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by recognizing whole words instead of learning the
alphabet. And more and more illiterates had been shoved out of the
schools, into a world where radio and television and moving pictures
were supplanting books and newspapers, and more and more children
of illiterates had gone to school without any desire or incentive to learn
to read. And finally, the illiterates had become Illiterates, and literacy
had become Literacy.
And now, the Associated Fraternities of Literates had come to
monopolize the ability to read and write, and a few men like William R.
Lancedale, with a handful of followers like Ralph N. Prestonby, were
trying--
The gleaming cleanliness of the corridor, as always, heartened

Prestonby a little; it was a trophy of victory from his first two days at
Mineola High School, three years ago. He remembered what they had
looked like when he had first seen them.
"This school is a pig pen!" he had barked at the janitorial force. "And
even if they are Illiterates, these children aren't pigs; they deserve
decent surroundings. This school will be cleaned, immediately, from
top to bottom, and it'll be kept that way."
The janitors, all political appointees, Independent-Conservative
party-hacks, secure in their jobs, had laughed derisively. The building
superintendent, without troubling to rise, had answered him:
"Young man, you don't want to get off on the wrong foot, here," he had
said. "This here's the way this school's always been run, an' it's gonna
take a lot more than you to change it."
The fellow's name, he recalled, was Kettner; Lancedale had given him
a briefing which had included some particulars about him. He was an
Independent-Conservative ward-committeeman. He had gotten his
present job after being fired from his former position as mailman for
listening to other peoples' mail with his pocket recorder-reproducer.
"Yetsko," he had said. "Kick this bum out on his face."
"You can't get away with--" Kettner had begun. Yetsko had yanked him
out of his chair with one hand and started for the door with him.
"Just a moment, Yetsko," he had said.
Thinking that he was backing down, they had all begun grinning at
him.
"Don't bother opening the door," he had said. "Just kick him out."
After the third kick, Kettner had gotten the door open, himself; the
fourth kick sent him across the hall to the opposite wall. He pulled
himself to his feet and limped away, never to return. The next morning,

the school was spotless. It had stayed that way.
Beside him, Yetsko must also have returned mentally to the past.
"Looks better now than it did when we first saw it, captain," he said.
"Yes. It didn't take us as long to clean up this mess as it did to clean up
that mutinous guards company in Pittsburgh. But when we cleaned that
up, it stayed cleaned. This is like trying to bail out a boat with a
pitchfork."
"Yeah. I wish we'dda stayed in Pittsburgh, captain. I wish we'd never
seen this place!"
"So do I!" Prestonby agreed, heartily.
No, he didn't, either. If he'd never have come to Mineola High School,
he'd never have found Claire Pelton.
* * * * *
Sitting down again at the breakfast table with her father, Claire levered
another cigarette out of the Readilit and puffed at it with exaggeratedly
bored slowness. She was still frightened. Ray shouldn't have done what
he did, even if he had furnished a plausible explanation. The trouble
with plausible explanations was having to make them. Sooner or later,
you made too many, and then you made one that wasn't so plausible,
and then all the others were remembered, and they all looked phony.
And why had the Senator had to mention Ralph? Was he beginning to
suspect the truth about that, too?
I hope not! she thought desperately. If he ever found out about that, it'd
kill him. Just kill him, period!
Mrs. Harris must have turned off the video, after they had gone up to
the landing stage. To cover her nervousness, she reached up and
snapped it on again. The screen lit, and from it a young man with dark
eyes under bushy black brows was shouting angrily:

"... Most obvious sort of conspiracy! If the Radical-Socialist Party
leaders, or the Consolidated Illiterates' Organization Political Action
Committee, need any further evidence of the character of their
candidate and idolized leader, Chester Pelton, the treatment given to
Pelton's candidacy by Literate First Class Elliot C. Mongery, this
morning, ought to be sufficient to remove the scales from the eyes of
the blindest of them. I won't state, in so many words, that Chester
Pelton's sold out the Radical-Socialists and the Consolidated Illiterates'
Organization to the Associated Fraternities of Literates, because, since
no witness to any actual transfer of money can