"But I-" Her voice failed her and she clasped her hands tightly. "I had gone on with Charles' statistical work, following the lead he had uncovered. I-I found the factor of the Detaches, too. I-you and your work have been in my prayers since you took over Charles' job." Her voice failed her completely and she blinked and turned her face away. For an uncomfortable moment she struggled for composure. Then, in a sudden outrush of words, she said, "I couldn't let you die! The others couldn't have let you, either, if they had known! You can't just stand by and let another person die when you can save him! So I prayed! I interceded for you the whole time my blood was being drawn! "I'm sorry! I'm sorry if I've done violence to your principles-or to your research, but I had to tell you-I prayed!" Then, with the barest sketch of the mannerly dip of the knees to the two men, she was gone, back through the woodlands to Away.
"Well!" Ainsworthy let out his astonished breath. Northen was sitting, his face blank, his notebook crushed in one hand. Then slowly he straightened it out until he could open it. Laboriously he dampened the stubby point of his battered pencil in one corner of his mouth. Then he crossed out a few lines, heavily, and wrote, forming the words audibly as he recorded.
"One prayed. Was extra blood obtained as precaution? Was hers used in my replacement? Proportion of prayer necessary to be effective-if it is the effective factor." He paused a moment, looking at Ainsworthy. "Is prayer subject to analysis?" Then he bent to his notes again.
"Is – prayer – subject –"
LOO REE
LOTS OF CHILDREN have imaginary playmates. You probably had one yourself if you were an only child or a lonesome one. Or if you didn't, you've listened to stories about children who cried because Daddy shut the door on Jocko's tail or Mommie stepped right in the middle of Mr. Gepp while he was napping on the kitchen floor. Well, being a first-grade teacher, I meet some of these playmates occasionally, though they stay home more often than not. After all, when you start to school, you aren't alone or lonesome any more. I've seldom known such a playmate to persist at school for more than a week or so. And yet there was Loo Ree.
Of course I didn't see Loo Ree. I didn't even know Loo Ree was there when Marsha came to register the Saturday before school began. Marsha and her mother sat down across the cafeteria table from me as I reached for the registration material stacked in front of me in anticipation of the morning rush.
I said, "Good morning," to the nervous parent and smiled at the wide-eyed eager little girl who sat a seat removed from her mother.
"Wouldn't you like to move over closer?" I asked.
"No, thank you." Marsha sighed a sigh of resigned patience. "Loo Ree doesn't like to be crowded."
"Marsha!" Her mother shook a warning head.
"Oh?" I said inanely, trying to read mother's eyebrows and Marsha's eyes and the birth certificate in front of me all at the same time. "Well! So Marsha's six already. That's nice. We like them that old. They usually do better." As casual as that was the advent of Loo Ree to my classroom.
But it didn't stay casual for long. In fact, the second day, as the children lined up to come in at noon, I heard the spat of an open-handed blow and a heart-broken fiveand-a-half-year-old wail.
"What's the matter, Stacy? What happened?" I knelt beside the pigtailed, blue-ginghamed little girl who was announcing to high heaven her great grief.
"She hit me!" An indignant tear-wet finger was jabbed at Marsha.
"Why, Marsha!" I applied Kleenex vigorously to Stacy's eyes and nose. "We don't hit each other. What's wrong?"
"She crowded in where Loo Ree was supposed to be."
"Loo Ree?" I searched the faces around me. After all, I had thirty-four faces to connect with thirty-four names, among which were Bob, Bobby, Bobette, Karen, Carol, Carolyn, and Carl.
"Yes." Marsha's arm curved out in a protective gesture to the empty air beside her. "Loo Ree's supposed to be by me."
"Even so, Marsha, you shouldn't have hit Stacy. In the first place, she's smaller than you and then hitting is no way to settle anything. Stacy didn't know Loo Ree was there, did you, Stacy?"