o him.

He smiled and sank back deeply into the pillow. He remembered how proud
he had been when old Doc Collins, who came out to do the honors every
Fall, had told him there wasn't a thing wrong with him and that if he
continued to drink his milk regularly he'd grow up to be a football
player. He could still hear Doc's words whistling through his teeth and
feel the coldness of the stethoscope on his chest.

Suddenly, he sat upright in bed in the darkness.

Stethoscope!

They had tapped and inspected and listened to Alice that day, and all
the other examination days.

If Doc Collins had been unable to find a heartbeat in her he'd have
fainted--and spread the news all over town!

Mel got up and stood at the window, his heart pounding. Old Doc Collins
was gone, but the medical records of those school examinations might
still be around somewhere. He didn't know what he expected to prove, but
surely those records would not tell the same story Dr. Winters had told.

It took him nearly all the next day. The grade school principal agreed
to help him check through the dusty attic of the school, where ancient
records and papers were tumbled about and burst from their cardboard
boxes.

Then Paul Ames, the school board secretary, took Mel down to the
District Office and offered to help look for the records. The old
building was stifling hot and dusty with summer disuse. But down in the
cool, cobwebbed basement they found it.... Alice's records from the
third grade on up through the ninth. On every one: heart, o.k.; lungs,
normal. Pulse and blood pressure readings were on each chart.

"I'd like to take these," said Mel. "Her doctor in town--he wants to
write some kind of paper on her case and would like all the past medical
history he can get."

Paul Ames frowned thoughtfully. "I'm not allowed to give District
property away. But they should have been thrown out a long time
ago--take 'em and don't tell anybody I let you have 'em."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot," Mel said.

And when she was fourteen or fifteen her appendix had been removed. A
Dr. Brown had performed the operation, Mel remembered. He had taken over
from Collins.

"Sure, he's still here," Paul Ames said. "Same office old Doc Collins
used. You'll probably find him there right now."

Dr. Brown remembered. He didn't remember the details of the
appendectomy, but he still had records that showed a completely normal
operation.

"I wonder if I could get a copy of