alphabet blocks with every appearance of curiosity. Awareness! For the
first time!

"Later, he suddenly reaches out his hand and piles the blocks in
a neat stack. Purposeful activity and perfect muscular control! No
trial-and-error, no baby hesitation with hand poised--just a sudden
assured, controlled action. Mama leaps for joy, junior relapses into
idiocy, and no one--including me--really believes mama when she says it
happened. This sort of thing goes on for several months--brief, erratic
flashes of extraordinary intelligence, considering the subject. Then, a
child who has never spoken a single word says clearly and politely,
'I want that one, Helen,' and a child who has never crawled puts his
feet under him and stands up steady as a rock. You tell me, Phil--how
did he do it?"

"Don't look to me for an answer. I'm only a lousy fifth-rate psychology
teacher, as of the day you brought Timmy into my life. And the curse of
Freud be on you for _that_ kindly act of professional assassination. The
answer is obvious, of course ... Timmy didn't and couldn't do what we've
seen him do with our own wide-open, innocent eyes. We are the victims of
a cunning hoax."

* * * * *

_(Amusement) Difficult to experiment unobserved. Action too
precipitate/no choice. (Affection/laughter) "The world is so
people." (Chill) Danger! Madness!_

* * * * *

"How does any child learn to speak?"

[Illustration]

"Mainly by hearing others. Maybe Timmy learned the same way. Maybe he
listened, absorbing the meaning and sound of words, trying them out
in the silence of his otherwise vacant little noggin. Maybe his mind
awakened gradually to the realization that it was a prisoner in a
paralyzed organ, strait-jacketed by blocks or short circuits. Maybe he
spent his forty-two months of vegetating driving against those blocks
until he partially broke them down and could speak. Maybe."

"And without ever having shaped his lips or tongue to intelligent
sounds, he speaks fluently at the first try?"

"Why not? Any kid that will start out by addressing its parents chummily
as 'Helen' and 'Jerry' and act naively surprised at the reaction,
obviously has rules of its own."

They ruminated in silence for a moment.

"It's too easy to talk vaguely about blocks and short circuits, Clancey.
How do you account for his completely erratic progress? Totally
unpredictable, with altern