"Ma!"
"There's someone at the door, Timmy. If it's a salesman—!"
Mrs. Briggs checked the dials on the electrocooker as she went to the door. A small but efficient-looking woman in the standard white and blue of school uniforms had alighted from her g-car and stood at the door.
The woman said she was Bernice Pomeroy from the office of the director of Timmy's public school and Mrs. Briggs, scarcely glancing at her offered identification card, pushed for mezzanine. The woman said nothing; she merely waited until the floor came down hydraulically to mez level. Then Mrs. Briggs ran the magnetic curtains around, and when they were private she saw that the woman was sitting on one of the soft lounge cushions, straight-backed, adjusting her glasses on the small bridge of her nose. She drew a sheaf of papers from her portfolio.
"Mrs. Briggs," Miss Pomeroy said, looking up with officious grey eyes. Then she saw Timmy. "Timmy, I suppose."
"Yes." Mrs. Briggs wished she'd get on with it. It was hard enough leaving Admiral Nelson at the mouth of the Nile, without having her settling down as if for all day.
"Maybe it would be best," Miss Pomeroy coughed a little, "if Timmy—"
"If Timmy what?"
"It's about him, you see."
"I'll send him to the Elroom."