Sprague de Camp's New Anthology
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1953
- Язык: английский
- Год: Panther
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Sprague de Camp's New Anthology». Краткое содержание книги:
"Unless Congress decides the State people are all Wolfians in disguise and cuts off our salaries."
Then Mary Greer pulled Alice off to meet a couple more people, and there was a general scrimmage for a while. The other guests, once they had gotten over their initial nervousness towards Stanko, crowded round and plied him with questions:
"How d'you like this lousy Philadelphia climate?" "Have you been to a football game yet?" "Do they have insurance on this planet of yours?" "What do you think of American women?" "Aw, don't embarrass the poor guy, George; he thinks they're inhuman monsters."
"Well, sometimes I think they are, too ..."
The extra-terrestrial responded in his slow way, taking his time for solemnly exact answers. The milling of the party—and some volition on her part—brought Alice back into proximity with Byron Matthews, though she let it seem accidental. This time their discourse got to where he was saying, with more hesitation and evident trepidation than one would expect of a rising young diplomat:
"Uh, I thought maybe while I'm here, uh, maybe we could get together some time. Uh. You know, have dinner out or something."
Alice smiled her best. "That's sweet of you, Byron! Or maybe I could feed you some night? You must get awfully tired of restaurant food."
"I do at that. Do you mean you can cook as well as teach?"
"I should be able to! My folks are Pennsylvania Dutch ..."
The flat mechanical voice of the Wolfian cut in: "Mr. Matthews, I have not yet seen one of your schools in operation. As Miss Wernecke is a teacher, could I perhaps watch her teach?"
"How about it, Alice?" said Matthews.
"Oh, goodness," said Alice. "If Mr. Stanko comes in to one of our classes the kids will be so distracted nothing will be taught, and he won't see what he came for. Suppose I send him up to the High School? He'd find Mr. Lorbeer's science class interesting."
That, she thought, will fix that old goat's wagon. She had good reasons for disliking Mr. Lorbeer. The previous year, when she had been doing her practice teaching at the Lowland Avenue School, in Darbydale, to qualify for her Pennsylvania State teaching licence, Mr. Lorbeer had been her supervisor sent by the University to check up on her along with the other would-be teachers who were finishing the University's education course. And he had driven poor Alice nearly crazy by slinking around hinting that she would be sure of a good grade if she would only tender him the ultimate in female hospitality. Otherwise—out and she had seen enough of his arbitrary firings of student teachers to know that he meant it. (One unlucky youth whom everybody else considered promising material had been tossed out at the end of his first day for what Mr. Lorbeer had reported as "intangibles"). The facts that he had a wife somewhere and that such conduct was not socially approved in a conservative Philadelphia suburb did not deter him.
Alice, however, had every intention of keeping her virtue, at least for another six years until she was thirty. Then, if she had not landed a man, she would see. Therefore she had adroitly held Mr. Lorbeer off, treading the tightrope between submission and defiance until she got her licence, and the principal of the Lowland Avenue School had also seen her practice work and had an opening for a third-grade teacher.
But the fact that he was no longer in a position to apply improper pressure had not discouraged Lorbeer. He still pursued her with 'phone calls, small gifts, and offers of dales. And though he was no longer her practice-teaching supervisor, he was important enough in the school system so that she did not dare insult him openly.
"Certainly it will be interesting," said Stanko, but persisted in his implacable monotone: "I should still like to see this elementary school where Miss Wernecke teaches. Could I be shown around?"
Uncertain what to do with this request, Alice floundered. "I'm not sure—I suppose—oh, I know! The fourth-graders are putting on Hansel and Gretel tomorrow afternoon. Why don't you bring him around then? I'll speak to our principal."
It was a dirty trick to play on Inez Rogell, who taught one of the two fourth-grade sections, but at that moment it was the best that Alice could think of.
After Byron Matthews had walked Alice home, she sprang the news of the impending visitation on Inez. The room-mate proved a brick. After a quiet case of hysterics she said sure, she would make all the arrangements. Inez was a stocky girl, a decade older than Alice, with an unbeautiful face, thick eyeglasses, and all the sex-appeal of a lawn-mower. She had, Alice knew, given up hope of landing a man years before. Nevertheless, her virtue was still intact for want of takers. Alice sometimes reflected that if only Mr. Lorbeer would come slavering after Inez instead of her, everybody would be happy. Or at least happier.
Because of Inez's age and ugliness, Alice did not have to worry about competition from Inez for her own men. On the other hand, it put Alice in the position where she felt obligated to try to get dates for Inez from time to time, and these never turned out well.
Inez concluded: "But if that Warren boy has another fit, don't say I didn't warn you."
Alice was waiting when Matthews showed up ten minutes late the following afternoon, in the. little black State Department sedan with Stanko beside him. Matthews explained:
"Sorry, couldn't find the place. Where do we go now?"
Alice led them to the auditorium, noticing that when in more of a hurry than his short legs could manage, Stanko put his knuckles to the ground and used his arms as crutches.
The auditorium was merely a big room with a stage at one side and several rows of folding chairs set along the floor. The first of these rows was now occupied by pupils of the fourth and adjacent grades, while the two and a half rows behind these were filled by the mothers of the fourth-graders. On the stage Father, in the person of a coloured sixth-grader with a false . blond beard affixed to his chin, was singing his complaint about hunger's being the poor man's curse, while to the right of the stage Inez bravely banged out Herr Humperdinck's mediocre music on the school's battered piano.
Alice led her guests in, Stanko swinging along on his knuckles like an orangutang. Though they entered and sat down quietly in back, heads turned and there were gasps and whispers from the fourth-grade mothers. As the auditorium was only imperfectly darkened, those on the stage could see the new arrivals, too. The song about the poor man's curse died away in a squeak as Father stood goggling, ignoring the backstage prompting of Miss Pasquale, who taught the other fourth-grade section. Then Father sidled towards the wings, where he engaged in a colloquy with the unseen Miss Pasquale. His stage-whisper wafted out into the auditorium:
"I scared. Can't sing with him lookin' at me."
Alice breathed an "Oh, dear!" Mr. Matthews looked serious. As Father tried to push his way offstage, Miss Pasquale's arm came out and grabbed him, and Miss Pasquale was heard to make some threat about beating his head in that would certainly not be found in any of the official manuals on child guidance. Meanwhile, the girl playing Mother caught his coat from behind in an effort to pull him back to the centre of the stage.
Stanko sat taking all this in with his great jewel-like eyes. As the efforts of Father to leave the stage, and of Miss Pasquale to stop him, became more gymnastic, Stanko asked in a low voice:
"Is something wrong?"
"You—ah—seem to have startled him a bit," said Alice.
Stanko rose to his stubby legs and his voice carried flatly: "Do not be alarmed; I am merely studying your tribal rites. Please go on."
The sound of the unhuman voice seemed to have more effect on Father than either Miss Pasquale's threats or her efforts at physical coercion. Father let himself be pulled and pushed back to the centre of the stage, where he concluded his song in a tremulous voice. After that the opera limped along for another three-quarters of an hour without major mishap, save when the Witch became so conscious of Stanko's scrutiny that she missed her footing and fell off the stage.