The Ugly Little Boy (24 page)

But she didn't like the idea of leaving him in the tub for long, unattended. Not that she worried much about his drowning. Litde boys his age didn't generally drown in their tubs, and this one seemed to have a healthy enough sense of self-preservation. But if he decided to get out on his own, and somehow slipped and fellShe said, "I'll be right back, Timmie. You stay in the tub by yourself, all right?"

He nodded.

"Stay in the tub. In the tub. You understand?"

"Yes, Miss Fellowes."

Nobody in the world would have recognized the sounds Timmie had uttered as being Yes, Miss Fellowes. Nobody but Miss Fellowes.

Still a litde uneasy, she hurried into the other room and said to the intercom vent, "Who's calling?"

"It's Dr. Hoskins, Miss Fellowes. I'd like to know if Timmie can stand another visitor this afternoon."

"He's supposed to have free time this afternoon. I'm already giving him his bath. He never has visitors after he's had his bath."

"Yes, I know. This is a special case."

Miss Fellowes listened for sounds from the bathroom. Timmie was splashing around vociferously, and obviously having a wonderful time. She heard the boy's pealing laughter.

She said reproachfully, "They're all special cases, aren't they, Dr. Hoskins? If I let everybody in here who was some sort of special case, the boy would be on display to special cases all day and all night too."

"This one is really special, Miss Fellowes."

"I'd still rather not. Timmie's entitled to some time off, just like anyone else. And if you don't mind, Dr. Hoskins, I'd like to get back to his bath before-"

"This visitor is Bruce Mannheim, Miss Fellowes."

"What?"

"You're aware that Mannheim's been plaguing us with his standard sort of trumped-up charges and inflammatory nonsense practkally from the moment we announced that Timmie was here, aren't you?"

"I suppose so," Miss Fellowes said. She hadn't actually been paying much attention.

"Well, he's been calling here about every third day to register this or that expression of outrage. And finally 1 asked him what he wants from us and he said he insists on on-site inspection. That was the term he used: 'on-site inspection.' Of Timmie. As if we had some sort of missile emplacement here. We aren't enthusiastic about it, but we had a board meeting and decided finally that it would do more harm than good to refuse. I'm afraid there's no choice, Miss Fellowes. We have to let him come in."

"Today?"

"About two hours from now. He's a very insistent man.

"You could have given me a little more notice." "I would have if I could, Miss Fellowes. But Mannheim caught me by surprise when I called him to say we'd let him in. He told me he'd be right over; and when I said I wasn't sure that was workable, he started in again on all his suspicions and accusations. I think he was implying that we were playing for time so we'd be able to cover up all of the bruises Timmie has from the whippings we give him, or some such crazy thing. In any case, he also said that he'd be going before the monthly meeting of his board of directors tomorrow, and that this would be a fine chance for him to report to them on Timmie's condition, and therefore-" Hoskins let his voice trail off. "I know it's short notice, Miss Fellowes. Please don't put up a fuss, all right? Please."

She felt a burst of pity for him. Caught between the tireless political agitator on the one hand and the ill-tempered gorgon of a nurse on the other-the poor weary man.

"All right, Dr. Hoskins," she said. "Just this once. - I'll see what I can do about having all the bruises covered over with makeup before he gets here."

She went back to the bathroom while Hoskins' gratitude was still coming out of the intercom. Timmie was busy conducting a naval battle between a green plastic duck and a purple plastic sea monster. The duck seemed to be winning.

"You're going to have company this afternoon," Miss Fellowes told the boy. She was bubbling over with fury. "A man's coming here to check up on us. To see whether we've been mistreating you, if you can believe that. Mistreating!"

Timmie gave her a blank look. His fledgling vocabulary didn't stretch anywhere nearly that far. Miss Fellowes hadn't really expected it to.

"Who coming?" he asked.

"A man," she said. "A visitor."

Timmie nodded. "Nice visitor?"

"Let's hope so. -Come on, now, it's time to get you out of the tub and dry you off."

"More bath! More bath!"

"More bath tomorrow. Come on, now, Timmie!"

Reluctantly he clambered out of the tub. Miss Fellowes toweled him off and gave him a quick inspection. No, no whip marks showing. No sign of damage at all. The boy was in fine shape. Especially when she compared him with the filthy, scrufty, bruised and scratched child who had tumbled out of the Stasis scoop amidst a mass of dirt and pebbles and ants and chunks of grass on that first strange, frightening night. Timmie was glowing with good health. He had gained several pounds since then; his scratches had healed and his assortment of bruises had vanished long ago. His hair was neatly cut; his fingernails were trimmed. Let Bruce Mannheim try to find something to complain about. Let him try!

Ordinarily she would have put Timmie into his pajamas after the bath; but everything was changed now, because of the visitor who was coming, the very special visitor. That called for formal dress: the purple overalls with the red buttons, Miss Fellowes thought.

Timmie grinned when he saw them. They were his favorite overalls, too.

"And now, I think, a nice little snack, before the company gets here. What do you say to that, Timmie?"

She was still shaking with anger.

Bruce Mannheim, she thought icily. That busybody. That troublemaker. A children's advocate, he called himself! Who had ever asked him to advocate anything? A professional agitator; that was all he was. A public nuisance.

"Miss Fellowes?"

Hoskins' voice was coming through on the intercom again.

"What is it, doctor? Mr. Mannheim isn't due here for another half an hour, I thought."

"He's early," Hoskins said. "That's the sort of person he is, I'm afraid." There was something strangely sheepish about his voice. -"And I'm afraid that he's brought someone with him, too, without telling us he was going to."

"Two visitors is too many," Miss Fellowes said adamantly.

"I know. I know. Please, Miss Fellowes. I had no idea he was bringing someone else. But Mannheim's pretty insistent on having her see Timmie with him. And now that we've gone this far-the risk of offending him-you see? You see?"

So he was begging again. This Mannheim really had him terrified. Where was the strong and indomitable Dr. Gerald Hoskins she once had known?

"And who's this other person?" she asked, after a moment. "This unexpected guest?"

"An associate of his, a consultant to his organization. You may even know her. You probably do. She's an expert on troubled children, someone mixed up with all sorts of governmental commissions and institutions, a very high-profile individual. She was even under consideration for a while, I should tell you, for the very job you have today, although we felt - I felt - that she didn't quite have the kind of warmth and sympathy we were looking for. Her name's Marianne Levien. I think she might be a litde dangerous. The last thing we can risk is to turn her away at the entrance, now that she's here."

Miss Fellowes put her hand over her mouth in horror.

Marianne Levien! she thought, aghast. God preserve me. God preserve us all!

The oval door to the dollhouse opened and Hoskins came in, with two figures close behind him. Hoskins looked dreadful. His fleshy face seemed to be sagging, so that he appeared to have aged ten years in a day. His skin was leaden. His eyes had an oddly defeated, almost cowed expression that Miss Fellowes found strange and frightening.

She scarcely recognized him. What was going on?

He said, in a low, uneasy tone, "This is Edith Fellowes, Timmie's nurse. -Bruce Mannheim, Miss Fellowes. Marianne Levien."

"And this is Timmie?" Mannheim asked.

"Yes," Miss Fellowes said, booming the word out to make up for Hoskins' sudden diffidence. "This is Tim-mie!"

The boy had been in the back room, his bedroom and playroom, but he had tentatively poked forward when he had heard the visitors entering. Now he came toward them in a steady, bouncy, outgoing stride that drew a silent cheer from Miss Fellowes.

You show them, Timmie! Are we mistreating you? Are you hiding under your bed, quivering with fear and misery?

Resplendent in his finest overalls, the boy marched up to the newcomers and stared up at them in frank curiosity.

Good for you, Miss Fellowes thought. And good for all of us!

"Well," Mannheim said. "So you're Timmie."

"Timmie," said Timmie, though Miss Fellowes was the only one in the room who realized that that was what he was saying.

The boy reached upward toward Mannheim. Mannheim evidently thought he wanted to shake hands, and offered his own. But Timmie didn't know anything about handshakes. He avoided Mannheim's outstretched hand and waggled his own in an impatient little side-to-side gesture, while continuing to strain upward as far as he could. Mannheim seemed puzzled.

"Your hair," Miss Fellowes said. "I suspect he's never seen anyone with red hair before. They must not have had it in Neanderthal times and no redheads have visited him here. Fair hair of any sort appears to fascinate him tremendously."

"Ah," Mannheim said. "So that's it."

He grinned and knelt and Timmie immediately dug his fingers into Mannheim's thick, springy crop of hay-. Not only the color but also the coiling texture of it must have been new to him, and he explored it thoughtfully.

Mannheim tolerated it with great good humor. He was, Miss Fellowes found herself conceding, not at all what she had imagined. She had expected him to be some sort of wild-eyed fire-breathing radical who would immediately begin issuing denunciations, manifestos, and uncompromising demands for reform. But he was turning out in fact to be rather pleasant and gentle, a thoughtful and serious-looking man, younger than she had expected, who seemed to be losing no time making friends with Timmie.

Marianne Levien, though, was a very different sort of item. Even Timmie, when he had grown tired of examining Bruce Mannheim's hair and had turned to get a look at the other visitor, seemed hard-pressed to know what to make of her.

Miss Fellowes had already formed her opinion: she disliked Levien on sight. And she suspected that it was Levien's unexpected arrival, rather than the presence of Bruce Mannheim, that was causing Dr. Hoskins such obvious distress.

What is she doing here? Miss Fellowes wondered. What kind of trouble is she planning to make for us?

Levien was known far and wide through the child-care profession as an ambitious, aggressive, controversial woman, highly skilled at self-promotion and the steady advancement of her career. Miss Fellowes had never actually come face to face with her before; but, as the nurse looked at her now, Levien appeared every bit as formidable and disagreeable as her reputation suggested.

She seemed more like an actress-or a businesswoman -or like an actress playing the role of a businesswoman- than any sort of child-care specialist. She was wearing some slinky shimmering dress made from close-woven strands of metallic fabric, with a huge blazing golden pendant in the form of a sun on her breast and a band of intricately woven gold around her broad forehead. Her hair was dark and shining, pulled back tight to make her look all the more dramatic. Her lips were bright red, her eyes were flamboyantly encircled with makeup. An invisible cloud of perfume surrounded her,

Miss Fellowes stared at her in distaste. It was hard to imagine how Dr. Hoskins could have considered this woman even for a fraction of a second as a potential nurse for Timmie. She was Miss Fellowes' antithesis in every respect. And why, Miss Fellowes wondered, had Marianne Levien been interested in the job in the first place? It required seclusion and total dedication. Whereas Levien, Miss Fellowes knew, was forever on the go, constantly buzzing all around the world to scientific meetings, standing up and offering firmly held opinions that other people of greater experience tended to find controversial and troublesome. She was full of startling ideas about how to use advanced technology to rehabilitate difficult children -substituting wondrous glittering futuristic machinery for the down-to-earth love and devotion that had usually managed to do the job throughout most of humanity's existence.

And she was an adept politician, too-always turning up on this committee or that, consultant to one or another influential task force, popping up everywhere in all manner of significant capacities. A highly visible person, rising like a rocket in her profession. If she had wanted the job here that Miss Fellowes ultimately had gained, it must only have been because she saw it, somehow, as the springboard to very much bigger things.

I must be very old fashioned, Miss Fellowes thought. All I saw was a chance to do some good for an unusual little boy who needed an unusual amount of loving care.

Timmie put his hand out toward Marianne Levien's shimmering metallic dress. His eyes were glowing with delight.

"Pretty," he said.

Levien stepped back quickly, out of his reach. "What did he say?"

"He admires your dress," Miss Fellowes said. "He just wants to touch it."

"I'd rather he didn't. It's easily damaged."

"You'd better watch out, then. He's very quick."

"Pretty," Timmie said again. "Want!"

"No, Timmie. No. Mustn't touch."

"Want!"

"I'm sorry. No. N-O."

Timmie gave her an unhappy look. But he made no second move toward Marianne Levien.

"Does he understand you?" Mannheim asked.

"Well, he isn't touching the dress, is he?" said Miss Fellowes, smiling.

"And you can understand him?"

"Some of the time. Much of the time."

"Those grunts of his," said Marianne Levien. "What do you think they could have meant?"