Joyce stood up indignantly. "Well! And don't call me 'Grammy!' It makes me sound as old as that old goat over there!" She glared malignantly at Grampa. "If you'd rather have that blob than me—well!" She swept grandly out of the central cabin and into one of the private rooms that opened out from it.
"Fweep?" asked the blob.
"Sure," Four said. "Go ahead, fweep—I mean sweep."
Swiftly the sphere rolled across the floor. Behind it was left a narrow path of sparkling clean tile.
Grampa glanced warily at Joyce's door to make sure it was completely closed and then cocked a white eyebrow at Reba. "Good for you, Reba!" he said admiringly. "For forty years now, I've wanted to do that. Never had the nerve."
"Why, thanks, Grampa," Reba said, surprised.
"I like you, gal. Never forget it."
"I like you, too, Grampa. If you'd been a few years younger, Junior would have had competition!"
"You bet he would!" Grampa leaned back and cackled. Then he leaned over confidentially toward Reba and whispered, "Beats me why you ever married a jerk like Junior, anyhow."
Reba looked thoughtfully toward the airlock door. "Maybe I saw something in him nobody else saw, the man he might become. He's been submerged in this family too long; he's still a child to all of you and to himself, too." Reba smiled at Grampa brilliantly. "And maybe I thought he might grow into a man like his grandfather."