“End of the line!” Mr. Cooper sang out gaily. “Everyone out!”
As Mrs. Kenton was helped out by her husband, she exclaimed in a shocked tone, “Goodness! The house is made of glass! We won’t have any privacy!”
“It’s not glass—it’s strong plastic like that in the main buildings,” Dr. Kenton explained.
“And as for privacy, Mrs. Kenton, you’ll have that,” Mr. Cooper said. “There’s a diffusing light inside the walls that makes them solid-looking when you turn on certain lights.”
“I’m glad to hear that!” Mrs. Kenton said with relief.
As Mr. Cooper led them over a few feet of ground from the waterway to the house, Ted, who had been noticing the queer fixtures atop the building, asked, “What are those things up there, Mr. Cooper?”
“The network of rods and wires are the television antenna,” was the reply. “That shiny disk on a pole that looks like an oversized dinner plate is your solar mirror.”
Jill wanted to know what the solar mirror was.
“It collects the energy from the sun,” Mr. Cooper answered patiently. “That energy in turn is what runs the generator in your home and gives you electric power.”
While these explanations were going on, Randy stood fidgeting. All this was old stuff to him, and the explanations seemed to bore him.