"And now, children," said Miss Hippiness, her smile shooting deep wrinkles across her face like the cracks up the scarred sides of the ancient, empty sky-scrapers of New York.
The twelve children in the cozy classroom came to attention. It was not her words, it was the tone, the creaking smile.
"And now, children," said Miss Hippiness again, sitting down on the old-fashioned straight chair she affected, "have you all put away your atomic blocks?"
"Yes, teacher," came the chorus of sweet young voices.
"Your electronic jackstraws? Your pencil-mnestics?"
"Yes, teacher."
"And have you all put the pretty little activator pills in your mouths?"
They nodded. Miss Hippiness raised her hand for silence.
"Thirty dear, dear seconds, children," she said.
A sigh of pleasure suddenly smoked up from the twelve young faces as the pills took effect, and they remembered. Poor little darlings, to be so terribly fooled, said Miss Hippiness to herself.