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“We’ll take it back to Elmer,” I told Doreen, speaking very carefully. “I’ll give him lots of money to build another. He can come down here and use our shop. We have lots of nice equipment he’d like.”

Doreen tossed her head. “I don’t think he’ll wanta. He’ll be mad at you. Anyway, Elmer is busy working on aggravation now.”

“That’s for sure!” Marge said in heartfelt tones.

“Aggravation, eh?” I grinned like an idiot. “Well, well! I’ll bet he’s good at it. But let’s go see him right away.”

“Bill!” Marge signaled me to one side. “Maybe you’d better not try to see Elmer,” she whispered. “I mean, if he can build a thing like this in his garage, maybe he can build a disintegrator or a paralysis ray or something. There’s no use taking chances.”

“You read too many comics,” I laughed it off. “He’s only a kid, isn’t he? What do you think he is? A superman?”

“Yes,” Marge said flatly.

“Look, Marge!” I said in feverish excitement. “I’ve got to talk to Elmer! I’ve got to get the rights to that TV color lens and this electricity interruptor and anything else he may have developed!”

Marge kept trying to protest, but I simply grabbed her and Doreen and hustled them out to my car. Doreen lived in a wooded, hilly section a little north of White Plains. I made it in ten minutes.

* * * * *

Marge had said Elmer worked in the garage. I kept going up the driveway, swung sharp around the big house–and slammed on the brakes.

Marge screamed.

We skidded to a stop with our front end hanging over what looked like a bomb crater in the middle of the driveway.

I swallowed my heart down again, while I backed away fast.

We had almost plunged into a hole forty feet across and twenty feet deep in the middle. The hole was perfectly round, like a half section of a grapefruit.

“What’s this?” I asked. “Where’s the garage?”

“That’s where the garage should be.” Marge looked dazed. “But it’s gone!”

I took another look at that hole scooped out with geometrical precision, and turned to Doreen. “What did you say Elmer was working on?”

“Agg–” she sobbed, “agg–agg–aggravation.” She began to bawl in earnest. “Now he’s gone. He’s mad. He won’t ever come back, I betcha.”

“That’s a fact,” I muttered. “He may not have been mad, but he certainly was aggravated. Marge, listen! This is a mystery. We’ve just got to let it stay a mystery. We don’t know anything, understand? The cops will finally decide Elmer blew himself up, and we’ll leave it at that. One thing I’m pretty sure about–he’s not coming back.”

* * * * *

So that’s how it was. Tom Kennedy keeps trying and trying to put Elmer’s unhappen genii back together again. And every time he fails he takes it out on me because I didn’t get to Elmer sooner. But you can see perfectly well he’s way off base, trying to make out I could have done a thing to prevent what happened.

Is it my fault if the dumb kid didn’t know enough to take the proper precautions when he decided to develop anti-gravitation–and got shot off, garage and all, someplace into outer space?

What do they teach kids nowadays, anyway?

–ROBERT ARTHUR