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me a Literate
instruction book along with a 'copter with a Literate instrument board.
Ah, I get it! So I'd have to call in a Literate to show me how to start my
own 'copter, and by noon they'd be laughing about it in every bar from
Pittsburgh to Plattsburg. Sneaky Literate trick!" They went to the lift,
and found the door closed in their faces. "Oh, confound that boy!"
Claire pressed the button. Ray must have left the lift, for the operating

light went on, and in a moment the door opened. He crowded into the
lift, along with his daughter and Olaf.
On the landing stage, Ray was already in the 'copter, poking at buttons
on the board.
"Look, Olaf!" he called. "They just shifted them around a little from the
summer model. This one, where the prop-control used to be on the old
model, is the one that backs it up on the ground. Here's the one that
erects and extends the prop,"--he pushed it, and the prop snapped
obediently into place--"and here's the one that controls the lift."
An ugly suspicion stabbed at Chester Pelton, bringing with it a feeling
of frightened horror.
"How do you know?" he demanded.
Ray's eyes remained on the instrument board. He pushed another button,
and the propeller began swinging in a lazy circle; he pressed down with
his right foot, and the 'copter lifted a foot or so.
"What?" he asked. "Oh, Jimmy showed me how theirs works. Mr.
Hartnett got one like it a week ago." He motioned to Olaf, setting the
'copter down again. "Come here; I'll show you."
The suspicion, and the horror passed in a wave of relief.
"You think you and Olaf, between you, can get that thing to school?"
he asked.
"Sure! Easy!"
"All right. You show Olaf how to run it. Olaf, as soon as you've
dropped Ray at school, take that thing to the Rolls-Cadipac agency, and
get a new one, with a proper instrument board, and a proper picture
book of operating instructions. I'm going to call Sam Huschack up
personally and give him royal hell about this. Sure you can handle it,
now?"

He watched the 'copter rise to the two thousand foot local traffic level
and turn in the direction of Mineola High School, fifty miles away. He
was still looking anxiously after it as it dwindled to a tiny dot and
vanished.
"They'll make it all right," Claire told him. "Olaf has a strong back, and
Ray has a good head."
"It wasn't that that I was worried about." He turned and looked, half
ashamed, at his daughter. "You know, for a minute, there, I thought ... I
thought Ray could read!"
"Father!" She was so shocked that she forgot the nickname they had
given him when he had announced his candidacy for Senate, in the
spring. "You didn't!"
"I know; it's an awful thing to think, but--Well, the kids today do the
craziest things. There's that Hartnett boy he runs around with; Tom
Hartnett bought Literate training for him. And that fellow Prestonby; I
don't trust him--"
"Prestonby?" Claire asked, puzzled.
"Oh, you know. The principal at school. You've met him."
Claire wrinkled her brow--just like her mother, when she was trying to
remember something.
"Oh, yes. I met him at that P.T.A. meeting. He didn't impress me as
being much like a teacher, but I suppose they think anything's good
enough for us Illiterates."
* * * * *
Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonby remained standing by the
lectern, looking out over the crowded auditorium, still pleasantly
surprised to estimate the day's attendance at something like
ninety-seven per cent of enrollment. That was really good; why, it was

only three per cent short of perfect! Maybe it was the new rule
requiring a sound-recorded excuse for absence. Or it could have been
his propaganda campaign about the benefits of education. Or, very
easily, it could have been the result of sending Doug Yetsko and some
of his boys around to talk to recalcitrant parents. It was good to see that
that was having some effect beside an increase in the number of
attempts on his life, or the flood of complaints to the Board of
Education. Well, Lancedale had gotten Education merged with his
Office of Communications, and Lancedale was back of him to the limit,
so the complaints had died out on the empty air. And Doug Yetsko was
his bodyguard, so most of the would-be assassins had died, also.
The "North American Anthem," which had replaced the "Star-Spangled
Banner" after the United States-Canadian-Mexican merger, came to an
end. The students and their white-smocked teachers, below, relaxed
from attention; most of them sat down, while monitors and teachers in
the rear were getting the students into the