* * * * * Spring changed to summer, and summer rolled into its final days. Phil was in a gloomy frame of mind when Timmy's eleventh birthday came around. He watched Timmy draw a deep breath and--without puffing out his cheeks as a child would do--neatly blow out the eleven candles on his cake. It was an efficient, sprayless, perfectly-controlled operation, an operation carried out happily and in high spirits, and it depressed Phil. The "party" itself depressed him--a child's birthday party with no children present, unless you counted Timmy! Phil and Doc, Helen and Jerry, and Homer, the latter gray muzzled and stiff in the joints. That was the roster of the guests and it could almost be called the roster of Timmy's total acquaintances. His parents, his two friends, and a dog that at its best had never seemed bright and now was obviously half-dead with age. The boy was not normal, had no normal life, and gave no indication of ever being likely to take a normal role in life. He was a "disordered personality" if one could take comfort in a tag, but the true nature, cause and cure of his divergence from "normal" would remain unknown so long as his parents were afraid of tampering-- "Did you make a wish, Timmy?" "Sure, Mom." "Helen, honey--Tim knows that wishing when you blow out the candles is kid stuff." "And what is he but an eleven-year-old kid?" [Illustration] "He's too smart to believe in wishing, honey. Smarter than his old man, eh, Tim?" "I'll _never_ be as smart as you, Dad." "That's my boy! But you don't kid me." Jerry turned to Phil and Clancey, feigning indignation. "You know what happened the other day? I brought home an old design that I dug out of the files and wanted to look over--a helical gravity conveyer--and when Tim saw it spread out on the table he said, 'That's the curve I was just reading about.' Now how did that little so-and-so know enough to call it a curve? I figured he was bluffing and got him to show me where he read about it, and the brat showed me all right--in one of my old college textbooks! Of course I only had to ask a few questions to find out that the college texts are far beyond him, but imagine him dipping into them on his own and getting anything out of them at all! How about that, young man? Explain yourself." Timmy hesitated, his eyes dark with uncertainty. "You said I could," he blurted defensively. "Remember? Remember I asked you one day and you said--" "Your father isn't angry, Timmy," Helen laughed, hugging him. "Honest, you get worried about the darnedest things! He's _proud_ of you! Don't you know paternal boasting when you hear it?" "Oh!" The shadow lifted and he laughed sheepishly. "I get it. It was nuance of idiom that threw me. Calling me a brat and a so-and-so was affectionate misdirection to conceal--" he broke off at their expressions. Helen darted a quick look around and came to his rescue again.