"I don't know.... He'll have to decide for himself. He became a man tonight, you know. I'd like him to stay, but I imagine he'll want to go to Earth. He's got a mind that just won't stop. The best thing we can do is try to teach him the things he'll need to survive in that cock-eyed world, and turn him loose. It's no good trying to hang onto your kids once they're grown up, Mommy." She shivered a little and moved closer to me. "I suppose you're right. I think I know now why mothers hate to see their children grow up." I put my arm around her and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "He'll be all right.... You know, in a way I'm almost glad this happened. Maybe--just maybe--Adam has given us the answer. Maybe the thing to do is not to keep them Kids all their lives, but to let them grow up more slowly, in their own time instead of to some prescribed formula. The world has kept getting more complicated all the time, and a kid just can't grow up in it as easily as before." When we were in bed, just before I put out the light, I said, "I guess I can answer your question now, Mommy. I _don't_ still think these twenty years were wasted. If I had it to do over again, I'd still want to be Daddy of Fairyland." CHAPTER V The next morning at breakfast time I went upstairs and knocked on the door of Adam's room. He called to me to come in and I opened the door then stopped, one foot over the threshold. Across the room, admiring his bewhiskered face in the mirror, was Santa Claus! "Ho-ho-ho!" he boomed, in a perfect imitation of my own Santa-voice. "Merry Christmas, Daddy!" He tugged at the beard and there was the grinning face of Adam-Two. "I found it in the closet," he said. "Do I look the part?" I laughed. "For a minute I thought you were the real thing." He looked away. "I--I guess you know I'll want to go to Earth to live." I nodded. "It will be pretty rough at first. You realize that?" "Yes, I expect it will.... Daddy, I'm sorry I messed up Christmas for the Kids yesterday. I'd kind of like to make up for it by playing Santa for them today. Will you stand by me in case some smarty-pants tries to snatch my beard off?" I grinned at him, but I didn't say anything because I discovered there was a strange kind of lump in my throat. "I was thinking, too," he went on, "that maybe I could come back with the supply ship each Christmas and--and do the same thing, if you'd like me to." I cleared my throat. "That--that would be fine, Adam." He hesitated again, then blurted, "It isn't right, you know. Fairyland, I mean. It isn't fair to kids not to let them grow up. And it isn't the answer to all the things you told me are wrong about the world." "I know, Adam. I know." "Sooner or later they'll realize that, on Earth." "I think they already have," I said.