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Eliza laughed. The nurse laughed. I laughed. We all laughed.

Our parents were in another part of the mansion. They kept away from all the fun.

• • •

That early in the game, though, we had our first disturbing tastes of separation. Some of the examinations required that we be several rooms apart. As the distance between Eliza and me increased, I felt as though my head were turning to wood.

I became stupid and insecure.

When I was reunited with Eliza, she said that she had felt very much the same sort of thing. “It was as though my skull was filling up with maple syrup,” she said.

And we bravely tried to be amused rather than frightened by the listless children we became when we were parted. We pretended they had nothing to do with us, and we made up names for them. We called them “Betty and Bobby Brown.”

• • •

And now is as good a time as any, I think, to say that when we read Eliza’s will, after her death in a Martian avalanche, we learned that she wished to be buried wherever she died. Her grave was to be marked with a simple stone, engraved with this information and nothing more:

• • •

Yes, and it was the last specialist to look us over, a psychologist, Dr. Cordelia Swain Cordiner, who decreed that Eliza and I should be separated permanently, should, so to speak, become forever Betty and Bobby Brown.

16

FËDOR MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKI, the Russian novelist, said one time that, “One sacred memory from childhood is perhaps the best education.” I can think of another quickie education for a child, which, in its way, is almost as salutary: Meeting a human being who is tremendously respected by the adult world, and realizing that that person is actually a malicious lunatic.

That was Eliza’s and my experience with Dr. Cordelia Swain Cordiner, who was widely believed to be the greatest expert on psychological testing in the world—with the possible exception of China. Nobody knew what was going on in China any more.

• • •

I have an Encyclopaedia Britannica here in the lobby of the Empire State Building, which is the reason I am able to give Dostoevski his middle name.

• • •

Dr. Cordelia Swain Cordiner was invariably impressive and gracious when in the presence of grownups. She was elaborately dressed the whole time she was in the mansion—in high-heeled shoes and fancy dresses and jewelry.

We heard her tell our parents one time: “Just because a woman has three doctors’ degrees and heads a testing corporation which bills three million dollars a year, that doesn’t mean she can’t be feminine.”

When she got Eliza and me alone, though, she seethed with paranoia.

“None of your tricks, no more of your snotty little kid millionaire tricks with me,” she would say.

And Eliza and I hadn’t done anything wrong.

• • •

She was so enraged by how much money and power our family had, and so sick, that I don’t think she even noticed how huge and ugly Eliza and I were. We were just two more rotten-spoiled little rich kids to her.

“I wasn’t born with any silver spoon in my mouth,” she told us, not once but many times. “Many was the day we didn’t know where the next meal was coming from,” she said. “Have you any idea what that’s like?”

“No,” said Eliza.

“Of course not,” said Dr. Cordiner.

And so on.

• • •

Since she was paranoid, it was especially unfortunate that her middle name was the same as our last name.

“I’m not your sweet Aunt Cordelia,” she would say. “You needn’t worry your little aristocratic brains about that. When my grandfather came from Poland, he changed his name from Stankowitz to Swain.” Her eyes were blazing. “Say ‘Stankowitz!’”

We said it.

“Now say ‘Swain,’” she said.

We did.

• • •

And finally one of us asked her what she was so mad about.

This made her very calm. “I am not mad,” she said. “It would be very unprofessional for me to ever get mad about anything. However, let me say that asking a person of my calibre to come all this distance into the wilderness to personally administer tests to only two children