I glanced at the calendar. It was November fifth. "Now, look here, Dave," I said firmly. "You are not going to disillusion the kid like that. He's forgotten all about the silly business. Besides, he's in bed."
"Well, get him up!" said Dave. "Dorrie, get a load of this. The biggest supernova I ever saw just exploded in the North. Get Jackie over here! I want to ask him some questions!"
He meant it. I could tell that he meant it. I ran upstairs and bundled Jackie up in a blanket—I didn't even bother to put his clothes on, just a blanket over his pajamas—and took him down to the Observatory in a taxi.
I wish you could have seen the place. Jackie sitting on a table, in his pajamas, telling Professor Milliken all about Mig and the spaceship and the little sealed capsule and the erling and all the rest of it.
I guess you can imagine what a week we went through. Scientists, and reporters, and psychologists and parapsychologists and just plain debunkers. And the crackpots. Oh yes, the crackpots. And then they dug up the records about Jackie's father.
They couldn't even let the poor man rest quiet in his grave, and when they found out about the Bombing, they talked about hard radiations and mutations until I darn' near went crazy, and Beth had to quit her job.
They even talked about telepathy, just as if Jackie was some kind of a freak. We had to take the poor kid out of kindergarten. He hated that—he was getting so much good out of it. And he enjoyed it so much, having the other children to play with, and painting, and making those cute little baskets, and he'd learned to tell time, and everything.
And then the spaceship landed, and I tell you, we haven't had a minute's peace since.
Oh, that's all right! I was going to call them in for lunch in a few minutes, anyway. "Jackie! Jackie—will you and Mig come in here for a few minutes? A friend of your uncle Dave's wants to talk to you two boys."