juvenile delinquent
BY EDWARD W. LUDWIG
When everything is either restricted,
confidential or top-secret, a Reader
is a very bad security risk.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Tick-de-tock, tick-de-tock, whispered the antique clock on the firstfloor of the house.
There was no sound save for the ticking—and for the pounding ofRonnie's heart.
He stood alone in his upstairs bedroom. His slender-boned,eight-year-old body trembling, perspiration glittering on his whiteforehead.
To Ronnie, the clock seemed to be saying:
Daddy's coming, Daddy's coming.
The soft shadows of September twilight in this year of 2056 wereseeping into the bedroom. Ronnie welcomed the fall of darkness. Hewanted to sink into its deep silence, to become one with it, to escapeforever from savage tongues and angry eyes.
A burst of hope entered Ronnie's fear-filled eyes. Maybe somethingwould happen. Maybe Dad would have an accident. Maybe—
He bit his lip hard, shook his head. No. No matter what Dad might do,it wasn't right to wish—
The whirling whine of a gyro-car mushroomed up from the landingplatform outside.
Ronnie shivered, his pulse quickening. The muscles in his small bodywere like a web of taut-drawn wires.
Sound and movement below. Mom flicking off the controls of thekitchen's Auto-Chef. The slow stride of her high heels through theliving room. The slamming of a gyro-car door. The opening of the frontdoor of the house.
Dad's deep, happy voice echoed up the stairway:
"Hi, beautiful!"
Ronnie huddled in the darkness by the half-open bedroom door.
Please, Mama, his mind cried, please don't tell Daddy what I did.
There was a droning, indistinct murmur.
Dad burst, "He was doing what?"
More murmuring.
"I can't believe it. You really saw him?... I'll be damned."
Ronnie silently closed the bedroom door.
Why did you tell him, Mama? Why did you have to tell him?
"Ronnie!" Dad called.
Ronnie held his breath. His legs seemed as numb and nerveless as thestumps of dead trees.
"Ronnie! Come down here!"
Like an automaton, Ronnie shuffled out of his bedroom. He steppedon the big silver disk on the landing. The auto-stairs clicked intohumming movement under his weight.
To his left, on the wall, he caught kaleidoscopic glimpses of Mom's oldpictures, copies of paintings by medieval artists like Rembrandt, VanGogh, Cezanne, Dali. The faces seemed to be mocking him. Ronnie feltlike a wounded bird falling out of the sky.
He saw that Dad and Mom were waiting for him.
Mom's round blue eyes were full of mist and sadness. She hadn'tbothered to smooth her clipped, creamy-brown hair as she always didwhen Dad was coming home.
And Dad, handsome in his night-black, skin-tight Pentagon uniform, hadbecome a hostile stranger with narrowed eyes of black fire.
"Is it true, Ronnie?" asked Dad. "Were you really—really reading abook?"
Ronnie gulped. He nodded.
"Good Lord," Dad murmured. He took a deep breath and squatted down,held Ronnie's arms and looked hard into his eyes. For an instant hebecame the kind, understanding father that Ronnie knew.
"Tell me all about it, son. Where did you get the book? Who taught yout