Fred's mother picked up a sandwich. She started to raise it to her mouth. She was smiling at Curt and about to say something to him. Both Curt and Fred were watching her.
Abruptly she wasn't there. The sandwich seemed to remain stationary for a long second. Then it dropped to the tablecloth.
Curt was holding a paper cup filled with hot coffee. His hand constricted. The cup collapsed, spilling steaming coffee over his legs.
Fred stared at the space his mother had just occupied. Abruptly he squawked, "No!" He turned accusing eyes on Curt. "You told her!"
Something seemed to go out of the man. He seemed to become visibly smaller. "Yes," he whispered, "I told her."
Fred was crying. "But you shouldn't have," he sobbed. "I told you because I wanted you to vanish. I didn't want her to, and now she has. And nothing happened that I could use."
Curt blinked at him, absorbing this new bit of information. "You wanted me to vanish?" he echoed. "Yes, I can see that now. I didn't know. It seemed too absurd. I thought you were just imagining things. Yes, I went out while you were at school and spent the whole morning teaching her every step. It was fairly easy. We had planned on coaxing you to explain it to her. Knowing it ahead of time she could pretend to grasp it that much more easily. We were planning on coaxing you into a more social relationship. Actually, she had already read the theory in your father's book she was reading for the publisher." A glassy look came into his eyes. "The book. If the theory is at the root of the disappearances the book shouldn't be published. Yes, by God. That's what your father was driving at. Your mother told me the publisher had told her your father tried to get him not to publish it."
"The book has the theory in it?" Fred said. "It mustn't get published. Why—thousands of people would read it and vanish. We've got to stop them!"
Curt was shaking his head in bewilderment. "But we can't be sure. It must be something else, though what I don't know."
"No," Fred said bitterly.