Pete thought he caught something odd--a nearly invisible craft or
knowingness--in the glance they traded.
"You didn't get much for your birthday last week, Pete," his mother
beamed, "so we decided to give you a kind of late birthday party.
You're going to have that picnic on Indian Hill. It'll be an all-day
picnic, with all the youngsters you know, hunting for arrowheads and
relics. We're going in Mr. Fobey's copter."
"Oh boy! Indian Hill! At last!" Then he sobered, thinking of paunchy,
bland-faced, nervous Mr. Fobey.
"Will Fobey bring his air sluice?"
"He says he will."
"All right then. Indian Hill! Whoopee!"
He kissed them, and went larking toward the door but his mother snagged
him.
"I hope you aren't forgetting your chores, young man."
"Yeah--weeding. I don't see why we don't have all ponics, like
everybody else. Gee whiz, can't I skip it just today. It's the next to
the last day for the Hester."
"What's the Hester, for goodness sake?"
"Why, the rocket! The glass rocket!"
She held her son's head between her hands and held her eyes on his.
"Pete, we told you not to go near that rocket. I mean it. Stay ...
away ... from ... it! I know what I'm saying. Stay away from it!"