Ray Bradbury by I Sing the Body Electric

Author:I Sing the Body Electric
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-12-12T02:17:39+00:00

It had become a jovial game now. Even Agatha didn’t mind, but pretended to mind. It gave her a pleasant sense of superiority over a supposedly superior machine.

“Agamemnon!” she snorted, “you are a d … “

“Dumb?” said Grandma.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Think it, then, my dear Agonistes Agatha … I am quite flawed, and on names my flaws are revealed. Tom there, is Tim half the time. Timothy is Tobias or Timulty as likely as not … “

Agatha laughed. Which made Grandma make one of her rare mistakes. She put out her hand to give my sister the merest pat. Agatha-Abigail-Alice leapt to her feet.

Agatha-Agamemnon-Alcibiades-Allegra-Alexandra-Allison withdrew swiftly to her room.

“I suspect,” said Timothy, later, “because she is beginning to like Grandma.”

“Tosh,” said I.

“Where do you pick up words like Tosh?”

“Grandma read me some Dickens last night. ‘Tosh.’ ‘Humbug.’ ‘Balderdash.’ ‘Blast.’ ‘Devil take you.’ You’re pretty smart for your age, Tim.”

“Smart, heck. It’s obvious, the more Agatha likes Grandma, the more she hates herself for liking her, the more afraid she gets of the whole mess, the more she hates Grandma in the end.”

“Can one love someone so much you hate them?”

“Dumb. Of course.”

“It is sticking your neck out, sure. I guess you hate people when they make you feel naked, I mean sort of on the spot or out in the open. That’s the way to play the game, of course. I mean, you don’t just love people you must love them with exclamation points.”

“You’re pretty smart, yourself, for someone so stupid,” said Tim.

“Many thanks.”

And I went to watch Grandma move slowly back into her battle of wits and stratagems with what’s-her-name …

What dinners there were at our house!

Dinners, heck; what lunches, what breakfasts!

Always something new, yet, wisely, it looked or seemed old and familiar. We were never asked, for if you ask children what they want, they do not know, and if you tell what’s to be delivered, they reject delivery. All parents know this. It is a quiet war that must be won each day. And Grandma knew how to win without looking triumphant.

“Here’s Mystery Breakfast Number Nine,” she would say, placing it down. “Perfectly dreadful, not worth bothering with, it made me want to throw up while I was cooking it!”

Even while wondering how a robot could be sick, we could hardly wait to shovel it down.

“Here’s Abominable Lunch Number Seventy-seven,” she announced. “Made from plastic food bags, parsley, and gum from under theatre seats. Brush your teeth after or you’ll taste the poison all afternoon.”

We fought each other for more.

Even Abigail-Agamemnon-Agatha drew near and circled round the table at such times, while Father put on the ten pounds he needed and pinkened out his cheeks.

When A. A. Agatha did not come to meals, they were left by her door with a skull and crossbones on a small flag stuck in a baked apple. One minute the tray was abandoned, the next minute gone.

Other times Abigail A. Agatha would bird through during dinner, snatch crumbs from her plate and bird off.

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