"Aw!" he said, and let go.
Hi-nin began to breathe again in a violent, choked way.
"Billy," I said, wondering if I could keep myself from simply throwing my son out of the helicopter, "Billy...."
"It is nothing, nice mama," Hi-nin said, still choking.
"Billy." I didn't trust myself to speak any further. I reached around and spanked him until my hand was sore. "If you ever do that again—"
"Waa!" Billy bawled. I'm sure he could be heard quite plainly by the men building the new astronomical station on the Moon.
I put Hi-nin on my lap and kept him there. "That's just Billy's way of making friends," I whispered to him.
Under Billy's leadership, several other children began to cry, and all in all it was not a well-integrated, love-sharing group that I lifted down from the heli at Playplace.
"The children always sense it, don't they," Mrs. Baden said with her gentle smile, "when we don't feel comfortable about a situation?"