FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   >>  
n joked back at Curt occasionally, something she had never done with Martin in Fred's memory. Her joking was clumsy and uncertain. Fred laughed uproariously to encourage her and to hide his uncomfortable feeling. "Oh, I haven't felt so good in ages," she said when they were seated around the tablecloth spread with sandwiches and salads and cakes. "It's wonderful getting out like this. We'll have to do it often." "We will," Curt said. "At least once a week." Fred's mother picked up a sandwich. She started to raise it to her mouth. She was smiling at Curt and about to say something to him. Both Curt and Fred were watching her. Abruptly she wasn't there. The sandwich seemed to remain stationary for a long second. Then it dropped to the tablecloth. Curt was holding a paper cup filled with hot coffee. His hand constricted. The cup collapsed, spilling steaming coffee over his legs. Fred stared at the space his mother had just occupied. Abruptly he squawked, "No!" He turned accusing eyes on Curt. "You told her!" Something seemed to go out of the man. He seemed to become visibly smaller. "Yes," he whispered, "I told her." Fred was crying. "But you shouldn't have," he sobbed. "I told you because I wanted you to vanish. I didn't want her to, and now she has. And nothing happened that I could use." Curt blinked at him, absorbing this new bit of information. "You wanted _me_ to vanish?" he echoed. "Yes, I can see that now. I didn't know. It seemed too absurd. I thought you were just imagining things. Yes, I went out while you were at school and spent the whole morning teaching her every step. It was fairly easy. We had planned on coaxing you to explain it to her. Knowing it ahead of time she could pretend to grasp it that much more easily. We were planning on coaxing you into a more social relationship. Actually, she had already read the theory in your father's book she was reading for the publisher." A glassy look came into his eyes. "The book. If the theory is at the root of the disappearances the book shouldn't be published. Yes, by God. That's what your father was driving at. Your mother told me the publisher had told her your father tried to get him not to publish it." "The book has the theory in it?" Fred said. "It mustn't get published. Why--thousands of people would read it and vanish. We've got to stop them!" Curt was shaking his head in bewilderment. "But we can't be sure. It must be something els
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   >>  



Top keywords:

father

 

mother

 

vanish

 

theory

 

sandwich

 

Abruptly

 

coffee

 

coaxing

 
publisher
 
published

shouldn

 
wanted
 

tablecloth

 

pretend

 

Knowing

 
explain
 

planned

 
uncertain
 

relationship

 

Actually


social

 
joking
 

clumsy

 
easily
 

planning

 

fairly

 
absurd
 

thought

 

imagining

 

things


echoed
 

laughed

 
teaching
 

morning

 

information

 

school

 

uproariously

 

Martin

 

thousands

 

people


publish

 

bewilderment

 
shaking
 
driving
 

glassy

 

occasionally

 

reading

 

disappearances

 

memory

 

blinked