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Show -214 the V-8 engine jumped into his lap. They all wore the same expression, the same slightly vacant smile, as if the vital juices had been sucked out of them by that spider Death, leaving them capable only of a mild unfocused regret. "Tell me what to do," I said. "It's all a puzzle and a mystery to me-my life, the world, everything...." They all looked at me sadly. If their faces were any indication, the next world was going to be no picnic either. Johnny Vandemeer opened his mouth but Uncle Harold shook his head and put a finger to his lips. "Why did you come if it wasn't to help me out?" I cried, "Don't you hear me? Is there some rule that you can't talk to me?" Call it a dream or call it a vision-it was interrupted by the anxious voice of Nathan Weinstein calling down from above. I dropped my long-necked oilcan and went up the ladder to meet him; when I crawled out through the hole where the packages emerge he patted me on the shoulder. "I'm going to get you an assistant," he said. "When he knows how, he can go down and oil the machine instead of you. " I finished crawling under the canvas flap and stepped sideways off the chute. "I quit," I said. "Don't be hasty," Weinstein said. "Come in the office and let's talk about it." |