e out of a TV set and the antigravity and the atomic power
plant he invented to run it all with.

He's awful smart, Skinny is, but he's not like what you think of a
genius. You know, he's not all the time using big words, and he doesn't
look like a genius. I mean, we call him Skinny 'cause he used to
be--Skinny.

But he isn't now, I mean he's maybe small for his age, anyway he's
smaller than me, and I'm the same age as he is. 'Course, I'm big for my
age, so that doesn't mean much, does it?

Well, I guess Stinker Brinker started it. He's always riding Skinny
about one thing or another, but Skinny never gets mad and it's a good
thing for Stinker, too. I saw Skinny clean up on a bunch of ninth
graders ... Well, a couple of them anyway. They were saying ... Well, I
guess I won't tell you what they were saying. Anyway, Skinny used judo,
I guess, because there wasn't much of a fight.

Anyway, Stinker said something about how he was going to be a rocket
pilot when he grew up, and I told him that Skinny had told me that there
wouldn't be any rockets, and that antigravity would be the thing as soon
as it was invented. So Stinker said it never would be invented, and I
said it would so, and he said it would not, and I said ...

Well, if you're going to keep interrupting me, how can I ...

All right. Anyway, Skinny broke into the argument and said that he could
prove mathematically that antigravity was possible, and Stinky said
suure he could, and Skinny said sure he could, and Stinky said suuure he
could, like that. Honestly, is that any way to argue? I mean it sounds
like two people agreeing, only Stinky keeps going suuure, like that, you
know? And Stinky, what does he know about mathematics? He's had to take
Remedial Arithmetic ever since ...

* * * * *

No, I don't understand how the antigravity works. Skinny told me, but it
was something about meson flow and stuff like that that I didn't
understand. The atomic power plant made more sense.

Where did we get what uranium? Gee, no, we couldn't afford uranium, so
Skinny invented a hydrogen fusion plant. Anyone can make hydrogen. You
just take zinc and sulfuric acid and ...

Deuterium? You mean like heavy hydrogen? No, Skinny said it would
probably work better, but like I said, we couldn't afford anything
fancy. As it was, Skinny had to pay five or six dollars for that special
square tubing in the antigravity, and the plastic space helmets