A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

In Gnoth's house, Patrice Ober found Jane Eyre absorbing in spite of its leisureliness and the archaism of its language.

After an hour's reading, however, her attention flagged. Her mind wandered to her own affairs, which consisted mainly of boys. She was not at the moment going steady, as several boys were striving for that relationship and Pat had not made up her mind which to take.

Terry Blaine was in the lead, being the biggest and most aggressive and a football hero besides. The trouble with Terry was that he made no bones about wanting what she thought most boys wanted. She supposed that if she did go steady with him she would sooner or later have to give in, even though you could get in trouble that way if you weren't careful. The masterful Terry seemed to expect it, and Patrice was an obliging girl who hated to turn people down. She had held out so far out of affection for her parents, but you couldn't expect old people in their forties to know how young people felt.

As for Andy Dupas, the runner-up ... Andy was a queer duck who kept his thoughts to himself. He wasn't so big and good-looking as Terry, but in some ways he was nicer. He was punctual and responsible and kept his word. He did not proposition her on every date. In fact, he never had. Patrice hoped that didn't mean Andy was somehow abnormal.

Where Terry got his way by muscle and push, Andy got his by looking something up in a book or working out a formula in his head. When he had first dated her, for instance, he hadn't known how to dance. A month later he had suddenly turned into one of the best dancers in the school.

"Just figured it out," was all he would say.

Some of Pat's friends thought Andy a bore, but she did not share their prejudice against brains. However, Andy had already graduated from the High and was going away next week to M.I.T. on a scholarship. So he would be out of the running.

As for Henry and Leroy, they were far back in the race, though it would be nice to keep in touch with them in case she and Terry ever broke up ...

The bell rang. Patrice went to the door.

"Who is it?" She wasn't going to let just anybody in.

"It's me," said Terence Blaine's voice.

Patrice opened the door, which had a trick latch that required the use of both hands at once. There he stood, six feet of blond male animal. Behind him, on the Yerethians' lawn, stood his flying platform. In one hand he held a stack of phonograph records in their envelopes.

"Hi," he said. "How's my little cabbage?"

This was the year that American youths shaved their scalps and wore false beards. Terry's was green. He folded Patrice in his arms, bent her back towards the floor in an Apache embrace, kissed her, and set her on her feet again.

"How'd you get here?" she asked.

"I called your house. Thought you might be lonesome."

He sat down on the man-sized sofa, pulled her down, kissed and pawed her a bit, then squirmed in discomfort. He pulled Jane Eyre out from under him.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Homework."

"You actually do homework?"

"Sure. I still want to go to college."

"Hah! Setting a bad example, my wench. First thing you know, they'll expect us all to study and pass exams, and then where'll we be? I've never cracked a book outside of school hours and I'm not gonna. What's this?"

"English assignment. Nineteenth-century stuff."

"You mean old Rollins makes you read the slop some blob of gup wrote back in the Middle Ages? Some fossil who wore iron pajamas and wrote on clay tablets or something?"

"No, and anyway it was a she who wrote it."

"Aw, ta hell with it." Terry tossed the book to the floor. "Let's dance."

While he took his records out of their envelopes and spiked them on the phonograph spindle of the entertainer, Patrice straightened her hair. She wished Terry wouldn't wrestle around so. Presently the machine was giving out Marijuana for Two. Terry hauled Patrice to her feet and swung into the Guatemalan brinco. This called for both to leap into the air and come down on all four heels with every eighth beat.

"Are — are you sure we're not making too much noise?" said Patrice between hops.

"Who'll know?" said Terry, making a particularly loud bang. "Come on, limber up. Got arthritis already?"

Patrice exerted herself to follow him. In one twirl he banged her into the side of the incubator so that it rocked a little.

"Ow!" said Patrice, stopping. "Hurt?" said Terry.

"You bet. I'll have a bruise the size of your hand."

"Oh. Too bad. Can't you dance any more?"

"Not tonight, Terry." She limped to the sofa. "Well, I'm hungry. These reptiles got any human food in their dump?"