th the pillow and sheets, listening half-consciously to those heavy
trucks rumbling by, and in my mind, always, that little gray ball,
bouncing and bouncing and bouncing....

At daybreak, I came abruptly fully awake with the sound of crashing
echoing in my ears, a battering sound that seemed to come from the
basement. I grabbed my coat and pants, rushed out of the room, almost
knocked over Farnsworth, who was struggling to get his shoes on out in
the hall, and we scrambled down the two flights of stairs together.

The place was a chaos, battered and bashed equipment everywhere, and
on the floor, overturned against the far wall, the table that the ball
had been clamped to. The ball itself was gone.

I had not been fully asleep all night, and the sight of that mess, and
what it meant, jolted me immediately awake. Something, probably a
heavy truck, had started a tiny oscillation in that ball. And the ball
had been heavy enough to start the table bouncing with it until, by
dancing that table around the room, it had literally torn the clamp
off and shaken itself free. What had happened afterward was obvious,
with the ball building up velocity with every successive bounce.

But where was the ball now?

Suddenly Farnsworth cried out hoarsely, "Look!" and I followed his
outstretched, pudgy finger to where, at one side of the basement, a
window had been broken open--a small window, but plenty big enough for
something the size of a basketball to crash through it.

There was a little weak light coming from outdoors. And then I saw the
ball. It was in Farnsworth's back yard, bouncing a little sluggishly
on the grass. The grass would damp it, hold it back, until we could
get to it. Unless....

I took off up the basement steps like a streak. Just beyond the back
yard, I had caught a glimpse of something that frightened me. A few
yards from where I had seen the ball was the edge of the big six-lane
highway, a broad ribbon of smooth, hard concrete.

[Illustration]

I got through the house to the back porch, rushed out and was in the
back yard just in time to see the ball take its first bounce onto
the concrete. I watched it, fascinated, when it hit--after the soft,
energy absorbing turf, the concrete was like a springboard.
Immediately the ball flew high in the air. I was running across the
yard toward it, praying under my breath, _Fall on that grass next
time_.

It hit before I got to it, and right on the concrete again, a