"That's a lie!"
Elwood lowered his eyes and saw that both of his children were now as close to him as they could ever be. Mary Anne was tugging at his sleeve, begging him to take her part, and Melvin was appealing to him in man-to-man fashion, his contemptuous masculinity acting as a foil to his sister's feminine wiles.
It was a grave crisis and Elwood recognized it as such. Ordinarily he would have shunned a cut-and-dried solution but for once he had no choice.
When children fall out, when you are backed into a corner and your authority totters, there is only one sure way to save yourself—Occupy their minds with something else.
"You're spoiling the surprise, kiddies," Elwood said, striving to sound embittered. "It's been a lonesome hard day for me but I kept telling myself you'd soon be home to share my triumph. I suppose I shouldn't say this—but your mother just doesn't understand me the way you do."
"What is it, daddy?" Mary Anne asked, a sudden warm solicitude in her gaze.
"Yeah, Pop, tell us!" Melvin chimed in.
"The rocket is just about completed," Elwood said.
He felt Mary Anne's hand tighten on his sleeve and realised with elation that she was a scientist's daughter to her fingertips. He was gratified quite as much by the sudden hiss of Melvin's indrawn breath.