"Did they teach you how to change the atoms of your body so that you could pass through a solid metal wall?" Ned asked, framing the question very carefully.
"Shucks, it was nothing like that!" Tommy said. "They just told me that if I forgot about walls I could go anywhere."
"And you believed them!"
Suddenly Cynthia was laughing. Her laughter rang out wild and uncontrollable in the pilot-room.
"He believed them, Ned! He believed them!"
Ned went up to her and took her by the shoulders and shook her.
Tommy looked shamefaced. He shuffled his feet, ill at ease in the presence of adult hysteria.
"I've got to go now!" he stammered. "Mom will be awful mad if I'm late for dinner again."
"You are late, Tommy!" Cynthia said. "The joke's on you. We just had dinner with your parents in a house Ned claims wasn't built by human hands."
She laughed wildly. "Your parents are sensible people, though. They didn't even try to walk through the kitchen wall."