A shocked silence fell over the room. It was as though a comrade had
stepped up to Malenkov and politely explained that he refused to
share his potato crop with the proletariat. A.P. narrowed his eyes
thoughtfully.
"In that case," he said slowly, "I suppose I will have to report you
to the authorities for child neglect. You realize, of course, there
will be unprecedented publicity. By noon tomorrow I expect to have
world-wide coverage. You will be social lepers wherever you go."
"Oh dear!" Ginny whimpered. "What'll we do, Lester?"
"You have exactly thirty seconds to make up your mind," A.P. said. "I
have to get on with business."
* * * * *
At this tense moment, the uniformed blonde entered the room with a
fresh bottle in her hand. She proceeded to the crib and leaned down to
A.P.
"Your new formula, sir," she said throatily.
Up to this point, Ginny had been a mere observer, looking on with dazed
bewilderment. Now, however, at the sight of the sultry blonde, a glint
that looked like militant and usurped maternalism flared in her eyes;
something deep and primitive came swiftly to the surface. With a small,
angry cry she strode forward and snatched the bottle from the blonde's
hand.
"At least I can feed my own baby!" she cried, "even if he is a
monster!" Leaning down to the crib, she picked A.P. up and settled him
into the crook of her arm. "This is a lot of nonsense! All of it!"
"Put me down!" A.P. commanded with displaced dignity. "Let go of me!"
The blonde bristled with professional outrage. "Give me that child!"
she snapped. She took hold of A.P.'s arm. "I'm being paid a thousand
dollars a month to administer his feedings, and I'm going to earn my
money!"
"You're overpaid!" Ginny said hotly, hugging A.P. to herself. "A
thousand dollars to feed a baby!"
"Put me down!" A.P. wheezed as the nurse made another grab for him.
"Both of you!"
The telephone rang sharply, and the young man ran to it.
"You be quiet!" Ginny told A.P. sternly. "Don't talk back to your
mother!"
"That's right!" Lester said, striding forward. "Or your father, either!"
"I'll report you!" A.P. yelled. "I'll tell the authorities!"
The nurse pulled at A.P. violently. "Give him to me!" she cried.
"Put me down this instant!" A.P. insisted. "I demand it!"
Lester shook a finger under the nurse's nose. "You let go of him!" he
thundered. He took hold of A.P.'s chubby leg. "He's ours!"
The young man darted forward frantically with the phone. "It's Evans
of Tantamount Publications!" he yelled above the uproar. He grasped
A.P.'s head and jammed it next to the receiver. "He's ready to close
the deal!"
"Put me down!" A.P. shrilled into the phone. "Let go of me, all of
you!"
"Give him back!" Ginny hissed at the nurse. "You get out of my house!"
"He's my responsibility, I guess," the nurse shot back, pulling harder.
"I'm getting paid for this!"
"Not to rip my leg off, you're not!" A.P. screamed.
"Evans wants an answer, A.P.!" The young man hollered. "Say something!"
* * * * *
While this murky atmosphere seethed and thickened inside the nursery,
the sun shone brightly outside, and the distant heavens were blue. They
were blue, that is, except to a single and very remote blemish. In the
timeless and vapored regions of Heaven's own dispatching department
there lay a distinct cloudiness that emanated mainly from the dismayed
faces of those two enterprising and well-intentioned angels, Mac and
Haywood.
"Good grief, Haywood!" Mac gasped, gazing down hauntedly through
the mists of time, "they're yankin' the little bugger apart! It's
disgraceful!"
"Yes, I know," Haywood said worriedly. "The whole affair is
disgraceful. I shudder to think what will happen to us when it comes
to light in the higher echelons."
"We only wanted to do something nice," Mac said sadly. "How was we to
know the kid was going to be a stinkin' genius?"
"The unknown element," Haywood sighed heavily. "The Higher Source. Even
angels can be wrong when they take authority into their own hands."
"Who'd have thought a little baby could turn out to be such a rat?"
"He's not a rat," Haywood said. "It's just that too much knowledge was
given to him all at once and he didn't know how to use it properly. It
only proves again that humans can only learn through experience. We've
made a tragic mistake, Mac."
"And it's getting tragic-er by the minute," Mac said hollowly. "If that
kid gets hold of the world.... What'll they do to us, Haywood?"
"I hesitate to even put it into words," Haywood murmured.
"The way that kid's organized," Mac said, "he's a cinch to be a
world-wide scandal by sunset. Ain't there nothing we can do to stop it?"
"I've been trying to think of something," Haywood said.
Mac looked at him hopefully. "Give it everything you've got, Haywood,"
he said. "You've got the brains."
Slowly, Haywood began to drum his fingers on a nearby cloud bank....
* * * * *
At the focal point of this heavenly concern, A.P. finally managed to
raise his voice above the angry din that raged about him. His small
voice piped like a penny whistle.
"Stop clutching at me!" he shrieked. "My diaper is coming loose!"
The clutching however, did not stop, nor did the yanking, hauling,
and pulling. Slowly, the diaper slithered loose from A.P.'s pudgy
mid-section and dropped to the floor. The future dictator of the world
blushed furiously.
"Stop!" he yelled. "For heaven's sake!"
After a moment, the fact that they had literally snatched the poor
infant naked finally penetrated the minds of the struggling group.
There was a sudden shame-faced silence.
"Well!" A.P. said indignantly, "the least you could do is turn me
over. Now, unhand me, the lot of you, before I really lose my temper!"
Under this threat, all concerned acted almost as though under a
hypnotic command. Simultaneously, everyone withdrew their support. All
hands, so to speak, returned from active combat. The obvious, though
unforeseen, result followed swiftly and shockingly; A.P. dropped to
the floor, meeting its polished surface with the back of his head and a
dull, ominous thud.
There was a sudden communal gasp, then horrified silence. Ginny was the
first to recover her voice.
"He's dropped!" she said in a ghastly whisper. "On his head!"
"He told us to let go of him," the nurse said.
"He didn't mean all of us," a distinguished grey-haired gentleman said.
"I should have realized it."
"It was as though my hand was taken away," Lester said wonderingly.
Ginny stooped down and took A.P. gently in her arms. As she
straightened, the small form stirred and opened his eyes.
"He's all right, isn't he?" a voice asked hopefully.
Slowly, A.P.'s head lolled heavily to the side. In his eyes there was
a totally new expression, or, rather, a new lack of expression. The
young man with the glasses held the telephone forward.
"Evans is still waiting for an answer, A.P.," he said.
A.P.'s gaze seemed to penetrate the telephone and go beyond it. His
lips parted with a slack toothlessness that had not before been
apparent. Suddenly he began to cry, and his voice raised in a thin,
distinctly babyish howl.
"Oh, no!" the young man whispered, and the telephone slowly slipped
from his hand.
* * * * *
Six years later, in another house and another suburb, where there was
no Mrs. Hilliard next door and their child was known merely as 'little
Freddie Holmes,' Lester and Ginny lived in quiet obscurity. If there
were those in the world who remembered the formidable A.P. they
never mentioned it publicly, presumably loathe to admit that they had
ever placed themselves at the command of a mere infant. Now, shifting
uneasily in his chair, Lester looked up worriedly as Ginny returned
from the hallway. He watched as she moved toward him and placed a hand
gently on his shoulder.
"It's all right," Ginny said. "He's only listening to the music on the
radio."
"That's good," Lester sighed. "He can't learn much from that."
"We're both far too edgy about Freddie, dear," Ginny said. "After all,
he really hasn't shown any signs of dominating--not really since the
beginning."
"I know," Lester said, "but what about this?" He held up the offending
class paper. "I still think this tendency to get 'excellents' is
dangerous."
"I know, dear," Ginny said, "but the doctors all said he was perfectly
normal for a child of his intelligence." She patted his shoulder
consolingly. "He's just bright, that's all, and we mustn't worry about
it so much."
Lester nodded wearily. "I suppose not," he said. With a sigh, he
dropped the paper to the floor.
Outside, in the dark and distant heavens, ever so faintly, the sigh was
echoed in duplicate.