We had almost plunged into a hole forty feet across and twenty feet deep in the middle. The hole was perfectly round, like a half section of a grapefruit.
"What's this?" I asked. "Where's the garage?"
"That's where the garage should be." Marge looked dazed. "But it's gone!"
I took another look at that hole scooped out with geometrical precision, and turned to Doreen. "What did you say Elmer was working on?"
"Agg—" she sobbed, "agg—agg—aggravation." She began to bawl in earnest. "Now he's gone. He's mad. He won't ever come back, I betcha."
"That's a fact," I muttered. "He may not have been mad, but he certainly was aggravated. Marge, listen! This is a mystery. We've just got to let it stay a mystery. We don't know anything, understand? The cops will finally decide Elmer blew himself up, and we'll leave it at that. One thing I'm pretty sure about—he's not coming back."
So that's how it was. Tom Kennedy keeps trying and trying to put Elmer's unhappen genii back together again. And every time he fails he takes it out on me because I didn't get to Elmer sooner. But you can see perfectly well he's way off base, trying to make out I could have done a thing to prevent what happened.
Is it my fault if the dumb kid didn't know enough to take the proper precautions when he decided to develop anti-gravitation—and got shot off, garage and all, someplace into outer space?
What do they teach kids nowadays, anyway?