nals. You were telling the
truth, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was. They won't _harm_ you. But they might...." I couldn't say
it. I didn't know the words when I tried to say it. _Might take you
away with them ... with us...._

"Might what?"

"Might ... oh, I don't _know_!"

Now he was suspicious again. "All right," he said. "I'll leave. You
come with me."

It was just that simple. Go back with him. Let them come and not find
me. What could they do? Their own rules would keep them from hunting
for me. They couldn't come down among the people of Earth. Go back.
Stop running.

We got into his car, and he turned around and smiled at me again, like
the other time.

I smiled back, seeing him through a shiny kind of mist which must have
been tears. I reached for him, and he reached for me at the same time.

When we let go, he tried to start the car, and it wouldn't work. Of
course. I'd forgotten till then. I started laughing and crying at the
same time in a sort of a crazy way, and took him back inside and
showed him the projector. They'd forgotten to give me any commands
about not doing that, I guess. Or they thought it wouldn't matter.

It did matter. Larry looked it over, and puzzled over it a little, and
fooled around, and asked me some questions. I didn't have much
technical knowledge, but I knew what it did, and he figured out the
way it did it. Nothing with an electro-magnetic motor was going to
work while that thing was turned on, not within a mile or so in any
direction. And there wasn't any way to turn it off. It was a homing
beam, and it was on to stay--foolproof.

That was when he looked at me, and said slowly, "You got here three
days ago, didn't you, babe?"

I nodded.

"There was--God-damn it, it's too foolish! There was a--a _flying
saucer_ story in the paper that day. Somebody saw it land on a hilltop
somewhere. Some crackpot. Some ... how about it, kid?"

I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no, and I did the only thing
that was left, which was to get hysterical. In a big way.

He had to calm me down, of course. And I found out why the television
shows stop with the kiss. The rest is very private and personal.

* * * * *

_Author's note: This story was dictated to me by a five-year-old
boy--word-for-word, except for a very few editorial changes of my own.
He is a very charming and bright youngster who plays with my own
five-year-old daughter. One day he wandered