like an automaton, ronnie shuffled out of his bedroom. he stepped on the big silver disk on the landing. the auto-stairs clicked into humming movement under his weight.

to his left, on the wall, he caught kaleidoscopic glimpses of mom's old pictures, copies of paintings by medieval artists like rembrandt, van gogh, cezanne, dali. the faces seemed to be mocking him. ronnie felt like 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't bothered to smooth her clipped, creamy-brown hair as she always did when dad was coming home.

and dad, handsome in his night-black, skin-tight pentagon uniform, had become a hostile stranger with narrowed eyes of black fire.

"is it true, ronnie?" asked dad. "were you really—really reading a book?"

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 he became the kind, understanding father that ronnie knew.

"tell me all about it, son. where did you get the book? who taught you to read?"

ronnie tried to keep his legs from shaking. "it was—daddy, you won't make trouble, will you?"

"this is between you and me, son. we don't care about anyone else."

"well, it was kenny davis. he—"

dad's fingers tightened on ronnie's arms. "kenny davis!" he spat. "the boy's no good. his father never had a job in his life. nobody'd even offer him a job. why, the whole town knows he's a reader!"

mom stepped forward. "david, you promised you'd be sensible about this. you promised you wouldn't get angry."

dad grunted. "all right, son. go ahead."

"well, one day after school kenny said he'd show me something. he took me to his house—"

"you went to that shack? you actually—"

"dear," said mom. "you promised."

a moment of silence.

ronnie said, "he took me to his house. i met his dad. mr. davis is lots of fun. he has a beard and he paints pictures and he's collected almost five hundred books."

ronnie's voice quavered.

"go on," said dad sternly.

"and i—and mr. davis said he'd teach me to read them if i promised not to tell anybody. so he taught me a little every day after school—oh, dad, books are fun to read. they tell you things you can't see on the video or hear on the tapes."

"how long ago did all this start?

"t—two years ago."

dad rose, fists clenched, staring strangely at nothing.

"two years," he breathed. "i thought i had a good son, and yet for two years—" he shook his head unbelievingly. "maybe it's my own fault. maybe i shouldn't have come to this small town. i should have taken a house in washington instead of trying to commute."

"david," said mom, very seriously, almost as if she were praying, "it won't be necessary to have him memory-washed, will it?"

dad looked at mom, frowning. then he gazed at ronnie. his soft-spoken words were as ominous as the low growl of thunder:

"i don't know, edith. i don't know."