps. Each went swiftly to work on his own heap. But this time there was no retreating to opposite ends of the room. They worked side by side, in silence, neither one paying any great attention to what the other was doing but having no problem with the other one's proximity.

Good. Good.

What wasn't so good was the fact that the division of the blocks hadn't been quite as equal as Miss Fellowes had thought at first glance. Jerry had appropriated considerably more than half of them-close to two thirds, as a matter of fact. He was rapidly arranging them into the pyramid shape again, carrying out the construction more easily now that he had a greater supply of building material.

As for Timmie, he was working on some kind of X-shaped pattern, but he didn't quite have enough blocks to make his design turn out properly. Miss Fellowes saw him glance thoughtfully at Jerry's pile of blocks, and got herself ready to intervene in case a squabble began. But Timmie didn't actually reach across to help himself to any of Jerry's blocks; he contented himself simply with staring at them.

A laudable sign of self-restraint? The politeness of the well-bred child toward his guest?

Or was there something more worrisome in Timmie's reluctance to take blocks away from Jerry? One thing that Timmie wasn 't was well-bred. Miss Fellowes had no illusions about that. She had trained him with all her skill and diligence to be courteous and deferential; but nevertheless it was folly to believe that Timmie was any model of deportment. What he was was the child of a primitive society where ma

If Timmie wasn't reaching out to take the blocks from Jerry-his blocks, after all-that he wanted, the reason probably wasn't that he was such a nice litde boy, but simply that he was intimidated by Jerry. Afraid to reach out and help himself to the blocks the way any boy might be expected to do.

Had that single shove at the first visit so cowed Timmie?

Or was it something else-something deeper, something darker, something lost in the forgotten history of the human race's earliest days?

Early one evening after Timmie had gone to his room, the telephone rang and the switchboard voice said, "Miss Fellowes, I have a call for you from Bruce Ma

She raised her eyebrows. Ma

"Yes, Mr. Ma

"Fine, Miss Fellowes, just fine. -Dr. Hoskins tells me that Timmie finally has the playmate he needs."

"So he does. Dr. Hoskins' own son, as a matter of fact."

"Yes. I know that. We all think it was perfectly splendid of Dr. Hoskins to do that. -And how is everything working out, would you say?"

Miss Fellowes hesitated. "Quite well, actually."

"The boys are getting along with each other?"

"Of course they are. There was the usual little edgi-ness at first-more on Jerry's part than Timmie's, I have to say; Timmie took to Jerry very readily, even though he'd never seen a child his own age of our kind before."

"But Jerry? Confronted with a Neanderthal, he didn't react so well?"

"I don't know whether Timmie's being a Neanderthal had anything to do with it, Mr. Ma

"Glad to hear it," Ma

"He's doing very well, yes."

There was a pause. She hoped the children's advocate wasn't leading up to telling her that he had wangled permission to pay another call on the dollhouse so that he could check up on Timmie's new friendship. Timmie didn't need any more visitors than he already had; and Miss Fellowes was wary of having an outsider like Ma

But Ma

"That's very kind of you."

"The boy's been put through a very frightening experience and he's made a wonderful adaptation-so far. Much of the credit for that must go to you."

(What did he mean, so far?)

— "We'd much rather have preferred it, of course, that Timmie had been left to live out his natural life among his own people," Ma

"That's very kind of you," Miss Fellowes said again, more lamely than before. She had never cared much for praise; and Ma

"And Dr. Levien feels the same way that I do."

"Ah," said Miss Fellowes. "Yes." And, coolly, stiffly: "That's-very good to hear."

"I'd like to give you my number," Ma

(Why?)

"I can always reach you through Dr. Hoskins," Miss Fellowes replied.

"Yes, of course. But a time might come when you'd want to reach me more directly."

(Why? Why? What is this all about?)

"Well, perhaps-"

"I feel that you and I are natural allies in this enterprise, Miss Fellowes. The one thing we have at heart, above all else, is Timmie's welfare. However we may feel about child-care techniques, about politics, about anything in the world, we both are concerned with Timmie. Deeply so. And therefore if you need to talk to me about Timmie's welfare, if any changes take place in the setup at Stasis Technologies that might have an unfavorable impact on Timmie's existence there-"

(Ah. You want me to be a spy for you.)

"I'm sure that everything's going to keep on going very smoothly, Mr. Ma

"Of course it will. Of course. But all the same-"

He gave her the number. She wrote it down, not knowing why.

Just in case, Miss Fellowes told herself.

In case of what?

"Is Jerry coining again today, Miss Fellowes?" Tim-mie asked.

"Tomorrow."

The boy's disappointment was all too obvious. His round face dissolved into wrinkles, his jutting brow knotted in a frown. "Why not today?"

"Today isn't Jerry's day, Timmie. Jerry has-a place to go today."

"What place?"

"A place," she said, being deliberately vague. How could she describe kindergarten to him? What would Timmie think, knowing that other children, many of them, came together to play games, to chase each other in laughter around a schoolyard, to daub pieces of paper with gloriously gooey fingerpaints. "Jerry'11 be here tomorrow,"

"I wish he could come every day."

"So do I," Miss Fellowes said.