Read Online Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester by Alfred Bester - Free Book Online Page B

better square that broken window rap. Rap? Rap.”
    The doomed man placed the manila envelope neatly on his lap. “A school principal,” he explained, “has to supervise school classes. He reviews work, estimates progress, irons out student problems and so on. This must be done at random. By samplings, I mean. I have nine hundred pupils in my school. I can’t supervise them individually.”
    Herod nodded. Joe looked blank.
    “Looking through some fifth-grade work last month,” Warbeck continued, “I came across this astonishing document.” He opened the envelope and took out a few sheets of ruled composition paper covered with blots and scrawled writing. “It was written by a Stuart Buchanan of the fifth grade. His age must be ten or thereabouts. The composition is entitled: My Vacation . Read it and you’ll understand why Stuart Buchanan must be found.”
    He tossed the sheets to Herod who picked them up, took out a pair of horn-rim spectacles and balanced them on his fat nose. Joe came around to the back of his chair and peered over his shoulder.
    My Vacatoin
    by
    Stuart Buchanan
     
This sumer I vissited my frends. I have 4 frends and they are verry nice. First there is Tommy who lives in the contry and he is an astronnimer. Tommy bilt his own tellescop out of glass 6 inches acros wich he grond himself. He loks at the stars every nihgt and he let me lok even wen it was raining cats & dogs …
     
    “What the hell?” Herod looked up, annoyed.
    “Read on. Read on,” Warbeck said.
cats & dogs. We cold see the stars becaze Tommy made a thing for over the end of the tellescop wich shoots up like a serchlite and makes a hole in the skie to see rite thru the rain and everythinng to the stars .
     
    “Finished the astronomer yet?” Warbeck inquired.
    “I don’t dig it.”
    “Tommy got bored waiting for clear nights. He invented something that cuts through clouds and atmosphere … a funnel of vacuum so he can use his telescope all weather. What it amounts to is a disintegration beam.”
    “The hell you say.”
    “The hell I don’t. Read on. Read on.”
Then I went to AnnMary and staied one hole week. It was fun. Becaze AnnMary has a spinak chainger for spinak and beats and strinbeens—
     
    “What he hell is a ‘spinak chainger’?”
    “Spinach. Spinach changer. Spelling isn’t one of Stuart’s specialties. ‘Beats’ are beets. ‘Strinbeens’ are string beans.”
beats and strinbeens. Wen her mother made us eet them AnnMary presed the buton and they staid the same outside onnly inside they became cake. Chery and strowbery. I asted AnnMary how & she sed it was by Enhv .
     
    “This, I don’t get.”
    “Simple. Anne-Marie doesn’t like vegetables. So she’s just as smart as Tommy, the astronomer. She invented a matter-transmuter. She transmutes spinak into cake. Chery or strowbery. Cake she eats with pleasure. So does Stuart.”
    “You’re crazy.”
    “Not me. The kids. They’re geniuses. Geniuses? What am I saying? They make a genius look imbecile. There’s no label for these children.”
    “I don’t believe it. This Stuart Buchanan’s got a tall imagination. That’s all.”
    “You think so? Then what about Enhv? That’s how Anne-Marie transmutes matter. It took time but I figured Enhv out. It’s Planck’s quantum equation E=nhv. But read on. Read on. The best is yet to come. Wait till you get to lazy Ethel.”
My frend Gorge bilds modell airplanes very good and small. Gorg’s hands are clumzy but he makes small men out of moddelling clay and he tels them and they bild for him .
     
    “What’s this?”
    “George, the plane-maker?”
    “Yes.”
    “Simple. He makes miniature androids … robots … and they build the planes for him. Clever boy, George, but read about his sister, lazy Ethel.”
His sister Ethel is the lazyist girl I ever saw. She is big &fat and she hates to walk. So wen her mother sends her too the store Ethel thinks to the store and thinks home with all the