good.â
Thomas frowned, but Mary said, âLet him try it, Thomas. Iâm sure he can manage Rascal.â
âUm â O.K. Weâll chance it this once. And hereâs your knife, unless you want me to keep it in the safe. You donât want to lose anything like this.â
âOh, I wonât lose it, sir. Iâll need it to â to ââ
âGo on,â Mary said quietly. âYou need it to â to do what with it?â
âI donât know. Maybe it will come back if I run with Rascal. I think running will help.â
As he darted out the door, Mary said, âHeâs upset, Thomas. I think he sees the truth. Canât you see it too? Youâve got facts enough â or is it that you just donât want to face the facts?â
âBut, Mary, they donât make sense. I canât ââ
âLook at him!â she gasped, staring through the rear window. âThomas â look! â
In his eagerness to release Rascal, Little Jon was racing up the steep lane. Unconsciously he had made his feet light, so that his boots hardly touched the ground. Only a deer could have equaled his upward bounds.
âYou win,â Thomas said finally, expelling a long breath. âI donât know how he got here, and I canât understand why some things are so familiar to him â but he didnât come from this world.â
âOf course not. What are we going to do?â
âHâmm. Seems like the important thing is to find out how he got here, if we can. Iâm afraid I see trouble ahead.â
He Remembers Something
S LEEP DID NOT COME EASILY that night. For a long time Little Jon lay motionless beside Brooks, thinking of the day while he listened to the sounds beyond the window â the familiar and unfamiliar sounds of a world he didnât belong in.
Somehow, by some accident, he had been lost on a planet that was not his own. It had been hard for the Beans to admit that to him, but of course there wasnât any other answer. Only, how did he get here â and why did so many of the wild creatures seem familiar?
Thomas had a theory about the wild creatures, and life on other planets. As they puzzled over it that afternoon, Thomas had said, âThe latest belief among astronomers is that our Earth wasnât made by chance. Itâs the result of certain exact conditions. There are other suns just like ours, and the same laws affect them. So there are bound to be other worlds like ours â with life developing on them in almost exactly the same way. If there are people like Jon on them, then naturally ââ
âI wonât dispute you,â said Mary, âbut that doesnât solve Jonâs problem.â
That was when Thomas suggested they get some help.
âOh, good heavens, no!â she exclaimed. âHow could anyone really help us? You know how people are. Donât you realize what a mess it would be if officials started buzzing around? The papers would get it, and weâd have reporters and half the world swarming all over the place. Honestly!â
âUm â guess youâre right. Thank Pete some idiot like Angus Macklin didnât find you, Jon. It was lucky we happened on you when we did.â
âNo, it didnât happen that way, sir. I picked you.â He explained to the Beans how he had waited for them.
âThat settles it,â said Thomas. âIf you picked us to help you, weâre sticking by you. Now, hereâs the crazy thing to consider: Our civilization is pretty advanced â the most advanced on Earth â yet weâre just beginning space travel. Weâre not able to reach distant planets yet. So â how did you, whose civilization seems to be behind ours, ever reach us? You must have ââ
âThomas,â Mary interrupted, âyouâre starting off wrong. Canât you see how wrong you are?â
âBut,
William Mirza, Thom Lemmons