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?"
Ronnie tried to keep his legs from shaking. "It was--Daddy, you won't
make trouble, will you?"
"This is between you and me, son. We don't care about anyone else."
"Well, it was Kenny Davis. He--"
Dad's fingers tightened on Ronnie's arms. "Kenny Davis!" he spat. "The
boy's no good. His father never had a job in his life. Nobody'd even
offer him a job. Why, the whole town knows he's a Reader!"
Mom stepped forward. "David, you promised you'd be sensible about this.
You promised you wouldn't get angry."