The Complete Stories_ Volume 1 - Isaac Asimov [320]
"You take your shoes off right here," said Mrs. Hanshaw, "then march after mekkano." Richard did as he was told with a resignation that placed him beyond futile protest. Mrs. Hanshaw picked up the soiled shoes between thumb and forefinger and dropped them down the disposal chute which hummed in faint dismay at the unexpected load. She dusted her hands carefully on a tissue which she allowed to float down the chute after the shoes.
She did not join Richard at dinner but let him eat in the worse-than-lack-of-company of the mekkano. This, she thought, would be an active sign of her displeasure and would do more than any amount of scolding or punishment to make him realize that he had done wrong. Richard, she frequently told herself, was a sensitive boy. But she went up to see him at bedtime.
She smiled at him and spoke softly. She thought that would be the best way. After all, he had been punished already. She said, "What happened today, Dickie-boy?" She had called him that when he was a baby and just the sound of the name softened her nearly to tears.
But he only looked away and his voice was stubborn and cold. "I just don't like to go through those dam Doors, Mom."
"But why ever not?"
He shuffled his hands over the filmy sheet (fresh, clean, antiseptic and, of course, disposable after each use) and said, "I just don't like them."
"But then how do you expect to go to school, Dickie?"
"I'll get up early," he mumbled.
"But there's nothing wrong with Doors."
"Don't like 'em." He never once looked up at her.
She said, despairingly, "Oh, well, you have a good sleep and tomorrow morning you'll feel much better." She kissed him and left the room, automatically passing her hand through the photo-cell beam and in that manner dimming the room-lights.
But she had trouble sleeping herself that night. Why should Dickie dislike Doors so suddenly? They had never bothered him before. To be sure, the Door had broken down in the morning but that should make him appreciate them all the more.
Dickie was behaving so unreasonably.
Unreasonably? That reminded her of Miss Robbins and her diagnosis and Mrs. Hanshaw's soft jaw set in the darkness and privacy of her bedroom. Nonsense! The boy was upset and a night's sleep was all the therapy he needed. But the next morning when she arose, her son was not in the house. The mekkano could not speak but it could answer questions with gestures of its appendages equivalent to a yes or no, and it did not take Mrs. Hanshaw more than half a minute to ascertain that the boy had arisen thirty minutes earlier than usual, skimped his shower, and darted out of the house.
But not by way of the Door.
Out the other way—through the door. Small "d."
Mrs. Hanshaw's visiphone signaled genteelly at 3:10 P.M. that day. Mrs. Hanshaw guessed the caller and having activated the receiver, saw that she had guessed correctly. A quick glance in the mirror to see that she was properly calm after a day of abstracted concern and worry and then she keyed in her own transmission.
"Yes, Miss Robbins," she said coldly.
Richard's teacher was a bit breathless. She said, "Mrs. Hanshaw, Richard has deliberately left through the fire door although I told him to use the regular Door. I do not know where he went." Mrs. Hanshaw said, carefully, "He left to come home." Miss Robbins looked dismayed. "Do you approve of this?" Pale-faced, Mrs. Hanshaw set about putting the teacher in her place. "I don't think it is up to you to criticize. If my son does not choose to use the Door, it is his affair and mine. I don't think there is any school ruling that would force him to use the Door, is there?" Her bearing quite plainly intimated that if there were she would see to it that it was changed.
Miss Robbins flushed and had time for one quick remark before