Let's Go Play at the Adams'

the refrigerator and got out the ice-it popped from the automatic ice-maker that was

forever full John and the other kids got out the soft drinks and glasses and put them on the

kitchen counter. Then, like the grown-ups they disdained, they poured their own drinks--

one, a Cola; one, an orange; and another, a ginger ale. Afterward they went into the living

room and sat down formally for a change.

Only Cindy remained herself. She sat down at the piano and began her torturous attack on

"The Happy Farmer"-dum, dum, boom, boom, dum, dum, (mistake), boom, boom (begin

again)-with complete if temporary concentration.

"OK. Shut up,'' John said.

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"You haven't begun yet." Cindy was offended in her house.

"Yes, we have. Now, stop it."

Cindy banged her hands on the keys with a discord effect, but she stopped.

Each member of the five looked at some other member in silence.

"Uh," John said, "I guess we gotta decide some things."

"What?" Bobby said.

"Well, everything." He looked around and received no help. "Well," he began again, "your folks

are coming home three days from now. That's one thing. And the Picker-us getting caught-

that's two. I saw him last night, I talked to him sort of, and he's big. If he gets the idea to come

in here, we can't stop him unless we kill him. And, of course, we've got her.".

"You mean, let her go," Bobby said. If nothing else he was logical; the mounting up of obstacles

meant just one conclusion (which, naturally, would be his release from the responsibilities of

jailer).

"Not yet."

"What then?" Cindy was impatient. She continued to sit on the piano bench, hands around one

knee, swinging her foot. "I mean, if you're just going to sit around and talk, say something."

There was a pause. Outside, the cicadas began another cycle of their endless chant to

summer.

"Kill her." Paul squirmed.

The words were blurted out in his usual way, and though he sat normally enough in his chair,

he seemed to be crawling around in his own skin like something in a bottle. And~ they all

looked at him. There was enough force in his voice to compel attention.

Beyond the walls of the house, beyond the automatic air conditioners, beyond the fields and

the county road and the highway, lay the routine world. There-in the town of Bryce-adults did

their own, incomprehensibly dumb things about stores and money and cars and all, and their

kids just bumped along behind them,

190

trying or complaining or carrying packages or just suffering it all in silence. The weight of

this oppressive world was not in any way forgotten. Kidlike, however, Freedom Five held it a

trifle away from them. After all, it wasn't bugging them at this very minute, was it? They

were privileged in their own world, weren't they? They could at least think about things,

couldn't they?

"Kill her," Paul said again, and this time more pleadingly, "We could kill her."

"And blame it on the Picker," John said.

"You're kidding," Bobby said. If he had been in school where everyone tried to keep up with

swinging language, he would have said, "Man, you're putting me in," but in the actuality of

emotion, he reverted to more antique slang. "You're kidding."

"No, I'm not. Dianne thought it up last night." John looked at her.

"Would you like to?" It was issued as a rather formal invitation.

"Kill her?" Cindy stopped swinging her foot in

midair.

"Why not?"

"You know what'll happen to us if she tells .... " "You know what'll happen to us if we kill

her,"

3obby said.

"I told you. We can blame it on the Picker. We .an do it and go free."

This gave Freedom Five genuine pause.

Things were arranged in an extremely simple fashion for their benefit. The Voice said, Do

this, or I will beat you. That, in essence, was the sound of their up) ringing as they had

heard it. Even John and Dianne at their present age still heard the melody: threat reprisal

for disobedience. The actuality of judgment and punishment-and for the oddest reasons-

was clear in their minds. What would happen after this experience was beyond

comprehension. They would not be killed, but then, that was probably the only thing they

would be spared.

(In fairness, they had also been tampered with

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along this line: "Do this because it's so much more fun." They regarded it cynically and had

never been conned. Threats worked best; they were simply understood.)

The children also considered the proposition from the disadvantage of guilt. From the

beginning, "the game" had been directed toward WHAT WAS NOT ALLOWED. Born in a welter of-

nearly smothered by TV, magazines, comics, and newspapers, they were aware enough

that adults continuously killed other adults. It was only around here, in this neighborhood,

that it was strangely out of fashion, but they were not misled. They played with the idea

and liked it.

Everybody liked it-everywhere.

But that kind of play developed in them a stealth and guilt and-now, at the moment of