SEVEN DAY TERROR BY R. A. LAFFERTY Things just vanished. It was simple. As a matter of fact, it was child's play! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "Is there anything you want to make disappear?" Clarence Willoughby asked his mother. "A sink full of dishes is all I can think of. How will you do it?" "I just built a disappearer. All you do is cut the other end out of a beer can. Then you take two pieces of red cardboard with peepholes in the middle and fit them in the ends. You look through the peepholes and blink. Whatever you look at will disappear." "Oh." "But I don't know if I can make them come back. We'd better try it on something else. Dishes cost money." As always, Myra Willoughby had to admire the wisdom of her nine-year-old son. She would not have had such foresight herself. He always did. "You can try it on Blanche Manners' cat outside there. Nobody will care if it disappears except Blanche Manners." "All right." He put the disappearer to his eye and blinked. The cat disappeared from the sidewalk outside. His mother was interested. "I wonder how it works. Do you know how it works?" "Yes. You take a beer can with both ends cut out and put in two pieces of cardboard. Then you blink." "Never mind. Take it outside and play with it. You hadn't better make anything disappear in here till I think about this." But when he had gone his mother was oddly disturbed. "I wonder if I have a precocious child. Why, there's lots of grown people who wouldn't know how to make a disappearer that would work. I wonder if Blanche Manners will miss her cat very much?" Clarence went down to the Plugged Nickel, a pot house on the corner. "Do you have anything you want to make disappear, Nokomis?" "Only my paunch." "If I make it disappear it'll leave a hole in you and you'll bleed to death." "That's right, I would. Why don't you try it on the fire plug outside?" * * * * * This in a way was one of the happiest afternoons ever in the neighborhood. The children came from blocks around to play in the flooded streets and gutters, and if some of them drowned (and we don't say that they _did_ drown) in the flood (and brother! it was a flood), why, you have to expect things like that. The fire engines (whoever heard of calling fire engines to put out a flood?) were apparatus-deep in the water. The policemen and ambulance men wandered around wet and bewildered. "Resuscitator, resuscitator, anybody wanna resuscitator," chanted Clarissa Willoughby. "Oh, shut up," said the ambulance attendants. Nokomis, the bar man in the Plugged Nickel, called Clarence aside.