oOo

Anastasia Jones viewed her new town with little interest from the crest of a maple-shaded hill. It was a fresh-washed picture postcard of a town; all green and white and brick red under a rain-dark sky. An equally fresh-washed breeze rolled up the hill, carrying with it the smell of...popcorn.

Anastasia smiled. Now that was interesting. She scanned the buildings along the cobbled main street. Ah, yes, there it was—a theater. She could see the ornate marquee peeking up at her between elm sentinels.

“Looks like they’ve picked another homespun backwater,” said a voice over her shoulder.

She turned, noting that her brother’s face looked just as dour as it had the last time she’d seen it. “What’d you expect?” she asked. “They do this every time we start whining.”

“I don’t whine, Stasi.”

“No, you pout. The twins whine. I sulk.”

She swept moist strands of deep burgundy hair from her forehead with one hand and brushed her wind-climbing skirts down with the other. Her eyes searched the trees.

“There’s the school,” she said finally and pointed.

“Oh, royal. Another one-roomer?”

“No.... It looks kind of nice. All brick and white-washed

and a green roof.”

“Don’t get too attached to that green roof, sis. We won’t be here that long.”

”I wish-“

“If wishes were wheels, gramma would’ve been a trolley car.” Anastasia giggled. “Where’d you dig that up?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Somewhere about three stops ago.”

“What does it mean?”

“Who knows. Does it matter?”

”Anastasia! Tamujin! Dinner!”

Tamujin Jones made a goofy face. “Sounds real down home, don’t she?”

His sister giggled again. “Well, at least she didn’t ring that stupid triangle she got in Armadillo or wherever that was.”

“Amarillo.” Tamujin snorted. “Armadillo! Geezumminy,Stasi, no wonder you’re having so much trouble with geography. You’ve gotten it mixed up with zoology!”

oOo

The new school was OK, Anastasia decided. It was old andneat and smelled of ancient wood varnish, fresh wood oil and cedar. Their parents had done the obligatory first-day-in-a-new­ school thing and delivered them to the Admin office all smiles and pride. They’d filled out the paperwork, kissed their children and gone off for a day of getting-to-know-Papillion.

“Have fun,” they’d said, but their parting message, as ever was, “Do try to fit in.”

So much for fun.

Now they sat on a wooden bench in the Admin office waiting for the vice-principal, Mrs. Thorpe, to escort them to their classes. She arrived in due process, wreathed in smiles, flourishing four fresh, new file folders. A pair of spectacles dangled from a cord around her neck.

The twins stared at her, making Anastasia wish she could reach across Tam’s lap and pinch them.

“Well!” The apple-cheeked face beamed its freshness at them. She even smelled like apples. “What a lovely family! Your parents are such lucky people. So....” She set the spectacles on her nose and flipped open the top file folder. “Your names are...very unusual. Anastasia?” Her eyes bounced kinetically back and forth between the two girls.

“That’s me,” said Stasi. “Please, call me Stasi.”

“Oh.” She pulled a pencil from behind one ear (the twins fairly ogled) and made a note, then went on to the next folder. “Tamu-?”

“Tamujin,” he said. “I go by Tam.”

“That is unusual. What nationality is that?”

“Mongolian.”

“It’s Genghis Kahn’s first name,” offered the staring, blonde gamine next to him.

“Oh, my! How did they ever settle on that?”

Tam turned beet red and threw his little sister a get-even glance. “Dad’s a...a historian. He’s fascinated with that period.”

“I see...well....” She made a note, then glanced at the twins. “Now, you’d be Constantine, I’ll bet.”

“Connie,” said Tam.

“Con,” said Constantine. “Connie is a girl’s name, here.”

“And Tahireh...my, that’s pretty.”

“It’s Persian,” explained Tahireh proudly, then announced, “Tahireh was a martyr in the cause of women’s suffrage.”

Mrs. Thorpe’s face froze, whether because the vocabulary was bit precocious for an eight year old or because either martyrdom or suffrage was an unusual topic of conversation for a child that age Stasi couldn’t guess. Mrs. Thorpe wriggled her lips back into a smile. “Really? How interesting.”

“They strangled her with her wedding scarf and threw her body down a well. Just before she died she said, ‘You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women.’”

Mrs. Thorpe let out a nervous giggle. “How precocious!” she burbled, then whisked them away to their classes.

Stasi thought she’d like her teacher. Her name was Mildred Tindall and she was young, pretty and quick to praise. She exclaimed over what a pretty name Anastasia was and said she thought Stasi’s dress was strikingly beautiful and that she liked the unusual color of her hair.

Stasi was not so sure she was going to like her classmates. She overheard one of them say her dress was “antique” and her hair was “weird” and her name was “foreign.”

This is a learning experience, she told herself and ignored the whispers and the fact that she really did look dreadfully out of place among these wearers of plaid and poodle skirts, saddle shoes and natural-colored pony tails.

By lunch time she had acquired a reputation as a Brain and heard the words “teacher’s pet” whiffle softly through the air over her head. She thought briefly about playing dumb, but Dad said never to stifle your natural abilities to suit anyone else’s expectations and besides, it rubbed her the wrong way.

She was on her way to the cafeteria when she felt someone lift her ankle-length skirt from behind. She skittered sideways, nearly colliding with a group of loitering boys and turned to find herself confronting three of her female classmates. They peered at her archly, their notebooks clasped to their chests like battle shields.

“Why do you wear such weird clothes?” asked one of them. “Beth says it’s because you’re a Quaker or something. Are you a Qu-a-a-a-ker?” Her voice wavered and cracked on the last word and the two girls flanking her giggled.

“No. I’m a Bahá’í,” Stasi told them.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a religion. Excuse me. I’m going to be late for lunch.”

She started to turn away, but the tallest of the three moved to cut off her path of retreat.

“So why do you wear such weird clothes?”

Stasi muzzled her considerable temper and said, “I just haven’t had a chance to get any new clothes since we got here. This was the height of fashion the last place we lived.”

”Oh, yeah? And where was that, Mars?”

Stasi drew herself to her full height. “Paris, actually. France.”

The girls exchanged glances. “Prove it,” said the first one, truculently. “Speak some French, if you can.”

“Mais, bien sur. Je pense que vous parlez tres follement. Maitenant, exusez-moi. J’ai faim.” And she slipped quickly away.

“What’d she say? What did you say?” They were on her heels.

“I said, ‘I’m hungry.’”

“All that, just to say you’re hungry?”

She kept moving.

“You didn’t really speak French! You just made that up!” “I’ll bet you got in trouble for doing that to your hair!”

She escaped into the cafeteria.

She was standing in the chow line craning her neck to see where Tam and the twins might be when she felt someone jiggle her elbow. Oh, God, please! she thought. Not again. She turned to find a pair of pale, spectacled eyes peering owlishly at her from beneath a fringe of overly curly dishwater blonde hair.

“Hi, I’m Elaine. I sat behind you in class today.”

“Oh, yeah. Hi.”

“You just have to ignore them, you know.” She tilted her

head toward where Stasi’s tormenters flirted with some male students. “They really do say the silliest things. I like your hair,” she added, eyeing the deep red bob. “It’s different.”

“Thanks.” Anastasia managed to turn her ogle into a shy smile. “Would you like to eat lunch with us? My brothers and little sister should be around somewhere.”

The smile bounced back from Elaine’s silver-clad teeth with increased amplitude and Stasi felt a sharp twinge of precognitive agony. For any member of the Jones family, a friend gained was a friend lost.

oOo

After suffering Tam’s disapproving glances, Constantine’s moping and Tahireh’s constant chatter on the shuffle home, Anastasia was ready to explode. Her mother’s half-cheery, half­anxious, “Well, how was the first day?” was like a match to a short fuse.

“Oh, Mom, it was awful! They teased me about my name, my clothes, my hair...everything!. Mom, when can I get some new clothes?”

Helen Jones went for the obvious out like a hunted vixen through a privet hedge. “Why, sweetie, all you had to do was ask. How’s tomorrow after school?”

Stasi rolled her eyes. “I may swoon!”

”It’s a date. Maybe you should wear something a little less...conspicuous tomorrow. Okay?”

“No problem. I’ll go see what I can dig out.” Stasi disappeared up the stairs.

Helen Jones scanned her remaining children’s faces warily. “So, how about the rest of you?”

“It was terrible,” grumbled Constantine. “Everybody called me ‘Smarty-pants.’ Nobody would play with me at recess because they thought I was showing off for the teacher.”

“Were you showing off for the teacher?”

“Mo-om! All I did was add a column of figures.”

“Six digit figures,” inserted Tahireh. “In his head.”

“Well, what’m I s’posed to do—play dumb?”

Helen grimaced slightly. “Of course, you shouldn’t play dumb, but you could pretend to be working it out on the black board.”

Con glowered and stuffed small fists into his pockets. “I s’pose.”

Unprompted, Tahireh announced, “I had fun. I told the whole class about my namesake. They thought it was so dramatic. I’m going to like it here.” And she took herself off to the backyard. Con followed like a glowering shadow.

“Well?” Helen swung away from her roll-top desk and regarded her remaining child with some trepidation. He still hung back in the archway between the entry hall and the parlor, looking sullen and rebellious. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” he said dully, and turned to head for the stairs. He paused in mid-turn and looked back over his shoulder. “Stasi made a friend today.” His eyes accused her.

She smiled weakly. “That’s nice.”

“No, Mom, it’s not nice. She does this every time. I’ve learned not to, but she just keeps doing it.”

“Then, she obviously needs to do it. She’s fifteen. That’s a critical time for friends.”

“Oh? Well, how long are we going to be here then, Mom? Is Stasi going to graduate from this school with her friends? Am I?”

His mother’s smile strained at the eyes and slipped at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know, dear. It depends.”

“On what, Mom? On what, this time?”

”The book your father is researching-“

“The Book. The Project. The Grand Theory. The Curiosity. Jesus, Mom, are we ever going to have a real home with real friends that we can invite into the house?”

Helen’s expression changed radically from Mom-on-the-run to Mom reproachful. “We do not use that name as an expletive, Tamujin Jones. And this is a real home. Home isn’t a place, you know. It’s people. Family.”

“Yeah, I know. But sometimes family’s not enough. Sometimes we need friends, too. You and Dad get so caught up in your work sometimes.”

“I know. I know. But why can’t you make real friends here?”

“C’mon, Mom. You know why.”

“Lots of people move around—military personnel, field scientists like your father and I-“

“But they can at least write to the friends they leave behind. Call them. Visit them. We can’t do any of those things, Mom. We just keep leaving little bits of ourselves all over the place while we get smaller and smaller.”

He turned away from her then, and bounded up the stairs. She sat for a moment, thinking, then dropped her notes into the drawer of her desk, shutting and locking it. Then, she went to call her husband.

oOo

They were halfway through a semi-glum dinner, when the elder Joneses started glancing at each other the way parents do when they’ve been plotting behind their children’s backs. After several minutes of this, Troy Jones made an announcement.

”Mom and I have been talking,” he said, and Anastasia tried not to recall the last announcement that had been so prefaced. “Congratulations,” returned Tam, and asked for the mashed potatoes.

His father ignored him. “We realize our existence is rather...Bohemian.”

“Is that what it is?” mumbled Tam.

“We know you get a little lonely and sometimes feel a bit out of place.”

“Try all the time,” said Tam.

His mother interceded. “Tamujin, quit behaving like a verbal sniper and let your father finish what he’s trying to say.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tahireh. “This could be good.”

Troy Jones bowed his head to his youngest daughter. “Thank you, Tar. Now. what I’m trying to get to is this: We know how hard it is on you to have to keep your friends at arm’s length, so we’ve decided you don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Excuse me?” said Stasi, not sure she’d heard him right. Helen smiled at her children brightly. “We’ve decided you can bring your friends over. Isn’t that great?”

Four pairs of young eyes stared at her.

“Seriously, Mom?” asked Stasi.

“Seriously.”

“Magnifique!” exclaimed Tahireh.

“Of course,” her father cautioned, “there will have to be some new house rules to accommodate this. We can’t have people wandering into restricted areas, and we can’t mark them as restricted areas without arousing too much curiosity. So, we’ll have to disguise those areas. You’ll also have to be careful with your personal belongings. Okay? You won’t be able to leave stuff out where your friends can stumble over it.”

Constantine’s nose wrinkled in consternation. “You mean we have to put all our stuff away?”

”That would be best.”

“But if we don’t have toys or anything our friends will think we’re fanatics. You know what the Book says about fanaticism.”

Troy Jones spent a solid five seconds looking completely confounded. He knew very well what the Book said about fanaticism and was trying to work out how he could not have it apply to this situation.

“It’s okay Dad,” Tam interjected. “Stasi and I will go through their stuff and pick out what’s okay for public consumption.”

Troy smiled. “Thanks. Now, you can’t all bring friends home at once, so we’ll have to set up a system.”

“How about first ask, first come?” asked Tahireh.

Her father considered that. “Sounds reasonable.”

She immediately raised her hand, waving it energetically in the air over the casserole. “Me! Me! I’m first! Can I bring my new friend Frog home for dinner tomorrow?”

“Frog?” echoed Tam. “Is that a friend or a pet?”

“His eyes are kind of buggy,” Tahireh explained, “so the other kids call him ‘Frog.’ Can he come?”

Helen glanced at her husband. “How about Friday? We’ll need some time to police the household.”

Tahireh nodded. “Friday’s good.”

Dinner was a little more companionable after that, but Stasi couldn’t help wondering if they’d just opened themselves up to a whole new order of agony.

oOo

“It’s just going to make things worse,” said Tam stonily. He kicked at a puffball toadstool and was satisfied when it burst, scattering its powder of spores everywhere.

“Must you abuse the local flora?” asked Tahireh, then charged away from him down the path into town.

“I know,” said Stasi. She admired the way the grass along the path lay over in the wind like soft, green seaweed in a lazy current. She leaned over and ran her fingers across the undulating tendrils.

Tam stopped beside her on the trail and watched her. “You’re going to make friends with that Elaine, aren’t you?”

Stasi straightened. “I suppose so.”

“Why? You know what’ll happen. It’s just going to hurt.”

“I know. But I can’t shut everybody out the way you can.”

“You could learn. I did.” He turned and walked on down the path, leaving her alone under the maples.

She felt suddenly morose, and followed him lethargically to school where everybody she saw stared at her. Really stared, as if she was still wearing her pajamas. It was even worse than the day before. She glanced down at herself. Her jeans were zipped, her shoes were tied. She tilted a glance over her shoulder and down her back. There were no rips, no stains, no signs that said, “Kick me!”

It must be my earrings, she thought and settled at a desk next to Elaine in the second row.

Everything seemed normal after that until Miss Tindall asked a question and Stasi rose to answer it. She’d barely gotten two words out of her mouth before she became aware of a sudden shift in the level of tension in the room. She heard a gasp, a murmured “uh-oh,” and glanced down at Elaine, who was staring at her incredulously.

Miss Tindall, hearing the sudden silence behind her, turned from the blackboard.

“Now, I know-“

The class was never to hear what she knew. Her eyes widened. Her next utterance was, “Anastasia-!”

Anastasia blinked and stared back into her teacher’s face. Had the world chosen this morning to go completely mad? She suddenly felt like Alice facing a pack of ogling playing cards and the Red Queen.

Miss Tindall set her chalk in the tray and dusted her fingers on the neat piece of gingham flannel she kept on a hook by the board.

“Anastasia,” she said, “please go out into the hall and wait for me.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” She heard “What’s wrong?” echoed derisively by several muffled voices.

“In the hall, please. Class, you may start your reading assignment on page five in the history text while I’m gone.”

Stasi let the door fall shut and waited, miserably, in the silent hallway. What was wrong with her? Had she suddenly sprouted a moustache and glasses? She explored her face gingerly. Did she have spots? She was supposed to be inoculated against just about every known disease. Had one of her siblings played a joke on her?

The classroom door swung open and Miss Tindall appeared, looking very serious. “Anastasia, can you explain yourself?”

No, Miss Tindall, I can’t, she thought. Aloud, she said, “Explain what? What’ve I done? Why is everyone staring at me?”

“Are you serious? Young lady, what do you expect, when you come to school dressed in such completely inappropriate attire?”

Stasi did a quick mental inventory of her person. The simple white shirt, canvas shoes. Her hand flew to the huge black and white zebra earrings that dangled from her ears.

“I’m sorry. Is there some rule about earrings?”

“Earrings? Young lady, you are stretching both my credulity and my patience. What ever possessed you to think you could get away with wearing pants to school? Blue jeans, no less!”

Completely taken aback, Stasi answered honestly. “They made fun of my good clothes. Mom told me to wear these until we could go shopping for something that would...fit in better.”

“Your mother told you to wear blue jeans? I find that difficult to believe. Anastasia, are you sure you’re telling me the truth? I don’t know of a single school in this country that will tolerate girls wearing pants to class.”

”Oh. I’m sure Mom didn’t realize that. The last place we lived, you could wear just about anything you wanted.”

Miss Tindall looked entirely skeptical. “Oh? And where was this—Mars?”

Stasi blinked and licked her lips, feeling a giggle forming in her throat. “Paris,” she said. “Paris, France.”

Miss Tindall sighed. “I see. Well, I’m sorry, Stasi, but I really have no choice but to send you home for the rest of the day. When you come in tomorrow, make sure you’re wearing a dress. I’ll send your assignments home with your brother. And I’m afraid I’m going to have to have a word with your mother about this. It’s school policy.”

”Good,” Stasi murmured.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Good,’” she repeated, her eyes feeling tight with tears. “Maybe then they’ll see that we don’t belong here.” She darted away, then, down the corridor, out the back door of the Secondary wing and home.

oOo

Helen Jones heard the slam of the front door and the rapid pounding of feet up the stairs to the second floor. She left her husband, who was oblivious to both the pounding and his wife’s departure from their shared laboratory/office, and went upstairs to find her daughter flung across her bed glaring at the ceiling.

“Well, young lady, can you tell me what you’re doing home at 0900 hours?”

“I was inappropriately attired. And if one more person calls me ‘young lady’ in that tone of voice, I’ll scream bloody murder.”

Frowning, Helen moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “You were what?”

Stasi sat up and looked her mother in the eye, a mutinous expression on her face. “Girls are not allowed to wear pants to school here, Mom. They think it’s immoral or something.”

Helen blinked. “Oh. Oh, dear. Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t check. It didn’t even occur to me that-“

“I know, I know.... She wants to talk to you and Dad.”

“Who?”

Stasi grimaced. “Miss Tindall. My teacher.”

“I’ll go in tomorrow morning and talk to her,” Helen decided.

“And say what, Mom? What can you tell her that will make her understand why I don’t fit in?”

“Don’t worry about it, honey. I’ll make her understand.”

She patted her daughter’s knee and left.

Already writing the speech, Stasi thought, and flopped back onto the bed with a groan.

They went clothes shopping after lunch, and Stasi spent the remainder of the afternoon wrinkling her nose at her new skirts and dresses as she hung them up and shortening the hemlines of a few of her old ones. That task also required a modicum of facial contortions.

Tam brought her homework in as soon as he got home. She was reading and he dropped the schoolbooks on the foot of her bed.

“What happened?”

Stasi put down her book. “Girls don’t wear blue jeans to school in the United States.”

Tam whistled. “And Mom and Dad didn’t know that? Jeez, they must be slipping. They used to have all that stuff iced.”

“Why should they care? They’re too busy researching books and digging up artifacts to care about what’s acceptable fashion in some little pie-dink town in Nebraska.”

”Podunk,” he corrected. “If we were home-“

“Home? What’s that?”

Tam stared at the book lying between them, ran his fingers over the smooth plastic covering. That was from Home.

“Do you remember Danice Patten?”

Stasi shot him a dark glance. “Of course, I remember Danice. She was my best friend.”

“Do you wish we could go back?”

“Stupid question, Tam. What good does it do to wish? What was it you said—if wishes were wheels-“

”What if we did more than wish?”

Stasi looked at her younger brother doubtfully. “Like what? Talking to them doesn’t help. They don’t listen. You should have heard Mom this morning—all hot-fizz to explain to Miss Tindall why her daughter is such a social misfit. ‘I’ll make her understand, honey,’” she mimicked.

Tam snorted. “That means they’re going to do their Richard and Mary Leakey routine.”

“Right, and trot out that tired old ‘Helen of Troy’ line. They love this, Tam. They’re home for each other. They didn’t have that many friends when we were home. Just books and artifacts and colleagues in the field.”

“And us. C’mon, Sis, let’s not dive off the pier,” he added when she pulled a sour face.

“OK. All right. And us. But they never hear us, Tam. Then we say we’re miserable or lonely or homesick, they just tune it out, or pretend we’re going through a phase or having a bad day.”

“Then maybe we can do something to make them tune us in. You know—actions that speak louder than words, et cetera.”

Stasi picked up the book again, fingering it almost reverently—a memento from another life. Home. Suddenly, she was angry at Tam for even making her think about it.

”What actions, Tam?” she asked, bitter. “What actions could we possibly take that would show them what they can’t see? You know what we can do? Nothing. We could all commit suicide tomorrow and they’d think it came out of nowhere.”

Tam glanced at her sharply. “You wouldn’t-“

“No, of course not. But sometimes I do think about mutiny. About tying them up and making them take us Home.”

“Anastasia!” Their mother’s voice floated up the stairs. “Stasi?”

Stasi got up and went out onto the landing. “Yeah, Mom?”

“There’s someone down here to see you. Elaine?”

Stasi froze for a moment, suddenly loathe to carry on what she had started.

“Um, okay,” she said finally. “I’ll be right down.” She padded downstairs with Tam on her heels and met her Mom and Elaine in the front hall. “Hi, Elaine. What’s-what’s up?” The last word came out a little too brightly.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Yeah. I’m all right.” She looked at her Mom. “Can Elaine come up to my room?”

Helen smiled, her eyes anxious. “As long as it’s clean, dear.”

Stasi remembered the book. “Oh, I-“

“It’s clean,” Tam averred. “Of course, all the embarrassing stuff is under the pillows.” He favored his sister with a secret glance.

“Thanks,” she told him, and led her new friend upstairs.

oOo

Troy and Helen Jones appeared in the offices of the Papillion Community School just before classes were to start the morning after Stasi’s run-in with school regulations. Miss Tindall was obviously surprised to see them—surprised and a little nervous. That they were both dressed in the khaki uniform of field anthropologists might have contributed to that unease. She was determined not to let it show.

“Hello, Miss Tindall, isn’t it?” Troy Jones shook her hand. “I’m Troy Jones and this is my wife, Helen.”

Helen smiled. “That’s me—Helen of Troy.”

Miss Tindall smiled in return. “Yes, of course. How amusing.” She seated them in a conference cubicle and moved to barricade herself behind a wooden desk. “Frankly, I’m surprised to see you. I didn’t expect Anastasia to tell you much about our little misunderstanding.”

“Our children tell us everything, Miss Tindall,” Troy assured her. “We have a very open relationship.”

Miss Tindall looked doubtful. “Did she tell you why I sent her home?”

“Yes, inappropriate dress, wasn’t it? You know, I really don’t understand that. With the weather being so nippy these days, I’d think blue jeans would be just what the meteorologist ordered.”

Miss Tindall blinked. “I.... There are rules, Mr. Jones.”

“Doctor Jones.”

“Excuse me. Doctor Jones. There are rules that govern how our young ladies dress. We expect them to be obeyed.”

“Why? Good God, surely you don’t want your young ladies freezing to death at their bus stops in the winter?”

“Of course not. They’re free to wear nice pants to school as long as they remove them and put them in their lockers during class.”

Dr. Jones ogled. “They run around in their underwear?”

Helen giggled into her hand.

Miss Tindall did not giggle. She didn’t even smile. She fixed him with a cool gaze and said, “They wear the pants under their skirts, Dr. Jones.”

“But that’s redundant.”

“It’s the rule, Doctor. I didn’t make the rule. I only enforce it. Do you honestly want your daughter parading around dressed like a boy?”

“Miss Tindall, who defines which clothes are male and which are female? Medieval gentlemen (such as they were) wore leggings and skirts. Scotsmen wear kilts to this day. And in Egypt, at this very moment, men stroll the avenues wearing what you would call dresses while their wives do the shopping in what you would call pants.”

“This is America, Dr. Jones, not Egypt. And it’s 1950, not the Middle Ages.”

“Miss Tindall,” said Helen quietly, “our children have led a much less sheltered life than their classmates. They’ve accumulated a vast library of diverse experiences. Anastasia’s spent most of her life in jeans and khaki field trousers, digging up history your students here have only read about. It’s going to take while for her to make the adjustment to this more restrictive lifestyle. All we’re asking is that you try to understand that what seems bizarre or out of place to you is normal to Stasi.”

“Normal,” repeated Miss Tindall. “Maroon hair, dresses that look like ankle-length sacks and earrings made from giant fishing lures?”

“Her hair is burgundy, Miss Tindall,” said Helen, “and all of those things you just mentioned were quite normal the last place we lived.”

Miss Tindall pursed her lips. “Paris, she said.”

“Paris,” agreed Helen.

“Mrs. Jones-“

“Doctor Jones.”

“Doctor Jones, I’m aware that Paris is the birth place of modern fashion, but I find it hard to believe that young ladies there wear such outlandish styles.”

“Well, they wore them while we were there.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” asked Helen. “You see that Stasi is different, but do you see that there’s nothing wrong with that?”

Miss Tindall sighed. “Dr. Jones-“

“There is nothing wrong with that, Miss Tindall. Stasi is an excellent student. A model teenager—honest, caring, mature beyond her years. Stasi is an individual. That individuality, that diversity, is very precious to her and to us. If you try to make her over in the image of some narrow ideal, if you try to squelch that individuality, we will have no choice but to withdraw our children from this school.”

Miss Tindall’s face went crimson. “That’s illegal, Mrs. Jones.”

“Doctor Jones,” Helen corrected her. “And we’ll worry about the legality of it. This is not a threat; please don’t take it that way. We simply want you to understand that we are willing to go to great lengths to protect our children’s individual rights. Stasi’s qualities, Miss Tindall, are on the inside; they are not woven into her clothing.” She looked at her husband, who was nodding thoughtfully. “I think we’ve done all we can here, dear. Shall we go?”

“Certainly.” He rose and reached across the desk/barricade for Miss Tindall’s hand. “Thank you for your time, Miss Tindall.”

They left the cubicle, drawing the gazes of the office staff after them.

Royalty in khaki, thought Mildred Tindall, and wondered where they’d come from.

oOo

Constantine Jones had a problem. He had come to school without his book bag. He had no pencils, no pens, no paper and, worst of all, no textbooks. When the teacher asked the class to take out paper and a pencil, he sat, frozen inside, glancing nervously around the room.

Two rows to the right, Tahireh caught his eye. “What?” she mouthed.

He shrugged and signed that he had forgotten the sacred bag.

She looked thoughtful for a second, then pointedly lifted her desktop and put her own pencil in. Then she withdrew it.

Constantine knew what she was suggesting. He tried to swallow the lump of panic in his throat, but it wouldn’t budge. “Here?” he mouthed.

“Constantine, paper and pencil, please,” said Mr. Matthews.

“Yes, sir.”

Constantine lifted the top of his desk, reached inside and, after a moment of eye clenched hesitation, pulled out a pencil and a piece of lined paper.

Mr. Matthews smiled pleasantly and proceeded to hand out in-class assignments.

Everything was fine until he asked them to take out their history readers. Constantine panicked again. He could just say he’d forgotten his books, but that would mean a mandatory after­school session, an extra assignment and utter humiliation before a council of his peers. His eyes cast about, clutching the boy next to him who had withdrawn the little textbook from his desk. It was covered in a crisp, brown paper bag.

Constantine echoed the movement, pulling out his own smartly attired book. His neighbor opened his book. He opened his, frowned in consternation, and quickly curved his arms around it.

“Page fifteen, please,” said Mr. Matthews. “I want you all to take a moment to read page fifteen, then we’ll talk about the New World.”

Constantine put his head down and sweated. He could feel his sister’s concern wash around and over him, felt it intensify to matching panic when Mr. Matthews took a bad turn and strolled up the aisle behind him.

Seeing a child hunkered so low over a textbook raises immediate suspicions in the mind of a teacher, and Mr. Matthews teacherly instincts were well-honed. He stopped right over Constantine and looked down. Then, he tapped Constantine on the shoulder.

”How are we doing, Mr. Jones?”

“Fine.”

“And what are we reading about?”

“The New World.”

“Isn’t it a little difficult to read about the New World all hunched over like that?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, straighten up, please. We don’t want you to ruin your eyes.”

Constantine stared at him for a moment, a wrinkle of pure anguish between his brows. Then he straightened up.

Mr. Matthews reached over his shoulder and nudged the book out of his protective embrace. After a moment of silence, during which Constantine was certain the entire Cosmos had collapsed, Mr. Matthews drew in a long breath and said, “Mr. Jones, can you explain to me why the pages of this book are empty?”

oOo

Constantine, clutching his older brother’s hand, cowered tearfully in the principal’s office. The offending volume was in the hands of the enemy and all was lost. He had no true conception of the magnitude of his crime, but he was certain it would mean the end of the world as he knew it.

Beside him, Tamujin breathed confidence and comfort into the ether. “It’s really very simple, sir,” he said. “Connie just picked up the wrong book.”

”The wrong book?”

“Yes, sir. That’s mine.”

“Yours? But it has blank pages.”

“Yes, sir. It’s a writer’s journal. You know, a thought book. I got it just before we left Paris. Connie must have mistaken it for his history book. He’d wrapped that in a paper bag too, and they’re about the same size.” He smiled engagingly. “I guess I should’ve put my name on it. Sorry, sir. I feel real bad about putting Constantine through this.”

He squeezed his little brother’s trembling shoulder and turned the smile down into his tear-streaked face.

Mr. Benoit looked at Tam for a moment, then turned his spectacled gaze to Constantine. “Well, no harm done, I suppose. Be more careful next time, young man. Check the contents of a book before you carry it to school.”

Outside in the corridor, Constantine’s gratitude was effusive.

“Whatever possessed you to do that?” Tam asked, completely ignoring his worshipful elegy.

“Tahireh.”

Tam looked down and shook Con’s shoulder. “Try again.”

“I forgot my book bag and the rule says if you forget your books, you have to do detention.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tam conceded. “I do recall that, now that you mention it. So, you just thought you’d go for a lesser penalty?”

Constantine glowered. “I didn’t mean to get caught.”

”Who does?”

“Do you think they’ll tell Mom and Dad?”

Tam shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You’d better hope not. You know the rules about ‘importing technologies across cultural boundaries.’ Dad would have a fit.”

Constantine stared down the empty corridor toward the distant classroom. “Yeah, he sure would.”

oOo

“Miss Tindall hates me,” said Stasi. “What did you say to her?”

Helen blinked. Next to her, her husband echoed the movement, staring at his eldest child as if she was an anthropological specimen that had suddenly risen up to protest being dug out of the ground.

“We just spoke to her about how important your individuality is,” said Helen. “That’s all.”

“Well, now she’s treating me like—like a pariah. She won’t call on me unless I’m the only one with my hand raised, and even then she won’t look at me or smile at me or anything.”

Helen glanced at Troy, who was glancing at his notes as if he was preparing to dive back into them. She caught his eye pre-­dive and he shrugged.

“If it gets too bad, we’ll talk to her again,” he promised.

“Oh, great!”

“Now, Anastasia, your father and I were only trying to help.”

Stasi had the grace to look contrite. “I know, but I’m afraid she’ll flunk me or something.”

Her mother laughed. “Good heavens! Why worry about something as trivial as that? It’s not like she’s actually teaching you anything. A local educator’s arbitrary marks aren’t going to affect your degree, honey.”

“I know, but you can get black marks for failure to acculturate. She might make Professor Amadiyeh think I have a bad attitude.”

“We’ll tell him otherwise.”

Stasi was silent for a moment, feeling incredibly freighted down and lonely. Thinking about Professor Amadiyeh made her think of Home and Danice Patten and all the other friends that now seemed light years away. Friends she couldn’t reach by land or by sea.

“Can’t we please go home?”

Her mother looked sympathetic (she always looked sympathetic) and said, “Stasi, honey, your father and I are in the middle of a Project.”

“Can’t you finish it at home?”

“How can we study the culture in and around military installations in Post World War Two America without having access to those installations?”

“Couldn’t you use QuestLabs as a home base and just pop into a military base when you need to look at one?”

Her father laughed. “Stasi, you crack my mind! Do you have any idea how prohibitively expensive that would be? We blow over a hundred grand every time we power up the Grid, hon. Just settle down and enjoy Papillion, okay? It’s not such a bad little town. When we’re done here at Offutt, I’ll see if we can’t cut straight to the Pentagon. You kids’ll love Washington D.C.. Now, why don’t you go study before dinner?”

She stared at him, at her mother, already bending over the thin plate display in her hands, scanning faux-3D pictures of military personnel in their monotone uniforms.

They’re so happy, she thought. Like two kids in a sand box.

She went upstairs. On the second floor landing, Tam met her.

“Secret meeting of the Jones Gang,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “My room. Five minutes.”

“Thank you, Bugsy Malone,” she said.

Tam deflated. “That was my best John Wayne.”

“John who?”

“God, a cultural illiterate. You’d better bone up on your Twentieth Century films.”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s the meeting?”

Tam pointed at her nose. “It’s a secret. Be there or be a rhombus.” He turned and headed downstairs.

Five minutes later, they shared soda pop and greasy potato chips on the floor of Tam’s room. Of the four, only Tahireh seemed disinclined to glower.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’ve called you here,” said Tam, munching.

“Get on with it,” growled Stasi.

“I have an idea about how we might just possibly get Home before Mom and Dad retire.”

Stasi snorted. “Oh, this should be good. We’re gonna mutiny and take over the Grid Controller, right? Tie up Mom and Dad and slam this baby into reverse.”

“Close.” Tam took a swig of soda, looking arch.

“Well?” prompted Constantine. “C’mon, Tam. I could be out catching bugs, y’know.”

”Mutiny,” said Tam deliciously, dangerously.

“Mutiny,” repeated Stasi. “Where’d you get a fuzz-brained idea like that?”

“Actually, I got it from you and Connie.”

“Con.”

Tam toyed with a chip crumb on the hardwood floor, scooting it around and around with his finger.

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if we didn’t try so hard to fit in wherever we go—if we sort of, oh, had trouble blending into the landscape?”

Stasi looked at him—hard. “Go on.”

“What would Mom and Dad do if these little settling-in problems kept happening—maybe even got worse?”

”Ignore them?” suggested Constantine.

“They might try.” Tam shrugged. “But if it got really bad and the teachers all got in an uproar and the Education Council got wind of it-“

Stasi’s face finally lit up. “Professor Amadiyeh! If we all flunked out of school or started upsetting the local golf cart-“

“Apple cart.”

“I can have any kind of cart I want, thank you. He’d have to get involved, wouldn’t he? I mean, after all, it’s his responsibility to see that our educational environment is sound.”

“Yeah.” Tam agreed pleasantly.

Constantine just folded his arms and smiled.

Between them, Tahireh, clutching a favored doll, stared at her siblings in horror. “Oh, you can’t! You can’t do something like that. Why, Mom and Dad would be.... Well, they’d think there was something wrong with us.”

“There is something wrong with us, Tahireh,” said Stasi. “We’re from another century, another world, almost. We don’t belong here. We’re...an anachronism.”

“But Mom and Dad are so happy here!”

“Mom and Dad are happy anywhere they can dig up something or write papers,” said Tam.

“But, it’s not fair for us to ask them to give up their work.”

“We’re not asking them to give up their work, Tar. We’re just asking them to reorganize it a little.”

”Reorganize?” repeated Tahireh dubiously.

“Yeah,” said Tam and munched another handful of chips.

oOo

No one in Papillion, Nebraska had ever seen an outfit like the one Anastasia Jones wore on a particular Monday. The ankle­-length jumper was a deep shade of burgundy that rivaled its wearer’s hair. That hair was caught up in a fluorescing green clip on one side of her head, forming a stiffened fan. From her ears dangled the most amazing set of orange and green “giant fishing lures” imaginable, and the shirt she wore was of a shade of orange almost never found in nature.

Heads turned the moment she took off her jacket and stuffed it into her locker. They kept turning as she paraded the halls on her way to class. She smiled at Miss Tindall’s ogling first glance and ignored the whispered wise-cracks of her classmates. When, during a morning study break, Miss Tindall called her into the hall again, she was calm, smiling, amiable.

”Yes, Miss Tindall?” she said sweetly.

“I thought your mother bought some new clothes for you.”

“She did.”

The teacher made an uncertain gesture. “Well, then-“

“I like these clothes, Miss Tindall. They...suit me.” Her smile widened. “Don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure they’re suitable for school.” Miss Tindall was making a gallant attempt to sound kind and wise.

Stasi looked bemused. “Why not? Is there a rule against them?”

”Well...no, but they are distracting to the other students.”

“That’s not my fault, is it? Besides, I think they’ll get used to it.”

Miss Tindall frowned. “That’s a poor attitude, young lady.”

“Why? I’m not breaking any rules and I’m not hurting anybody. I’m just being myself. What’s wrong with that?”

Miss Tindall sucked in her lips and fixed Stasi with a look that might have frozen a lesser fifteen-year-old on the spot. Stasi smiled.

Miss Tindall tried another tack.

“Stasi, dear, can’t you hear them laughing at you? Don’t you care if you become a laughing stock?”

Stasi thought about that. “No,” she said.

“No,” repeated Miss Tindall.

Stasi shook her head. “I’d rather be a laughing stock and be different than look just like everyone else.”

“I see.”

“May I go study now, please?”

Speechless, Miss Tindall opened the door and ushered her in.

oOo

Tahireh stood before her class with total aplomb, dressed in an azure linen sari that, with the lime green shirt she’d elected to wear under it, made her look like an elongated peacock. Her blonde hair cascaded in a fountain from a tiny topless blue fez.

“When I Grow Up—an essay by Tahireh Jones. Ahem. When I grow up I plan to be a scientist like my mother. And, like my mother, I would like to have my first Master’s degree by the time I’m fifteen and my first Ph.D. at twenty—in Physics, I think, Quantum Physics...or maybe Particle Physics. I think I’d like to get my degree at Stanford—that’s in California. Then, I would like to go to Juliard and study drama and voice. It is my dream to someday portray the fearless saint, Tahireh, for whom I am named, in the play about her commissioned by the immortal Sarah Bernhardt. I also plan to write several novels, books of inspirational poetry and academic volumes on travel in space and time.”

She paused and thought for a moment, ignoring the titters of her classmates, then added, “I would also like to be one of the first full time field scientists on Mars.”

Now the class cackled in unabashed glee. Mr. Matthews stood and clapped his hands.

“Class! Class! Please! I think we should applaud Tahireh for a very interesting and imaginative presentation. Now, seriously, young lady, tell us what you really want to do when you grown up.”

“Everything I just said, although, I might like to study acting first.”

Mr. Matthews smiled tolerantly. “But, Miss Jones, half those things are...just make-believe—going to Mars, time travel. And the others are not very realistic goals for a young lady. Don’t you want a family? Children?”

“Oh, sure. If I fall in love with somebody, then I’ll have that too.”

The indulgent smile deepened. “Young lady, you can’t do both.”

“Why not? My Mom did. She says you can be whatever you want. She’s got three Ph.D.s and her teaching credentials. She’s written three books, too. One of them won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think I’d like to be the first author to win a Nobel prize for a science fiction novel.”

“Science fiction,” Mr. Matthews repeated. “I see.” He looked around the room. “Who would like to go next?”

Pamela Harris wanted to go next. Pamela had been going to talk about being a beautician like her big sister, she said, and marrying someone who looked like Clarke Gable and moving to Omaha, but she was having second thoughts. She decided she really wanted to be a cruise ship captain like her Uncle Jerry, or maybe even an Air Force pilot like her father. She wasn’t really sure she wanted a family at all. At least, not until she was very old. She thought she’d rather travel all over the world and decide about a family later.

Out of Mr. Matthew’s eleven female students, seven suddenly opted to grow up differently than they’d previously planned. The word “homemaker” came up only twice as a lifetime goal. Tahireh Jones suddenly had the young ladies in Mr. Matthew’s third grade class talking about careers, degrees and the equality of the sexes.

oOo

“About this paper, Mr. Jones.” Mr. Schiflin pushed the three page essay across his desk.

“Yes, sir?”

”I didn’t grade it, because I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I asked for an essay on the future of relations between the U.S. and Europe and you gave me science fiction.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“You can’t honestly believe what you wrote here. Why did you write it?”

“Of course I believe it, sir.”

Mr. Schiflin rustled the top page. “A unified Germany? The U.S. and the Soviet Union the closest of allies? A world government? English as a universal language?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What makes you think the U.S. will lose its super-power status?”

Tam shrugged. “It’s inevitable, isn’t it? If we’re to achieve world unity, there really can’t be any so-called super­powers—at least, not the way we’re used to thinking of them. We have to give up some sense of sovereignty to become a working member of a community made up of equal nations.”

“There are those who would find that view unpatriotic or un-­American. I just find it absurd. I’d like you to rewrite this essay, Mr. Jones, from a more realistic point of view.”

”I can’t, sir.”

Mr. Schiflin fixed him with a positively deadly over-the-bifocals stare.

“This is the way it’s going to be...I believe. If I wrote something else, I’d be lying. You don’t want me to lie, do you, sir?”

The stare waxed more deadly. “Perhaps I need to have a word with your parents about this, young man.”

“Perhaps you do, sir,” returned Tam agreeably.

oOo

Tuesday, Constantine forgot his pencil bag. He stared at the empty paper before him on the desk, arms folded, stoic. He could ask the teacher for a pencil, but that would lay him open to ridicule and perhaps even discipline. He could signal Tahireh to toss him one of hers, but she’d probably get caught doing it and made to stand against the wall for throwing things in class. He could ask Bobby Truman to lend him one, but then he’d get caught whispering. That drew a stiff oral presentation on a randomly selected subject.

Then, again, he could always manifest a pencil—they were easy and non-descript—but he’d promised Mom and Dad he wouldn’t. When he and Tam had told their parents about the blank book incident, a definite rule was established: no manifesting of books, pencils, or paper. Period.

Constantine had mumbled something about stifling the development of his God-given talents, but the rule stood-­Constantine was not to manifest so much as a paper clip.

But I don’t need a paper clip, he thought, I need-

“Constantine, begin working on the problems, please.”

He glanced up toward the front of the class. Mr. Matthews gazed back, pointedly tapping his wristwatch. Constantine dropped his eyes and glanced quickly around the room, taking in the hunched figures of the other children—scribbling madly, eraser chewing, pencil tapping.

A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He glanced at his open math book, then set his gaze purposefully on the empty paper beside it, the first set of figures indelibly impressed on his mind.

Mr. Matthews started wandering several minutes later, weaving his way along and through the rows of struggling students, checking their progress or lack thereof. One of them sat unnaturally straight, eyes on his paper, smiling, hands folded inactively in his lap.

Matthews worked his way quietly toward the immobile child, snuck up behind him and peered expectantly over his shoulder, mouth open to utter a terrifying, “And what are we doing, Mr. Jones?” But the words did not form. Mr. Matthews ogled in silent disbelief as a series of mathematical problems scrawled themselves across the sheet of paper as if by an invisible pencil.

He gasped.

Constantine felt a chill of mixed terror and elation as he heard Mr. Matthews breath catch in his throat, sensed his blood cool suddenly in his veins.

The child-smile deepened.

oOo

“He hasn’t told anybody,” said Constantine. “I know he hasn’t. And it’s been three days.”

Tam wrinkled his forehead. “Well, Mr. Schiflin talked to Dad about my essay. Dad said I should be less direct in my revelation of future events. He assured Mr. Schiflin that I wasn’t un-American, just unusually perceptive and cosmopolitan. I’m not sure Schiflin even knows what ‘cosmopolitan’ means. How’re you girls doing?”

Tahireh drew herself up and smiled, tossing a thick blonde braid over her shoulder. “I’ve got almost every girl in our class thinking about what college they want to go to and what degrees they want to get.” She exchanged the smile for a puzzled frown. “But I don’t really understand how that’s supposed to upset anybody.”

“Oh, it will, Tar,” Tam told her. “You’ll see.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Stasi dourly. “I think maybe Mom and Dad awed the administration so much, they’re just gonna grin and bear it. Miss Tindall hasn’t batted more than an eyelash since our last talk. Elaine and a couple of the other girls have even started to dress like me and Beth Silverberg did something weird to her hair and Tindall just said, ‘My, that’s unique.’”

“Yeah, but Schiflin-“

“You handed in an essay that offended the man’s sensitivities. That’s not enough to get you in trouble.”

”Then we need to bolster our offense.”

Stasi shook her head. “We can’t do anything really bad, Tam. At least, I won’t.”

“Me neither,” vowed Tahireh.

“I wasn’t even going to suggest it. I just think we need to give them something they can’t ignore.”

oOo

Tamujin Jones handled his fluorescent orange and blue gravi­pack with cheerful confidence, showing everyone who cocked an eye at the bright satchel that it was light as a feather despite the fact that it obviously contained every textbook he owned. He stopped to let this one touch the sleek, shiny material; grinned as that one hefted it, finding it to be much lighter than it appeared to be; laughed outright when one especially curious young citizen removed a book to find that the single volume weighed more than the entire pack-full he had just taken it from.

“It’s what they make parachutes out of,” Tam told anyone who asked. “And astronaut’s uniforms.”

”Astro-what?” asked one freckled peer.

“Space suits,” Tam said and grinned.

“So what else do you carry around in that ‘space bag’ besides books?” asked the boy who sat behind him in class.

He tried to look coy, secretive. Stasi was better at that than he was. “Oh, not much,” he said, and floated the pack into his lap.

His classmates’ curiosity was suitably whetted. They watched the pack as if it might hold a football autographed by the Cornhusker’s starting quarterback. They were forced to take their eyes from it as class progressed, but Tam brought their attention back from time to time by rummaging in it, extracting a pencil, a notebook, his English text.

When Mr. Schiflin began to lecture on their English assignment, Tam set his pencil down in the midst of note-taking and glanced furtively around. Then he opened the pack and extracted, with the air of a veteran safe-cracker, something small and black and mechanical; something that drew the eyes of his circle of watchers like a magnet. He played it like a tiny piano—one handed—then scribbled, then listened, then played, then scribbled again.

A whisper of curiosity rippled out from Tam’s cast pebble, cresting within earshot of the lecturer. Schiflin, interest engaged, took his show on the road, wandering the depth and breadth of the classroom.

Tam let him come within two rows before he slipped the enticing object back into his pack. The teacher covered the distance between them in two strides, every eye in the class following him.

“What was that, Mr. Jones?”

Tam looked up, wide-eyed, and smiled affably. “What was what, sir?”

Schiflin pointed. “You just hid something in that bag.”

“I didn’t hide anything.”

“I saw him, Mr. Schiflin,” volunteered Greg Rollins from across the aisle. “He was playing with something. A puzzle, I think.”

“What was it, Mr. Jones?”

Tam shook his head. “The only thing I put away just now was my pocket dictionary.”

Mr. Schiflin’s pointing hand turned palm up. “Give it to me, please.”

“I was just taking notes and needed to look up a word-“

“Hand it over. Now.”

Tam hesitated just long enough to make Schiflin’s face turn red, then he withdrew the curiosity from the satchel and laid it across the teacher’s outstretched palm.

Schiflin turned the thing over, frowning at it. “What is this, Mr. Jones?”

“I told you, sir. It’s a dictionary. I was looking up words from your lecture.”

Schiflin stared at him. “A dictionary.... If you don’t mind, Mr. Jones, I think I’ll just hold onto this ‘dictionary.’ And I’ll expect you to deliver a note from me to your parents.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Schiflin started to turn away, then glanced back. “How does this work?”

“You just turn it on—the little red switch at the top. Press it; it turns green to show the unit is on. You press it again to turn it off. To look up a word, you can either enter it from the keypad or just tell it.”

“Tell it?”

Tam nodded, enjoying himself much more than he knew he should. He’d always wondered what it would be like to take Jules Verne for a ride in a hover-lite or show Edgar Alan Poe a computer. This had to be almost as good.

“Just say the word,” he said.

Schiflin frowned, then reddened. He glanced around the room as if he’d only just realized how big an audience they had.

“C’mon, Mr. Schiflin!” urged Greg. “Try it. I’ll bet he’s full of it!”

Schiflin didn’t even censure the outburst. “It would serve you right, young man, to be caught with your pants down.”

”I’m not lying, sir. I promise. Give it a word.”

Scowling, Schiflin pressed the red button. It turned green and a tiny, flat, black screen the size of a business card displayed the words: “Dictionary Mode.” Below that was: “Input Word?”

He held the thing close to his mouth and said, “Outrageous.”

The screen filled with text. “Outrageous,” echoed his own voice. “Grossly offensive, disgraceful, shameful, extravagant, immoderate. Shall I spell it?”

Face white with small patches of intense red at the cheeks, Schiflin stared at the tiny machine. “Shall I spell it?” asked the pleasantly aqua text.

“No, thank you,” he answered, and felt immediately stupid. Tam sensed his anger warring with wonder, with curiosity...with fear.

The bell rang, jolting everyone out of the shared stupor.

Still, no one moved. Mr. Schiflin cleared his throat. “Class dismissed for lunch. Mr. Jones, you may go home.”

“Why, sir? I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s all right to look up words—you said so.”

”In a book not-“

“It’s just a dictionary, sir.”

“It’s more than a dictionary, Mr. Jones. Even I can see that. What you’ve done is lied boldly and outrageously. You have disrupted my classroom. And I can only assume, you’ve stolen this obviously valuable piece of equipment. Now, go home. I’ll speak to your parents at their earliest convenience.”

“I didn’t steal it.”

”We’ll see about that.”

Tam nodded. “Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.” He gathered his books into the mysterious pack and left the campus.

He managed to get into the house without being seen by either parent. That wasn’t difficult. Troy Jones was at the Air Base posing as a scientist of some sort and his wife was cheerfully working on the text of their research somewhere in the Lab/Office.

When the others came in at 1630 hours, Stasi had her friend Elaine and two other giggling girls in tow. Tam came out to the landing, giving his sister the thumbs up sign as she entered the front hall. She returned it, looking purposefully intense and sporting a twisted, half-manic grin.

“Hi, Mom! I’m home!” she called through the front parlor. “I’ve got some friends with me. We’re going up to my room to do some homework, okay?”

There was a moment of silence, then Helen Jones’s voice came back to them from the “restricted area.” “Is your room clean?”

Stasi’s grin widened. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well...okay, then, I guess.”

“Thanks, Mom!”

The girls loped up the stairs, school books in arms, looking like Anastasia Jones Clones. Their hair was tugged off to one side in fans or sprays; their Mary Jane shoes mimicked her astrolon flats. They wore what looked like their big sister’s hand-me-down skirts and from every earlobe dangled earrings made of gaudy goo-gaws home-mounted on scavenged clips and wires. All in all, a most up-to-date group of young ladies—if the date was 2112.

Tam said, “Hi,” and returned to his room.

“Your little brother’s awful cute,” observed Trudy Wessa, “for a kid,” she added.

“I heard he got in trouble today,” said Elaine. “Do you know why?”

Stasi dumped her books on her desk and flopped into her study chair, a fulsome papasan they’d picked up in Japan.

“Gosh, no,” she said, wide-eyed. “I didn’t see him at lunch, though.”

“I heard he got caught with some kind of Air Force secret weapon,” offered Beth.

Elaine glared at her. “I heard it was just a toy.”

Stasi laughed. “Sure. What’s my little brother doing with an Air Force secret weapon?”

“Well, your dad works at Offutt, doesn’t he?” asked Beth. “Maybe he brought something home and Tam just...borrowed it.”

“Tam wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, Mr. Schiflin was real mad,” Trudy interjected. “I saw him talking to Mr. Benoit about it while I was in the Administration Office this afternoon.”

“Sounds like you heard him, too. Eavesdropping, were we?”

Trudy figured Elaine’s smirk warranted retaliation. She grabbed a pillow from under Elaine’s elbow and smacked her with it, sending her on a giggling roll against the headboard.

”Ow!” Elaine sat up again, rubbing her elbow and glowering at the two very hard objects it had connected with. Her expression changed immediately. “Oooh, wow! What are these?” She abandoned the wounded elbow in favor of checking out her find. “Dune, by Frank Herbert,” she read. “Winner of the Nebula Award.” She looked at the other one. “Studies in Physics and Metaphysics by Dr. Jamal Am-a-di-yeh.” She glanced over at Stasi. “Those sound like book titles.”

Stasi pretended embarrassment and leapt (belatedly) to collect her property. “Uh, they are.”

Elaine swept them out of her way only to have Trudy grab one.

“What are these? Some kind of ritzy slip covers?”

“Slip covers!” snorted Trudy. She tapped the one she held with her fingernail. “They feel like metal or plastic or something. What’s this red button do?”

Of course, she pushed it, and the book opened and presented her with a full-page menu which enquired politely if she wished to go to the last bookmark and, if so, would she like a summary of what had happened in the story so far, or would she rather start at the beginning? Would she like the book in black on white or white on black or would she rather select colors from a palette? Did she want pictures as well as text? Did she want audio output in addition to visual? Would she like to print hard copy?

“Wow!” she said. “Wow! What is this? Did you get this in Paris?”

Stasi scratched her nose, hiding a grin. “San Francisco.”

Trudy gaped at her.

“Who are these guys?” asked Beth. “Herbert and Ama- Ama-“

“Amadiyeh. Herbert’s a science fiction writer. Dr. Amadiyeh is my educational counselor.”

“Your what?”

“I thought Mrs. Hester was your counselor,” said Elaine, “same as me.”

“Well, this is different. This is for my, uh, home study program. You know, supplemental education.”

Beth nodded. “’Cause you’re a brain, right?”

“Something like that.” Stasi reached for the books again.

“2100 edition,” Elaine read. “Another Cyber-Book from-“

Stasi snatched the volume from her hands. “We’d better start on our skit.” She tossed the books into a drawer of her dresser. Three pairs of eyes locked on the drawer.

Elaine giggled. “Are you from Mars?”

oOo

”Any idea what this parent-teacher conference is all about?” Troy Jones asked the general assembly, since there was nothing in the usual “to discuss (your child’s name here)” blank.

Four innocent stares met him over the edge of the paper. He waved it in the air over his dinner plate. “Anyone care to claim this?”

The four innocent stares converged over the tofu loaf in a hasty, silent conference. Then, Stasi spoke, which was, in itself, enough to give both Doctors Jones pause. A speech by the eldest child generally meant she had been elected ring leader which, of course, meant there was a ring to lead, which could only lead to parental aggravation.

The Doctors Jones simultaneously recalled the last such occurrence, which had centered around the appearance of an unauthorized mongoose on the house manifest after a Shift to colonial India. The resulting furor in their quiet, well-modulated environment had gotten them and the mongoose evicted from their inner city condominium to a rambling house in the Berkeley hills.

“It’s probably just further repercussions from Tam’s disagreement with Mr. Schiflin,” Stasi said sagely, then added, “although, Miss Tindall did talk to me the other day about my clothes.”

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Helen warily.

Stasi shrugged. “She thought they were a little, um, bright ... different—you know, too individualistic.”

“But, I bought you some new skirts and blouses.”

“I like my old clothes better sometimes. They remind of who I am. Where I’m from...really.”

“Are there some problems here we’re not aware of?” asked their father.

Stasi and Tam shrugged in unison and glanced at each other.

”I got reprimanded for looking up some words during one of Mr. Schiflin’s lectures the other day,” offered Tam.

“Mr. Matthews didn’t like the way I did my math problems,” added Constantine.

Both Joneses Senior moved their eyes to Tahireh.

“I’m fine!” she said and smiled.

oOo

Tahireh Jones was not fine. Not according to Mr. Matthews and a sampling of mothers. She was a fomenter of discord, a libertine, a Bad Influence. Parents had complained that the daughters they’d assumed would work at the library until they married and settled nearby, now showed a sudden interest in brother’s college fund. Some even showed an interest in his toys and books. Others played at being Sarah Bernhardt or Katherine Hepburn; their dolls gathered in audiences so entranced as to be left unblinkingly wide-eyed and speechless.

While Helen and Troy Jones, seated in the principal’s office with that gentleman and a delegation of three teachers, pondered their response to those charges, Miss Tindall fired her volley. Their eldest daughter was an equally negative influence, encouraging the most ridiculous extremes in dress and hair styles. Distressed mothers wondered why their daughters had suddenly taken to ripping the hems out of their dresses and twisting their hair into shapes reminiscent of ornamental shrubbery.

Mr. Schiflin observed darkly that excesses in clothing were nothing compared to the sort of un-American, irreligious philosophy expounded by Tamujin Jones in his treatise on the future role of America in the free world.

“And then,” he said, pausing dramatically, “there’s this.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew-

“My God!” Troy Jones gasped. “Where did you-?”

”You recognize it, I see,” said Schiflin mildly.

“Ah...that is, well...yes. It belongs to- That is, it’s ...a piece of my lab equipment.”

”Really? Your son said it was his dictionary. May I ask how this obviously sophisticated piece of equipment came to be in the hands of a fourteen-year-old boy?”

“And how your daughter, Anastasia, came to be in possession of equally sophisticated readers written by unknown authors with no record in the Library of Congress?” added Miss Tindall.

“And how Constantine appears to be able to write without a pencil?”

“What?” said Mr. Benoit, and the other teachers stared at him.

“I saw him,” Matthews said, his voice low. “I did not imagine it.”     

Helen tried to dart in before a panic ensued. “The children weren’t supposed to-“ she began and stopped. Weren’t supposed to what—unleash future developments on their poor, unprepared, narrow environment? She glanced at her husband, who cleared his throat.

“In our line of work, Helen and I are...privileged to make use of many rather startling new technologies.”

“Your line of work?” repeated Mr. Benoit. “And what would that be? Espionage?”

“Good Lord, no. We’re research scientists—archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians.”

“Come now, Dr. Jones. We’ve seen enough to know that you and your family are digging up more than bones. This equipment, what Beth Silverberg and the others saw in your daughter’s room, the things your children have said and done, all lead to the obvious suspicion. You are Communist spies, Doctor Jones.” Benoit sat back in his principalian throne, looking quite pleased.

”Absurd!” said Troy irritably. His eyes followed Tam’s dictionary to the principal’s desk, as he wondered how to get it back.

“Ridiculous,” added Helen, and wondered the same thing.

”Is it? Even your children’s names are foreign. Tamujin—­that was Genghis Kahn, if I’m not mistaken; Anastasia—a member of the Russian aristocracy; Tahireh—the name of a Mohammaden suffragette-“

“That’s Muslim,” Troy corrected absently. “And she wasn’t. She was a Báb’í.”

“You side-step the issue, Doctor. I suspect that what Mr. Schiflin has confiscated from your son is a top secret invention. The question is: Whose top secret is it? Ours or theirs? Did you steal it from SAC Headquarters or did you bring it with you as a tool of the trade?”

“If we’d stolen it,” reasoned Helen, “we’d hardly let our son take it to school.”

Benoit looked unconvinced. “Oh, but boys will be boys. Your son can’t be expected to ignore such a curiosity. Or maybe....” He rose dramatically and paced around his desk to perch against the front of it, looming over them like a clumsy, cliché movie cop. “Maybe Tamujin wanted to get caught. Maybe he wanted you to get caught—to end the years of subterfuge and pretence, the years of lonely, trackless wandering.”

He gazed down at them soulfully, and was rewarded by their sudden, startled exchange of glances.

“Do you think-?” asked Troy.

“I didn’t realize-“ murmured Helen.

“They must be more miserable-“

“Than we had any conception.”

“I feel like such an ignoramus.”

“And selfish.”

“And sorry?” asked Benoit eagerly.

“Well, of course,” said Troy. “Those kids must be desperate.”

“We’ve got to do something, Troy,” said Helen.

“Sign a confession,” urged Benoit, leaning over them.

Troy waved at him as if he were a buzzing insect. “Helen, have we been that-“

“Self-absorbed?” She nodded emphatically. “We owe those poor kids an apology.”

“You owe this country an apology!”

“Maybe, but what they did was completely out of tune—­underhanded. They could have said something.”

”They did. They blew your cover!”

“They did, honey. They said a lot of somethings. We didn’t listen. We were too busy being....”

“Spies?”

“Academicians. That’s what that mongoose was all about. They wanted a real home, not an antiseptic holding pen. They were happy at the Farm.”

“Mongoose? Farm? What’s that—code?”

Helen nodded, grimacing. “The Farm.” She put her hand on her husband’s khaki covered knee. “We need to talk this out with them. Listen to them. Compromise.”

“You’re already compromised,” said Benoit.

“There’s only one problem, Helen. We haven’t finished our research in this time zone.”

“Oh, you’re finished in this time zone, all right, Doctor. And when Colonel Powers gets here-“

“Who?” Both Joneses turned their heads, speaking in perfect, two part harmony.

“Colonel Powers from Strategic Air Command, the Little Pentagon, the place you’ve been spying on.” Benoit was obviously pleased to have finally gotten their attention. “I called when this all began to come together. He’ll be here any minute to question you and to see this.” He patted the dictionary.

“And do you suppose we’ll actually stay around to meet him?” asked Troy.

Benoit looked as if he’d believed it up until that very moment.

“You’re right about this,” Troy continued, nodding at the dictionary. “It is, as you suspected, a highly sophisticated piece of equipment. It’s not only a Russian-English translator, it’s a communications device, which you have activated, signaling our operatives as to our exact location. And-“ He snatched up the little machine, activated it, and turned the glowing green button atop it on the gaping principal. “-it’s also a weapon—a laser beam gun, to be exact.”

He rose, taking his wife’s hand. “Come, my dear. The submarine is waiting.”

They backed toward the door of the office, keeping the startled teachers covered with the dictionary.

Troy opened the door and ushered Helen through. “Za mir,” he said. “Oh, and pazh’loosta.”

oOo

“Here they come,” said Tam urgently.

He let the curtain fall back across the front window and headed for the kitchen.

“Wow, they’re really trekkin’!” said Constantine, impressed with his parent’s speed.

“They keep looking behind them,” observed Tahireh. “I wonder if there’s a mob after them like that time in Salem.”

Stasi shook her head. “I don’t see anybody. I think I hear sirens, though.”

“Hey, you guys!” shouted Tam from the direction of the kitchen. “Stations!”

Children flew in all directions, assuming nonchalant, relaxed poses; looking studious, looking bored, looking in the refrigerator for leftovers.

The front door slammed open, then shut again, admitting two gasping, giggling adults.

”Stations, everybody!” Helen wheezed. “We’re powering up!”

Galvanized, the kids followed their parents’ trail as far as the dining room. There, they stopped to exchange bug-eyed glances, clicking invisible glasses over success beyond their wildest dreams. They heard the soft hum of the Grid coming on line and bolted as a unit for the Lab.

Their parents stood at the console; Father checking settings, Mother clearing an emergency Shift through the QuestLabs Controller. The hum grew to a flute-tone—a warm wave of pure sound. The walls of the two story brick house began to glow softly violet, to tremble, to run and change and remold themselves to vapor.

“We’re on our way,” murmured Helen.

“On our way?” asked Stasi. “On our way where, Mama?”

”Home,” Helen said and turned to give her children a fierce grin. “Home, where you four will do some stiff penance.”

“Penance?” asked Tam warily. “What penance?”

”Your father and I gave it some serious thought while we were galloping up that hill tonight.”

“Serious,” agreed Troy, eyes on his monitor.

“And?” Four children held their breath.

“When we get back to the Farm....”

Their mother keyed a last sequence, depressed a final button. The walls melted into a glorious violet spray, ran to red, to sunset, to Sun itself. Colors exploded in the walls; splashed and crested, then imploded becoming solid, opaque, mundane.

Helen Jones turned back to her children with a terrifying glare. “You’re all grounded.”

The four pairs of eyes got wider.

“Grounded?”

“Grounded. No Temporal Shifting, no terrorizing small mid-western towns, no anachronistic dabblings.”

“Never, ever again?” asked Tahireh, her brow furrowing.

“Well,” the Doctors Jones traded glances.

“Maybe....” began Helen.

“....during vacation,” finished Troy.

Tam was troubled. Now that he had what he wanted, he wasn’t sure he should have gotten it. “But Dad, what about your work?”

“We’ll just have to adapt, compromise. But we will not compromise on your...discipline. You heard your mother. You’re grounded. Right here, in Twenty-one—um,” he checked his chronometer, “twelve.”

The four pairs of eyes blinked. The taciturn Constantine let out a jubilant whoop. Tahireh giggled. Stasi hugged both her parents.

“Thanks, Dad! Thanks, Mom!” said Tam. “C’mon, you guys, let’s go check out the old neighborhood.”

The noisy rabble rolled out of the Lab, through the house and out the front door. The elder Joneses followed their progress with the delicate sonar of parenthood.

“Extraordinary,” said Troy. “We’ve spent our lives studying history, but today was the first time we’ve actually made history. Do you realize that for the first time since the birth of the Universe, children were grounded and liked it?”

Helen looked thoughtful. “An interesting phenomenon. We’d be delinquent not to record it for posterity.”

“A research paper?”

“Why not a book? ‘The Effects of Temporal Shift on Adolescent and Pre-Adolescent Development.’”

Troy Jones nodded, experiencing that peculiar, warm, fuzzy feeling he always associated with love and new projects. “I like the sound of that,” he said.

oOo

Out under the autumn trees, Stasi and Tam surveyed the familiar and found it wonderful. Not far off, Tahireh and Constantine rolled in the grass of Home, giggling.

Tam took a deep breath. “Dad got the dictionary back,” he said. “I saw it on the Console. It’s kinda weird, thinking how close we came to making an indelible mark on history. It’ll be a relief when QuestLabs perfects that Anachron Object Recall System.”

Stasi’s mouth did funny things at the corners. “I hope they perfect it soon.”