Tight-lipped, she went to the refrigerator for the supper.
As soon as we'd sat down, Ashe began to talk. He kept it up through the entire meal. He'd been everywhere and done everything, to hear him tell it. Tommy, listening bug-eyed, kept asking questions. It sort of got me. The hero of the affair, to my own son, was Ashe!
It was Nan who finally blew the whistle.
"Mr. Ashe," she said, her voice honed to a razor-edge, "I'm sure Ted would be much more interested in knowing what led up to the fight tonight—or are you still confused?"
There was a beat of three while he studied Nan carefully. Then he said, "It's quite apparent, Mrs. Potter, that you've absolutely no use for me. This shows discernment. Most likely, with a woman's instinct, you've hit upon at least part of the truth. Because of that, it might be wise to lay all my cards on the table. But I warn you, it will be hard to believe."
"That," said Nan, leaning back with a gleam of triumph in her eyes, "I'll bet on!"
IT WAS hard to believe, all right. So hard, in fact, that I thought he was just pulling Nan's leg.
He said he'd come from another world, outside our solar system, where people existed in a kind of liquid state, bouncing about, for the most part, like large water-filled bladders. They were, however, capable of taking almost any shape their superior minds willed. They could flatten and drift about in the water, or they could inflate and rise in the air. They could even become facsimiles of other living things, taking on the shape, texture and coloration, a capability which aided greatly in their main function of traveling as missionaries of goodness amongst the peoples of the Galaxy. For they were perfect—as perfect as angels.
As he talked, Nan's face got redder and redder. Finally, when I couldn't keep from snickering, she jumped up, grabbed her empty plate and headed for the kitchen.