[Illustration]
"Get away from me!" screamed Dr. Berry at the approaching figure.
"But Ah got to feed an' water the animals an' clean out the cages,"
drawled the lanky, eighteen-year-old boy amiably.
"Get out of this laboratory, you hoodoo," shrilled Berry, "or I swear
I'll kill you! I'll not give you the chance to do me in!"
Tow-headed Dolliver Wims regarded chubby Dr. Berry with his innocent
green eyes. "Ah don't know why y'all fuss at me like you do," he
complained in aggrieved tones.
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHY!" shrieked two hundred and eighteen pounds of
outraged Dr. Berry. "How _dare_ you stand there and say you don't know
why?" Berry flung a pudgy hand within an inch of Wims' nose. Slashed
across the back of it, like frozen lightning, was a new, jagged scar.
"That's why!" he shouted. Berry twisted his head into profile, thrust it
at Wims and pointed to a slightly truncated ear lobe. "And that's why!"
he roared. He yanked up a trouser leg, revealing a finely pitted patch
of skin. "And also why!" he yelled. He paused to snatch a breath and
glared at the boy. "And if I weren't so modest I'd show you another
why!"
"Kin Ah help it if you're always havin' accidents?" Wims replied with a
shrug.
Berry turned a deeper red and a dangerous rumble issued from his throat,
as if he were a volcano threatening to erupt. Then quite suddenly, with
an obvious effort, he capped his seething anger and subsided somewhat.
Through taut lips he said, "I'm not going to stand here and argue with
you, Wims; just get out."
"But the animals--"
"You can come back in an hour when I've finished running these rats
through the maze."
"But--"
"I SAID OUT!" Berry leaped at Wims with arms outthrust, intending to
push him toward the door, but Wims had stepped aside in slight alarm and
the avalanche of meat plunged past and into a bench on which rested a
huge, multilevel glass maze which was a shopping-center model being
tested to determine a design that would subliminally compel shoppers
into bankruptcy. There was a sustained and magnificent tinkling crash as
if a Chinese wind-chime factory was entertaining a typhoon. Berry
skidded on the shards into a bank of wooden cages and went down in a
splintering welter of escaping chimpanzees, Wistar albino rats, ocelots
and other assorted fauna.
Wims moved forward to help extricate the stunned Dr. Berry from the
Everest of debris in which he sat immersed.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Berry screeched.
"O.K.," Wims said, retreating, "but Ah guess y'all gonna blame me fer
this, too."
Berry's mouth worked convulsively in sheer rage but he had no words left
to contain it. He put his head on his knees and sobbed.
The other psychologists of the research division came crowding into the
laboratory to seek the cause of all the tumult.
"What happened?" Dr. Wilholm inquired.
"Well, Doc Berry has gone an' riled hisself into 'nuther accident," Wims
informed him.
"I suppose you had nothing to do with it," Wilholm snapped.
"Cain't rightly say Ah had. He worked it out all by hisself."
"Just like the rest of us, I suppose," Wilholm said with unconcealed
hostility.
"Well now y'all mention it, Doc, Ah ain't nevah seen sich a collection
o' slip-fingered folk. Always bustin' either their gear or theirselves."
"Listen, you--"
"Now lookit Doc Castle up on top o' that lockah. He's gonna bust a leg
if he don't quit foolin' with that critter."
Wilholm turned to see Dr. Castle up near the ceiling trying to get at a
chimpanzee perched just out of reach on a steam pipe. "Castle, are you
crazy?" he cried. "Get down from there before you hurt yourself."
"But I've got to get Zsa Zsa into a cage before one of the cats gets
her," Castle protested. Just then an ocelot leaped for Zsa Zsa and she
leaped for Dr. Castle who promptly lost his balance and plummeted toward
Dr. Wilholm who foolishly tried to catch him. They all crashed to the
floor and lay stunned for some moments. Castle attempted to rise but he
sank back almost immediately with a grimace of pain. "I think my leg is
broken," he announced.
"Well Ah tole you," Wims said. "Ain't that so, Dr. Wilholm?"
Wilholm attempted to hurl Zsa Zsa at Wims but found to his surprise he
could only wriggle his fingers. The effort sent little slivers of pain
slicing through his back.
By this time the laboratory was resounding with the fury of a riot sale
in a bargain basement. Sounds of destruction, counterpointed with cries
of pain and imprecations increased as the staff pursued maddeningly
elusive animals through a growing jungle of toppled and overturning
equipment. At the far end there was a shower of sparks and a flash of
flame as something furry plunged into a network of wires and vacuum
tubes.
* * * * *
Two hours later, Dr. Titus, the division chief, strolled in just as the
firemen quenched the last stubborn flames. He surveyed the nearly total
ruin of the laboratory. "Really!" he said to a thickly bandaged Dr.
Berry who was attempting to rescue an undamaged electroencephalograph
from a gleeful fireman's ax, "can't you test your hypothesis without
being so untidy?"
Dr. Berry whirled and struck Dr. Titus.
"Of course you know what this means," Titus said calmly, rubbing his
jaw. "I'll just have to have a closer look at your Rorschach."
"You can just go take a closer look," Berry snarled.
"Now, now," Titus said soothingly, "why don't we just go to my office
and find out what is disturbing us? Hm-m-m?"
The ax came down on the encephalograph and Berry burst into tears and
allowed Titus to lead him away.
Titus seated himself at his desk and waited for the sobbing Berry to
subside. "That's it," he said unctuously, "let's just get it right out
of our systems, shall we? Hm-m-m?"
Berry stopped in mid-sob and became all tiger again. "Stop talking to me
as if I were a schizo!" he roared.
"Now, now, we are not going to become hostile all over again are we?
Hm-m-m?"
"Hm-m-m all you want to, Titus, but you'll change your tune soon enough
when you hear what happened. It was no band-aid brouhaha this time. I've
warned you time and again about Wims and you've chosen to treat the
matter as airily as possible--almost to the point of being elfin.
However, the casualty list ought to bring you back down to earth." Berry
ticked off the names on his fingers: "Dr. Wilholm hospitalized with a
broken back; Dr. Castle, a broken leg; Dr. Angelillo, Dr. Bernstein, Dr.
Maranos and four lab technicians severely burned; Dr. Grossblatt and two
assistants, badly clawed; Dr. Cahill, clawed and burned; and no one
knows what's wrong with Dr. Zimmerman. He's locked himself in the broom
closet and refuses to come out. Twelve other people will be out a day or
two with minor injuries, including your secretary who was pursued by
Elvira, the orangutan, and is now being treated for shock."