He must have sensed what I was thinking, because all at once his mouth trembled and that was the first time I’d ever seen Nature Boy even close to crying. Not even that time when we were digging out the lizard and a big rock fell on his toe.
I thought how bad it must have been for him, trapped in that place and able to see out, but knowing that no one could see in. He might even have followed some of the searching parties, hoping that someone might accidentally glimpse him, but knowing they couldn’t. Maybe he had trailed along behind his Pa, as close as he could get to him, and his Pa not knowing it. And maybe he’d gone back home and watched his family and been all the lonelier for their not knowing he was there. And undoubtedly he’d hunted around for Butch, who he knew could see him, only Butch had been sick in bed.
And while I was thinking all of this, I got a faint idea. I told myself that it probably wouldn’t work, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed it might.
So I reached up with my finger and I wrote: “MEET ME AT FANCY PANTS.”
I pocketed my glasses and hurried along home. I circled around the house because I didn’t want to take the chance of Ma seeing me and not letting me go. I went into the machine shed and found a length of rope and hunted up a hacksaw.
Lugging these, I made my way back to Fancy Pants’ place. The machine shed was back of the barn, so no one from the house could see me, and anyhow no one seemed to be around. I knew that Fancy Pants’ Pa, and maybe Fancy Pants himself, would be out with the searchers, floating around over places where it would be impossible for the men on foot to go.
I laid down the rope and hacksaw and put on my glasses and Nature Boy was there, right beside the machine shed door. He had some of the halflings with him, including the one who still had the live-it perched up on his forehead. And scattered all around the place, just like Butch had said, were tea cups and pie plates and children’s blocks and a lot of other junk—the stuff that Fancy Pants’ Pa had fed into the time machine.
I looked at the halflings again and all at once I knew what was different about them. They were still some of Andy, but they were Nature Boy as well. And then I knew why Andy’s barn had burned. These halflings of his had been so busy tagging around Nature Boy that they had not been able to give Andy their attention.
It seemed only natural, of course. A halfling would get a lot more good out of a real live human inside that world of theirs than they would someone they could only see from behind a plate-glass window.
I took the glasses off and put them in my pocket and got to work. It was no easy job to saw through that padlock. The steel was awfully hard and the blade was dull and I was afraid it might break before I got through the steel. I cussed myself for not thinking to bring along an extra blade or two.
The sawing made an awful racket because I had forgotten to bring along some oil to squirt into the cut. But nobody heard the sawing.
Finally I got through.
I opened the door and stepped into the shed and the time machine was there, just the way I remembered it. I laid down the rope and went over to the control board and studied it, but it wasn’t very complicated.
I got it turned on and the creamy whirlpool was sliding in the hopper’s throat.
I picked up the rope and put my glasses on and got an awful fright. The machine shed was built on a gentle slope and the floor I was standing on was four or five feet above the ground and there I was, standing in the air, or so it seemed to me.
I had a sense, not of falling, but that by rights I should be falling, that any minute now I would begin to fall. I knew I wouldn’t, naturally—I was standing on a transparent but solid floor. But knowing that didn’t help much. That horrible, dreamlike feeling that I was about to tumble to the ground still kept hold of me.
And to make it even worse, there was Nature Boy, standing underneath me, with his head about level with my feet, looking up at me. His face was hopeful and he was motioning me to get busy with the rope.
Moving cautiously, even if there was no need of caution, I took one end of the rope and tossed it down the hopper and felt the suck and tug of the creamy whirlpool pulling down the rope. Down underneath the hopper, I could see the rope coming out, dangling into that place where Nature Boy was trapped. He moved over quickly and grabbed hold of the rope and I could feel the weight of the pull he put on it.
Nature Boy was about my size, perhaps a little smaller, and I knew I’d have to pull as hard as ever I could to get him out of there. I even wound a hitch around my hand to make sure it wouldn’t slip. I pulled with all my might. And that rope didn’t budge. It felt as if I were pulling against a house. I couldn’t gain an inch.
So I quit pulling and knelt down, still hanging to the rope, peering at the base of the time machine.
It was a funny thing. The rope went to the bottom of the hopper’s throat and then it skipped a foot or two. There was a foot or so of sidewise space where there wasn’t any rope, and then the rope took up again, dangling down into that other place where Nature Boy had hold of it.
It didn’t make sense. That rope should have gone into that other world in a straight and simple line. But the fact was that it didn’t. It went off somewhere else before it fell into the other world.
And that, I figured, was the reason I couldn’t pull it out.
You could put a thing through the time machine, but you couldn’t pull it back.
I looked down at Nature Boy and he looked back at me. I knew he’d seen it and knew as well as I did exactly what it meant. He looked pretty pitiful and I don’t suppose I looked any better.
Just then the machine shed door screeched open.
I jumped up, still hanging to the rope, and there was Fancy Pants’ Pa.
He was all burned up and I couldn’t blame him. Not after seeing how I had sawed the padlock to break into the place.
“Steve,” he said, and you could hear him fighting to keep his voice level, “I thought I told you to keep out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, “but Nature Boy’s in there.”
“Nature Boy!” he shouted. Then his voice dropped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. How could he get in?”
“I don’t know,” I said, though I could have told him.
“Those glasses you are wearing,” asked Fancy Pants’ Pa. “Are those the ones that were made for you by Butch’s father?”
I nodded.
“Then you can see?”
“I can see Nature Boy,” I said. “Just as plain as day.”
I let go of the rope to take my glasses off and the rope slid down that hopper slicker than a whistle.
“It’s all right, I guess,” I said. “I couldn’t pull him out.”
“Steve,” said Fancy Pants’ Pa, “I want you to tell me the truth. You’re not just thinking up a story? You are not pretending?”
He was awful pale and I saw what he was thinking—if Nature Boy had gone down that hopper, the entire neighborhood would be down on him like a ton of bricks.
I crossed my heart. “And hope to die,” I added.
That seemed good enough for him.
He shut off the time machine, then went outdoors. I followed him.
“Now,” he said, “you stay right here. I’ll be back immediately.”
He floated off in somewhat of a hurry, zooming away above the pasture woods. He was out of sight in no time.
I sat down with my back against the machine shed and I was feeling pretty low. I knew I should put on my glasses, but I kept them in my pocket. I couldn’t have stood the sight of Nature Boy looking out at me.
It was done and over with, I knew. There was no way in the world for me or anyone to rescue Nature Boy. He was gone for good and all. He was worse than gone.