Children of the Atom by Wilmar H. Shiras

Author:Wilmar H. Shiras [Shiras, Wilmar H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

PROBLEMS

Peter Welles and Timothy Paul stood together looking at their school, and sighed contentedly.

“It’s all ready,” said Tim blissfully. “It’s all ready, Peter, and the other children are on their way now.”

“Your dream came true quickly,” replied Welles, smiling down at the boy. “Three months ago it was only a faint hope in the back of our minds, and here we are, ready to launch the venture. But it is too bad we couldn’t have the buildings you first planned.”

“Prefabs are good enough,” said Tim. “After all, we are already fourteen years old, and the group may not stay together more than five or six years. That seems like such a short time, Peter! I know you didn’t have time to get more than four new boys and girls last month, but I do wish everyone could be here from the beginning. And yet the only way to do that would be to postpone the beginning.”

“Perhaps it is best not to have too many to start with,” answered Dr. Welles. “We may have problems.”

“Elsie and Stella had problems,” said Tim, “and you put them straight in no time at all.”

Dr. Welles shook his head.

“Elsie and Stella were eager to be helped,” he said. “Suppose we get a boy or girl who refuses to be helped?”

“You mean someone who doesn’t just have a problem, but is a problem?” frowned Tim. “Well, you can take care of that, too, Peter. You know you can.”

“Some doctors can bury their failures, as the old joke says,” answered the psychiatrist, “but I can’t do that, Tim. You must face the facts. We can’t expect a hundred per cent success with the Wonder Children, any more than with any other group. Dr. Foxwell and I will do all we can to help them, but they may have more problems than you can realize, and some of them, by the law of averages, will be tougher problems than Elsie and Stella. For that matter, the girls seem to be on the right track now, but either of them may go off it again. Frankly, Tim, I am glad I do not have to cope with twenty or thirty completely unknown Wonder Children all dumped into my lap at once.”

Tim stared at his friend, appalled.

“But surely,” he cried, “they are all so intelligent! and under expert care and guidance like yours—”

Peter Welles grinned wryly.

“Don’t fool yourself, Tim,” he answered. “Intelligent people have at least as many problems as anyone else, and they are often worse at solving them. And when a child of superior intelligence is a problem child, Tim, we really can have problems!”

“But they’ll have intelligence enough to see that something is wrong and must be set right, and to know that you can help them,” protested Tim. “That’s almost the whole point of bringing them here. Of course they’ll be glad to be helped. But I can see your point, Peter,” he added thoughtfully. “It will mean a lot of work for you, keeping track of all of us and getting the others here too.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.