rd it
cooing back."

I ran three steps to baby's crib ... one on the corner of Little Jack
Horner, one on the sheep of Little Bo Peep, one on the cupboard of Old
Mother Hubbard. "Baby!" I almost screamed. But baby cooed and gurgled
and laughed and rocked back and forth on his diapers. He was playing
with his teething ring, but something was trying to jerk the teething
ring out of his hands. And baby liked it.

[Illustration]

Baby lost his hold on the teething ring, and fell on his back. The
teething ring stayed up in the air and then by itself moved toward
baby's waving hands and let him get a hold of it.

Mabel screeched through her teeth, "Baby's got it, the monster's got it,
now baby's got it!" She began to collapse.

"Don't faint," I snapped, "and don't let's play tennis." I was shaking.
I reached into the crib. My hands closed around something that put
ice-water in my vertebrae. It _was_ a monster.

"It's got fur!" I whispered. I felt some more. "And clammy scales!" I
lifted it out of the crib. "And a trunk!" I was determined to save baby.
Baby cried!

* * * * *

We got some chairs and sat there for ten minutes close together while
baby played with the invisible monster. "I don't know what to do!" I
said. "It's alive. Maybe it's poisonous. But it's friendly. Maybe it's
another baby!"

"From another dimension," said Mabel.

"Rot," I said; I think I picked that up from the detective in the
Saturday Evening Post serial. "Let's keep our heads."

"If baby keeps his," said my friend Mabel.

That got me. "I've got to call Harry," I chattered. "They don't like him
to be called at work, but I've got to call him."

"You'll just worry him," said Mabel. "Call the police."

"No!" I said. I felt like crying myself. Baby was so happy. Maybe the
baby monster was happy, too. The police would do something awful to it.
But what about my maternal instinct? Something told me I simply had to
save my baby! "I've _got_ to call Harry," I insisted, and I went to the
'phone.

The dial tone sounded peculiar, I remember, but I called Harry's place
of employment. A brisk female voice cut in:

"What number are you calling, please?"

"CHarlemont 7-890," I whispered.

"Sorry. You must have the wrong dimension." There was a click as she
disconnected. I sat like a statue. A haggard statue with a greasy
housedress on. A statue that hadn't plucked its eyebrows in two months.
I had a lot of nerve