There was a droning, indistinct murmur.

Dad burst, "He was doing what?"

More murmuring.

"I can't believe it. You really saw him?... I'll be damned."

Ronnie silently closed the bedroom door.

Why did you tell him, Mama? Why did you have to tell him?

"Ronnie!" Dad called.

Ronnie held his breath. His legs seemed as numb and nerveless as the stumps of dead trees.

"Ronnie! Come down here!"

Like an automaton, Ronnie shuffled out of his bedroom. He stepped on the big silver disk on the landing. The auto-stairs clicked into humming movement under his weight.

To his left, on the wall, he caught kaleidoscopic glimpses of Mom's old pictures, copies of paintings by medieval artists like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Dali. The faces seemed to be mocking him. Ronnie felt like a wounded bird falling out of the sky.

He saw that Dad and Mom were waiting for him.

Mom's round blue eyes were full of mist and sadness. She hadn't bothered to smooth her clipped, creamy-brown hair as she always did when Dad was coming home.

And Dad, handsome in his night-black, skin-tight Pentagon uniform, had become a hostile stranger with narrowed eyes of black fire.

"Is it true, Ronnie?" asked Dad. "Were you really—really reading a book?"

Ronnie gulped. He nodded.

"Good Lord," Dad murmured. He took a deep breath and squatted down, held Ronnie's arms and looked hard into his eyes. For an instant he became the kind, understanding father that Ronnie knew.

"Tell me all about it, son. Where did you get the book? Who taught you to read?"

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