Straight down through the floor the rocket sank with its base glowing white hot. There were a sizzling and a hissing and she could see flames dancing through the steam which kept rising in clouds until water gushed up in torrents and put the fire out. She shut her eyes then and clenched her hands tight. She sat very still, waiting for Melvin to come to her. She felt a great and overwhelming need to lean on someone, to be consoled by a firm masculine voice speaking out bold and clear. The bursting strangeness was gone from inside her head. She could move again. She refused to try but she knew that she could whenever she wanted to. Her thoughts were her own now--not Melvin's or Tall-Thin's. She started to cry, very softly, and she was still crying when Melvin reached her side, helped her to her feet. "Mary Anne, I could see them moving around inside the rocket. I could even make them do what I wanted them to do. It happened as soon as they turned that ray on me. I couldn't move but I knew what they were thinking." "So did I, Melvin," Mary Anne sobbed. "I knew what _you_ were thinking too." "Yeah. We seemed to be talking together there for a minute. But not the way we're talking now." Mary Anne nodded. "I knew what you were thinking and they knew what we...." Mary Anne stopped. "_Melvin!_ You fooled them! Inside the ship they didn't hear us talking together. If they had heard us they would not have made a mistake and turned the wrong dial." "Yeah, I know. I tried to throw up a mental block when we talked about the auxiliary fuel-chamber and what would happen if the heat exchanger worked fast enough. I guess it worked. The mental block, I mean...." "You bet it worked, Melvin. You're wonderful, Melvin." "You didn't think so when you told Pop about the sandwiches." "I didn't mean to be a nasty, Melvin." "All right--skip it. Funny thing--I could never read anybody's thoughts before. It only lasted for a few minutes. I couldn't do it now." "They must have done something to us, Melvin." "I'll say they did. What's Pop going to think when he comes down here tomorrow and sees the rocket gone?" "I'm afraid he's going to be awfully mad, Melvin." There is perhaps no more striking illustration of the prophetic faculty at work in the world than when it appears full-blown in the occasional understatements of children. The next morning, Elwood didn't merely hurl the magazine at his son. He pointed first to the article, tapping furiously with his forefinger at Melvin's photograph while his breakfast grew cold at his elbow. "Melvin, I warned you to keep your hands off that rocket. I warned you not to touch it or jar it in any way. But you had to putter around until you did something to the heat exchanger dial. It's conduct like that which makes me realize how mistaken these journalist monkeys can be. A genius! You're no more of a genius--" "Pop, you've got to believe me!" Melvin protested. "The little men are--"