“If you can get Ralph down, I won’t mind how damp it gets,” said Mary. And turning to Johnny, who was standing open-mouthed, “Johnny, will you hook up the hose?”
“Yes, Johnny, and run it through the window so it’ll come inside the room,” Jim explained, quickly.
This whole thing sounded like Greek to me, but by now I had recovered from the sputtering spell, and if a garden hose run through the bedroom window would get me down I was certainly in favor of it. “Will this garden hose scheme you both seem to have thought of really work?”
“We hope so, Dad. It’s going to make a mess in my room, but it’s worth a try.”
“What do I do, climb down it?”
“In effect you do,” said the professor. “We’ll know in a little while, I hope.”
“Will someone unhook the screen?” Johnny was outside.
Jim unhooked the screen and pulled the hose into the room. “Do you want to try it, Professor?”
“Yes, but first, let’s clear things out of the way.”
“Hey!” I hollered. “You’re not going to turn that hose on in here are you?”
The professor chuckled. “Hope you don’t mind too much, but we hope it’ll get you down.”
“Well, I sure don’t see….”
“Dad, the professor and I had the same idea. Maybe I can explain it… you see, apparently anything you come in contact with takes on a bit of your ‘charge.’ In the case of the coffee, the small drops became charged and went up. I imagine that the plates and cups picked up a small charge too, while you held them, but it wasn’t enough to make them rise. Is that about right, Professor?”
“It seems that way, Jim. Anyway, it’s worth a try.” The professor looked up at me, “Mr. Wilson, I’m afraid you aren’t going to care much for this. As soon as we clear the room a bit I’m going to turn the hose on you.”
My mouth dropped open. “Turn the ho…?”
“Yes…. You see, if whatever you touch picks up a bit of the charge, then about the quickest way to ‘discharge’ you would be to touch you with a large volume of something. Water sounds logical, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I suppose so,” I mumbled. “But, there must be something… some other way….”
“There may be, Dad,” Jim said, “but you want to get down from there fast, don’t you? OK! Here we go!”
So, Jim turned the water on and in a few minutes of course, I was soaked through my bathrobe and pajamas, right to the skin. Johnny was looking through the window laughing fit to kill, and with a look of horror on her face, Mary was watching the water cascading across the ceiling and down into the room. Jim and Professor Jordan were watching me like hawks. Waiting for me to fall, I guess. Fortunately the weather was warm, because the water certainly wasn’t. This must have gone on for an hour, but it apparently wasn’t, because when they turned the water off, Jim said to the professor, “I hope you timed that, sir. I forgot to.”
The professor had, and it turned out to be about ten minutes. He looked up at me, “Do you feel any lighter?”
“What do you mean, lighter?”
He grinned. “I mean can you push yourself away from the ceiling?”
I rolled over on my side and tried to push. By golly! I did seem to move a little easier! “I may be a little lighter, Professor, or maybe it’s my imagination, but turn that hose on again!”
Splat! On it came, and it’s been on and off and on and off for, let me see, this must be the third day now. And I don’t mind telling you I’m not going to need a bath for at least two months when I get down. When I get down! Do you know where I am right now? I’m about two feet from the ceiling, which puts me still ten feet from the floor… hanging there in the air like the assistant to an Indian fakir! Only this is no trick.
Oh, it’s not so bad now; I’m wearing swimming trunks and Jim and Professor Jordan with the assistance of Johnny and Mary, rigged a sort of trough arrangement to carry the ‘charged’ water out of the window and up into the sky. The water that didn’t pick up a charge and fell to the floor is being pumped out the window with a hand pump. Oh, yes, they had to dam up the doorway to keep the rest of the house from being inundated. And I shudder every time I think how much damage has been done to Jim’s bedroom. I’m coming down though, slowly, and Professor Jordan has it figured that at the present rate it’s going to take five to six more days. I don’t know how he came to that conclusion, but I sure hope he’s right and hasn’t underestimated. The constant soaking has my skin looking like damp corduroy. All over too.
What about the transformer and plate? Well, I believe Professor Jordan is going to take a leave of absence and he and Jim are going to do some full time research on the device, whatever it is. They both think it has many possibilities. So do I, but I’m going to keep my feet on the ground. If they ever get there!
MATE IN TWO MOVES
By Winston Marks
Illustrated by Ashman
I
Murt’s Virus was catastrophically lethal, but it killed in a way no disease had ever thought of—it loved its victims to death!
Love came somewhat late to Dr. Sylvester Murt. In fact, it took the epidemic of 1961 to break down his resistance. A great many people fell in love that year—just about every other person you talked to—so no one thought much about Dr. Murt’s particular distress, except a fellow victim who was directly involved in this case.
High Dawn Hospital, where 38-year-old Dr. Murt was resident pathologist, was not the first medical institution to take note of the “plague.” The symptoms first came to the attention of the general practitioners, then to the little clinics where the G. P.s sent their patients. But long before anything medical was done about it, the plague was sweeping North and South America and infiltrating every continent and island in the world.
Murt’s assistant, Dr. Phyllis Sutton, spotted the first irregularity in the Times one morning and mentioned it to him. They were having coffee in Murt’s private office-lab, after completing reports on two rush biopsies.
She looked up from the editorial page and remarked, “You know, someone should do a research on the pathology of pantie raids.”
Murt spooned sugar into his mug of coffee and stared at her. In their six months’ association, it was the first facetious remark she had made in his presence. To this moment, he had held an increasing regard for her quiet efficiency, sobriety, professional dignity and decorum. True, she wore her white coat more tightly belted than was necessary and, likewise, she refused to wear the very low hospital heels that thickened feminine ankles. But she wore a minimum of come-hither in both her cosmetic and personality makeup. This startling remark, then, was most unexpected.
“Pantie raids?” he inquired. “Whatever would justify an inquiry into such a patently behavioristic problem?”
“The epidemic nature and its increasing virulence,” she replied soberly. “This spring, the thing has gotten out of hand, according to this editorial. A harmless tradition at a few of the more uninhibited campuses has turned into a national collegiate phenomenon. And now secondary effects are turning up. Instructors say that intramural romance is turning the halls of ivy into amatory rendezvous.”
Murt sipped his coffee and said, “Be thankful you aren’t a psychiatrist. Bacterial mutations are enough of a problem, without pondering unpredictable emotional disturbances.”
His assistant pursued it further. “It says the classrooms are emptying into the marriage bureaus, and graduation exercises this year will be a mockery if something isn’t done. What’s more, statistics show a startling increase in marriages at the high school level.”