“Not a chance,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to take it over for Dad to see.”
“I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way,” his mother said.
“You want to go along, Teena?” Eddie asked.
“What a question,” Teena said. “Sure, I want to go.”
“Eddie,” his mother reminded him, “you can’t go over to school in your swim trunks. Go slip on some denims.”
Eddie hurried to his room and put on some freshly laundered denims. Then, leaving the metal tube still wrapped in the blue jeans, he and Teena started down the street toward the college campus.
Mr. Taylor was waiting for them in front of the nuclear-science building. He seemed strangely excited. Eddie wondered what his mother had said over the telephone.
“Let me take it, son,” Mr. Taylor said, reaching out for the blue jeans in which the metal cylinder was wrapped. He turned to go inside.
“Can we come with you, Dad?” Eddie asked quickly.
“Of course, of course,” his father said over his shoulder. “Come along. If this is anything like your mother said, there’ll be a lot of questions to ask.”