There Goes the Neighborhood

by Gary J. Davies

1. There Goes the Neighborhood

  My wife Marjorie noticed it first, as I happened to still be busy driving the old Ford at the time, and was essentially brain-dead after two hundred blissfully boring miles of it. "My God, Ed!” she exclaimed. “There's a new house right next door to ours!"

  "Huh?" I mumbled numbly, as I pulled off Valley Road onto our driveway. At our rural hide-away we didn't have any close neighbors, except for Thornhill further up the road, and he was more of an anti-neighbor. I had heard Marge plainly enough and understood her words, but their impact was dulled by the fact that they didn't make any sense whatsoever; nor did the sight that greeted me when I finally looked in the direction that she was excitedly pointing.

  Indeed there it was, a white Cape Cod style house, sitting in the midst of a well landscaped yard, in what had been an uninhabited wooded lot full of wild pine, spruce, oak, maple and birch when we left for our summer vacation only two weeks earlier. "Son of a gun!" I exclaimed, absolutely dumbfounded. I also felt deeply disturbed. This was our sanctuary from the rest of the world, and now that sanctity was being violated by some unknown intruder(s).

  "It must be one of those modular homes," reasoned Marge. "You know, the kind that they bring in on trucks and throw up in only a couple of days."

  "But just look at it!" I exclaimed, as I exited the car and walked numbly towards the immaculate white picket fence that now formed a border between properties. "It doesn't even look new! It looks older than our own house! Well, maybe not older exactly, but you know, better established. Just look at the landscaping! Bushes and trees and grass like that don't just appear overnight! And those flowers!"

  "Brought in by professional landscapers, I would imagine, Ed. How else could it have been done?"

  Of course she was right; she had to be.

  "Mike Thornhill must have had a change of heart," she noted.

  "Thornhill?" I had been so overcome by the sheer impossibility of the mechanics of the thing, and traumatized by the prospect of having an immediate neighbor, that I hadn't seen the big picture. Suddenly, everything became clear. "Thornhill, that bastard, he must have sold out to some developer! He knew that we would be on our annual summer vacation, and he got all this done while we were away just to avoid trouble." I marched off down our driveway towards the road.

  "Where are you going, Ed?" Marge asked. "We have to unpack the car."

  "That can wait. I'm going to give Thornhill what-for, Marge. It won't change anything, but maybe I'll feel better."

  Thornhill owned all the land along this stretch of Valley Road except ours. We had been trying to buy the lots next to ours from him for years, to prevent anyone from building on it. But he had refused, saying that's why he bought all the lots around ours in the first place, to prevent more neighbors like us, and that he suspected that if we owned them we'd build on the lots ourselves. Now the slimy bastard had gone and done it himself, obviously as a low blow against us.

  Thornhill's place was a couple of hundred yards up the road. His big old farmhouse on a hill overlooked a mile length of Valley Road, rather as a feudal castle or plantation mansion might overlook the holdings of subjugated peasants. But Mike Thornhill was even more of an isolationist than Marge and I; what he wanted to see was his own woods and fields, not neighbors. When Marge and I moved in twelve years ago, things nearly come to blows. Something momentous must have happened for him to change his mind. Maybe these new folks were relatives of his? That prospect sent new chills down my spine. I imagined a monstrous army of Mike Thornhill look-alikes of various sexes, sizes, and ages, all dedicated to driving Marge and I bananas.

  When Thornhill finally answered the door after several minutes of my ringing and pounding, I almost didn't recognize the man. His gaping eyes were fearful and bloodshot, and his hair and clothes disheveled, as though he hadn't slept or groomed in days. He seemed to have shrunk in height by several inches, gained years, and lost dozens of pounds of muscle. His normally robust farm-exercised frame now seemed hardly more physically imposing than my own thin, desk-potato body.

  To my surprise, he seemed actually happy and relieved to see me. Before I could utter a single word he shook my hand vigorously, hugged me, and pulled me into his living room as if I were some long-lost brother of his.

  "Really glad to see you, Ed; this thing is driving me nuts."

  He wasn't going to get off easy by being friendly. "Listen here, Thornhill, you told us that you bought up the land around ours to prevent more neighbors. You said that you wouldn't let anyone build on that land. Even if you changed your mind, why did it have to be the lot right next to ours?"

  He shook his head. "Me? No, you've got it all wrong. I didn't do it; nobody sold or built anything."

  The man was loony-tunes. "Then how did that house get next door to mine?" I thundered.

  "It was the damnedest thing, Ed. In the middle of the night a week ago, I heard an explosion. At first I thought it was your place blowing up. Ha! Now that would have been a neat trick to pull while you were gone, wouldn't it?" He grimaced menacingly, giving me just a glimpse of the old shit-head Mike Thornhill, but then the fear returned to his eyes. "I went to investigate, and there it was."

  "What was?"

  "The inhabited house, the fancy manicured yard full of flowers, the whole damn thing."

  "So it all just magically appeared in the middle of the night?"

  "That's it exactly! That's what I've been trying to tell folks, but they don’t believe me. I can't even get the county sheriff to come out here. It's got to be evil wood sprites or whatever."

  "Evil wood sprites?"

  "My old grand-daddy used to talk about them. But why would a sprite build a people home? Can you answer me that?"

  I couldn't begin to. "Have you met the people living in the house?"

  "First thing. There's a man living there, but he's weird. A sprite probably, a man-eating fiend. I demanded payment for the land of course, but couldn't even get a straight answer out of him."

  "Imagine that," I remarked, as I made my way towards the door. This visit had gotten me nowhere. Either Thornhill had actually gone nuts, or he was pulling a masterful hoax.

  "You going to investigate things for yourself?" he asked.

  "Maybe."

  "You couldn't get me near that evil sprite house again for anything. Don't push too hard, that's my advice; there's no telling what a sprite might do. If something happens to you and your wife, then it will be just me and him again. I sure as hell don't want that!"

  "Right," I replied, as I smiled, nodded, and cautiously walked away. Always humor a crazy person; that’s one of my guiding principles in life. I felt safer when I heard his door slam shut and lock.

  Thornhill was totally bonkers. I would interrogate my new neighbor to find out the truth of things. I wouldn't be confrontational though; I would be friendly, but I would cleverly sneak hard-hitting questions into the conversation.

  As I approached the new house, I noticed more oddities about it. There was no driveway or garage, and no car was in sight. Situated out here in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation, how did our new neighbor get around? Bicycle? Also, both along the road in front of the new house and in its front yard everything was perfectly neat and clean; there were no muddy tire tracks, stones, nails, mounds of unused concrete, Coke and beer cans, broken bits of siding and lumber, Twinkie wrappers, cigarette butts, or any of the other typical tell-tale signs of construction. The only two building contractors in the area were Whicomb's and the Belfry Brothers, and neither of them could put up a clothesline without leaving mounds of trash. So who had done this job? I mentally added that question to my growing list.

  The red-brick walkway that led from the road to the front porch and door was incredible. The bricks were perfectly uniform and level, and the repeating pattern they formed was intricate and artistic. I couldn’t imagine Whicomb or the the Belfys constructing even the walkway, let along the yard or house.

  De
spite recent near-draught conditions in the area, the yard was more than just neat, it was perfect. The lawn was greenest grass, as pure and pristine as any golf green I have ever seen. I didn't see a single weed, dead twig, or leaf on it anywhere. The trees were glorious; perfect in symmetry and health of leaf and limb. The flowerbeds were full of thousands of spectacular flowers, and everything was in full bloom without a hint of wilt. Many of the flowers were blooming out of season; I had never before seen spring tulips and daffodils bloom in July, along-side summer zinnias and fall mums. There were also thousands of exotic looking flowers that looked like they would be more at home in the tropics or in a green-house than in a northern Wisconsin yard.

  The house, a mid-sized Cape Cod with inviting country porch, was similarly perfect, even close up. The siding was smooth and so white that it seemed to glow, but it wasn't vinyl, aluminum, or wood. I poked at it and still couldn't tell what the heck it was. The white front door was similarly without blemish and of mysterious construction. When I knocked on it, it was like trying to knock on a mountain of solid Granite; I gained no sound, but only sore knuckles for my trouble.

  Mere moments after I rang the bell, a short, thin, middle-aged man opened the door to greet me. He looked pleasant and vaguely familiar, not at all the demon that Thornhill had me expecting. In fact, I felt my animosity towards the whole situation rapidly drain away, as though having a new neighbor was a good thing. "Yes?" he asked with a wide smile.

  "Hello, I'm your next-door neighbor, Ed Shornfeld. I wanted to introduce myself." I returned his smile and extended my hand. He shook it mechanically with a loose and strangely cold grip.

  "I have taken the name John Smith. Sorry, I don't normally buy things from door to door sales people, Ed Shornfeld, as may be the custom here."

  "Me either."

  He paused to consider my response. "Perhaps though, I should appear to attempt an exception in this case, as you are a neighbor. May I ask what you are selling?"

  "Can't think of anything," I confessed.

  "Most puzzling. Not at all as predicted from research and from Mr. Thornhill's visit. But just as well, as I have acquired none of the esteemed material objects that you describe as money," he admitted. "Of this I informed Mr. Thornhill also."

  "That's OK; I just stopped in to say hello."

  "My having no money does not discourage you then, as you are not selling anything?"

  "Right."

  He smiled even more intently and motioned for me to sit down with him nearby on the porch, in chairs that oddly enough I hadn't noticed before. "It is not then correct to simply assume that a visitor is selling something, or simply wants money, as Mr. Thornhill did?"

  "Not around here. This neighborhood is too far from any town to get sales people. You might get a Jehovah’s Witness once in a blue moon though."

  "By the term 'neighborhood' do you refer to your home, that of Mr. Thornhill, and this home?"

  "That's a good enough working definition. It’s more than a mile to the next bit of civilization."

  "And you state that it is too far from the city? Would you like then for this neighborhood to be closer to a city? Which city would you prefer?"

  "No, no, I like it right where it is."

  "And you only came to say hello?"

  "Yes, to exchange greetings. Would have done it sooner, but my wife and I were on vacation."

  He nodded his understanding. "On vacation? Have you found then that it is better in the Bahamas, as has been frequently stated by humans using long-range communications methods?"

  "I'm sure that it is, but we went to Duluth."

  "Very interesting. You support the proposition that it is indeed better in the Bahamas, yet you decided to experience a small nearby city."

  "My wife's relatives live there. Besides, vacations are much cheaper in Duluth."

  "Cheaper?"

  "Cost less money."

  "Why?"

  "Probably because it is better in the Bahamas."

  He nodded his head slowly, smiling. "Your vacation and mine may have something in common, Ed Shornfeld. Yet I do not yet fully understand everything you have told me. Perhaps after I study your statements further, additional discussion would be helpful."

  "Sure. I'll be available on most summer days, and then on evenings and weekends, after the school-year starts. My wife and I are both school teachers."

  "Excellent. Also, I would be most interested in meeting your wife. Your wife is female?"

  "Darn tooting she is. Best kind of wife to have, in my view."

  "She is apparently the only female human in the neighborhood; I believe it would be very interesting for me to meet her."

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice was telling me that this guy was an oddball of yet to be defined eccentricity, and a little too eager to meet Marge. Marge was a very attractive 34 year-old woman. "I'm sure that the experience will be interesting for her, also," I heard myself say, regardless.

  "Will she come here or should I travel to your home?"

  "I don't know," I replied.

  "Perhaps you should go ask her?" He stood, and I followed his lead.

  "I'll go ask her now. Nice meeting you, John." We shook hands again, and this time his grip was properly warm and firm.

  "Thank you for stopping-by, Ed Shornfeld," he said, as I turned and started to walk away. "I am encouraged, for your visit has been very helpful to my studies; especially your input confirming the definition of what constitutes the local neighborhood."

  "Sure thing, John," I replied. Nice guy, I thought. What was the fuss about? He should make a good neighbor. Right?

  As I walked home I tried to make sense of the conversation. We had a few misunderstandings to begin with, but then we fell into an effective sort of rhythm, I thought. Effective from Smith's point of view perhaps, but not from mine. I hadn't asked any of my questions! I realized then that somehow Smith had run the whole thing. The conversation had been odd somehow, in ways that I couldn't quite put my finger on, just as Smith's house and the yard were odd.

  The oddness became even more apparent when I recounted the Thornhill and Smith conversations to Marge. She was carrying the last loads of luggage into the house. As her ever helpful husband, I held doors open for her.

  “So Smith is a likeable type and will make a good neighbor?” she asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “I thought you didn’t want any neighbors, likable or not.”

  “Somehow I’m not so sure about that now.”

  "And Smith is interested in meeting me?"

  "That's the way he put it. Especially once I confirmed that you're a female wife."

  "A female wife? Isn't that pretty much standard, even nowadays?"

  I shrugged. "He specifically inquired. He also wanted to know if you'd prefer to meet him at his place or ours."

  "His, definitely. I want to see this perfect house of his. You say that you sense that he’s odd? Maybe he's homosexual, or even from California."

  "I don't know if he's quite that odd. Why don't you ask him about his sexual preferences when you meet him? You could cleverly sneak it into the conversation."

  "Right. So you want me to simply come out and ask this guy about his sexual preferences; then if he does or doesn't make a pass at me, that cinches it."

  "Maybe I should go with you."

  "I didn't have to go with you."

  She had me there. Still, I was a bit apprehensive when she immediately went next-door. I watched TV. Ten minutes went by. I paced in front of the TV. Twenty minutes went by. I peeked at Smith's house through our dining room window with my binoculars. I couldn't see them. They weren't on the porch; they must have gone inside. Smith’s window blinds were drawn closed. Thirty minutes went by. I began to practice Kung-Fu moves in front of the dining room mirror, imagining that I was delivering deadly blows to Smith.

  Our front door sprang open. "Ed!" announced Marge, "I've brought Johnny to see our place. Why on Ea
rth are you jumping around like that?"

  "Aerobics," I replied. "Got to keep fit. Nice to see you again so soon, John." As we shook hands warmly my apprehensions faded away quickly. His hand again felt normal I noticed, and his grip had improved even further, as though he had finally learned exactly how shaking hands was supposed to be done.

  "I am most impressed by your home and its contents, Ed Shornfeld." He walked about poking gently and reverently picking up common objects from Sears and K-Mart as if they were long-lost art treasures. "To think that all of this was actually physically manufactured, or even made by craft of hand! These objects have astounding texture and detail, including apparent imperfections! What's this?" he asked, with awe.

  "That's an ashtray," explained Marge. "Just in case a visitor absolutely has to smoke. Not that we'd ever encourage such a thing."

  "Ah, yes, I recall the human smoking ritual. But it is in the likeness of some sort of living creature."

  "It's a dragon," I volunteered. "I love dragons, but Marge would only allow one in the living room if it also served as an ashtray."

  "A dragon? Yes, yes, I recall them now. They are extinct in this time-frame."

  "Unfortunately so," I lamented. "Wisdom and terror in one titanic, scaly, rambunctious package that breathed fire, flew, and lived for centuries. Too bad they’re all gone."

  "Wonderful! And these wall fixtures! Were they also produced by craft of hand?"

  "Yes, painted by starving artists. Actually, Marge did that big landscape painting. I bought the paint though."

  "You are truly gifted, Marjorie," Smith said. "Your work is the best here. But you are not starving I hope?"

  "No, Johnny," laughed Marge, "don't be silly. That's just an expression. It reflects an over-supply of art, from an economic viewpoint. Paintings, music, writings, sculptures, you name it; they're mostly dirt-cheap."

  "What magnificent object is depicted here?" he asked, pointing to the tree in the foreground of Marge’s landscape painting.

  "That's a larch tree," explained Marge. "I've always wanted a real one, but I've had to settle for this painting."

  “The texture of its foliage is fascinating,” he remarked.

  We let Smith wander all through the house and answered his dumb questions, one after the other. Kitchen, bathroom, basement; every place and everything seemed to be full of wondrous surprises for him. Despite his obvious intelligence, all of his knowledge seemed to be superficial. It was as if the man had attended a few seminars on living, but had no direct experience with it. I began to wander if he had recently suffered from total amnesia, or escaped from an asylum or monastery.

  But that didn't fit either. Even an escaped monk would know what a toilet is for, and that kitchens are used to prepare food, which is then eaten, and so forth all the way to the toilet experience. But such concerns were in the background, for Marge and I were totally captivated by John's child-like innocence, friendly charm, and boundless curiosity.

  It was many hours before he finally left us, at which time our point of view dramatically changed. After we ran to the bathrooms and wolfed down some fast food in the kitchen, we sat in the living-room and talked about our visitor.

  "Am I going crazy Marge, or did we just give a total stranger an exhaustive tour of our home, and tell him all we know about everything from sex on waterbeds to using anti-cling sheets in the drier?"

  "At least he seemed to already know something about sex; he mentioned having learned about it on TV."

  "That’s right; he did make several references to having seen this and that on TV, as if it were his main source of knowledge. What I'd like to know is how he got to be middle-aged without knowing what a toilet is. At least he didn't ask for a tour of our yard."

  "But he did! That's where we were before we came inside."

  "I thought that you were in his house the whole time!"

  "No, I never even got a glimpse of the inside of his house. I mentioned right off how spectacular his yard was, and he insisted that he see ours. We went to our backyard and I swear that he fussed over every single plant, even the dead ones. He examined that strange old circle of rocks in our yard that the Indians made, and then he went bananas over living insects and birds; it was as if he had never seen real ones before."

  "Creepy."

  "But only now that we stop to think about it."

  "Say, did he look familiar to you?"

  "No, not at all," she answered. But then her jaw dropped and she pointed at the TV, which she had been casually watching as we talked.

  My jaw probably dropped too. There was John Smith, our John Smith, doing a TV commercial! He even introduced himself as John Smith as part of the commercial. What's more, there was his Cape-Cod house, or at least the front of it. The commercial itself had something to do with a delivery service; I didn't pay attention to the details. So this was why Smith looked familiar to me when we first met; I must have seen that commercial before! We hadn't seen any TV while on vacation. That meant that the commercial was made before Smith and the house arrived here! As we watched, the commercial aired again, and I wrote down details about it.

  What did it all imply? Was Smith an eccentric actor who took the name of his TV character and designed his home to look like a TV prop?

  I spent the next morning on the phone, finding out that the commercial was made in Hollywood, and that the actor's name was Nathan Osborne, not Smith. Osborne could not be reached. I gave his answering service my name and number, and told them that I had an acting job for Osborne.

  Several days went by, with several hours of each of them occupied by Smith. He would drop in and ask us this or that about practically anything at all, and for some reason we cooperated fully. Each time after he left, we would swear to each other that the next time that Smith showed up we would politely tell him that we were on our way out, or simply too busy to talk to him. But then whenever he returned, we would again fall all over ourselves to do whatever he wanted. We re-toured portions of our house and yard, and watched TV together while Smith asked naïve questions about the programs. While we did that I hoped that Smith's commercial would air, but it didn't.

  One day a couple of weeks after it all started, as Smith watched me work in my backyard, I pointed out exactly where Marge always wanted her larch tree to be located. The next morning we discovered a superb 60 feet tall larch in that very spot! Marge insisted that it must have been Smith's mystery landscapers, but I knew better. "How? When? We've been home the whole time! Wouldn't we have noticed a monster truck and whatever equipment it takes to dig an elephant-sized root-ball hole and put a twenty-plus ton tree into it?"

  "Did they dig?” Marge asked. “Look at the flowers and lawn surrounding the trunk. It's the same stuff that's been there all along."

  I looked. She was right. There were my marigolds, right where I had left them, growing right up to the trunk of the massive larch. With a shovel I poked around, and concluded that no earth near the tree had been recently disturbed. Thornhill's wood sprite theory was looking better all the time.

  From my infrequently used liquor cabinet I retrieved brandy and chugged some down to calm myself so that I could talk this all over with Marge. "Maybe I should go ask Thornhill what else he knows about wood sprites," I suggested.

  "Don't be silly, Ed. Sprites, mites! Its Hollywood landscapers, that's what it is. Our new neighbor is a bigger and richer actor than we know about, that's all. If Johnny told them not to harm your precious marigolds, then they simply dug them up and put them back so carefully that you can't even tell that they did it. Don't see that lunatic Thornhill again, just ask Johnny about it."

  Maybe it was the booze, but Marge's landscaper theory was now looking better to me than the wood sprite alternative. In my mind, I tried to picture an army of stealth-Hollywood landscapers in black ninja outfits and night-vision goggles, sneaking around in our back yard in the dead of night, using sound-muffled tree planting equipment to plant the larch after they float
ed everything into the yard quietly by giant dirigible. Just then the phone rang.

  "Shornfeld? Nathan Osborne here," said the voice. "My service says that you might have a job for me, mate."

  "You sound British," I replied. "Are you really the Nathan Osborne that played John Smith in the SHIPIT commercial?"

  "That's me. But gawd, mate, I'm an Aussie, not a bloody Brit! I can sound American like I did in that SHIPIT flit, or give you whatever other accent you want, even British. It’s my specialty. I have three more days of shooting here in Hollywood on a Pepsi flit, then I'm free."

  "You're in Hollywood?"

  "I'm wherever you want me mate, for the right money."

  "You haven't been living here in Wisconsin for the last couple of weeks?"

  "I have apartments in Hollywood and the Big Apple. Where's Wisconsin, mate? Near Miami?"

  "But there's a man and a house here in Wisconsin that look exactly like you and that house in the SHIPIT flit!"

  "It's not me or that Hollywood stage-house mate. Maybe you've just got copies of us," he laughed.

  I didn't laugh. My head was spinning. Copies? Suddenly I realized that's exactly what everything next door was, copies: too-perfect versions of grass, trees, house siding, and so forth. And John Smith himself, what was he really?

  Our doorbell rang. Our old-timey phone cord was long enough for me to peek outside through a window. It was Smith. I mumbled some apologies to Osborne and hung up. Then I numbly let Smith in.

  "Thank you so much for the larch, John; it's so beautiful," said Marge, unsuspecting.

  "Think nothing of it. It's a real tree though, unlike mine, so take care of it. I wanted to leave you with mementos of my visit; you've both been so wonderful."

  A real tree unlike his? I realized that John had been blatantly throwing us hints about himself the whole time, hints that I had put aside as merely evidence of an odd point of view or manner of speech.

  "You're leaving?" Marge asked, stunned. I was both relieved and saddened by the prospect. Whoever or whatever John was, I had to admit that I genuinely liked the guy.

  "Alas, I confess that my vacation time is complete. I must today return to my usual work."

  "Which is?" I asked, hoping against hope that he'd say 'acting.'

  "The closest parallel in your society is probably a used car salesman." I must have looked shocked. "In my world it's an honorable profession," he added.

  "Your world?" asked Marge, puzzled.

  "I am not at liberty to divulge details of course, but my world is not this one, as you have probably long suspected. Nowadays you humans would call me a space alien."

  "We have noticed a few oddities," I said, putting my arm around Marge to help keep her from collapsing to the floor. She was of course shocked to learn that Smith was a space alien, while I was actually relieved that he wasn't an evil wood sprite.

  He nodded in agreement. "Oddities, yes. We try to blend in, but our skills are imperfect. We make use of contemporary human artifacts and myths. Quaint concept, using space ships to travel about in. In the past we used to simply appear mysteriously in your forests and your people used to call us wood sprites."

  Damn! Thornhill was right!

  "I think that you blend into this neighborhood very well Johnny, wherever you're from," said Marge, forcing a smile. I could tell that she was close to tears. Whoever or whatever Smith was, he was still Johnny, her friend. She walked to her landscape painting, took it off the wall, and handed it to Smith. "Please accept this gift from us."

  "Why thank you, Marjorie!" gushed Smith, who seemed to be sincerely moved. "Hand made! You have no idea how much I will treasure it. We lost such skills long ago."

  "You could have copied it, or bought or taken anything you wanted from this planet," I remarked.

  "No. A copy would be just that; it would be easily detectable as a copy by one of my species. As for buying or stealing, that is not permitted. Gifts between friends are allowed however, and warmly welcomed." The painting simply disappeared then; it had apparently been instantly transported away by Smith.

  The action brought gasps from Marge and I. "Your superior science seems like astounding magic to us," I remarked.

  He shook his head. "No, actually our superior magic seems like astounding science to you. We don't bother with science. But I'm sorry, I am in a bit of a rush, and there is one more subject to address." He looked at us sadly. "I really hate to bring this up; you've both been so good to me. I've hardly had to influence you with spells at all."

  "For heaven’s sake Johnny, what is it?" asked Marge.

  "Specimen collection. Even though this is primarily a vacation, I am obligated to bring one of my sentient study subjects with me back to my home world. Permanently."

  A cold shock ran down my spine. I stepped closer to Marge, put a protective arm around her, and she held me tightly in return.

  "I was wondering if you two would miss Thornhill terribly?" asked Smith.

  I had visions of the three of us waving good-by to a gloating Thornhill from a spacecraft as we flew away.

  "He won't make as good a test subject as either of you two, but I take it that you would rather stay here together?"

  "Afraid so," I stammered, greatly relieved. "I'm sure that being a test subject would be an honor and an adventure, but we would rather stay here and together, of course."

  Marge nodded in agreement. "You won't hurt Thornhill, will you?"

  "Certainly not. He'll live like the king he always wanted to be, for the most part. Very well then, it's settled. Good-bye my friends."

  Smith and I shook hands, and Marge gave him a big hug.

  "Oh, by the way, the tree was for Marge, but I left something from Earth's past underneath it for you, Ed. If you take proper care of it, it should grow much bigger than the tree. Good-by." With that he winked out of sight, as the painting had before him.

  We ran outside and looked next-door. No house could be seen; Smith's yard was a kaleidoscope of twisting misty colors and flashes of light. In a few moments it all cleared, to be replaced by the familiar missing woods of pre-Smith days, while a house-sized flying saucer silently rose above the trees. At a large window in the craft we could clearly see Smith. He was smiling and waving at us. Standing next to him was poor Thornhill, with his terrified face and clenched hands pressed against the window. Then the thing shot up and disappeared into the clouds without a sound.

  After a few moments of stunned silence, we both ran to the back yard. Under the larch was an enormous green egg-shaped object. As we stood gaping at it, it cracked open, and out clawed a three-foot long dragon, much like the ashtray dragon in our living room. Its predominantly green scales, spikes, and spiny frills glistened like emeralds, and from its fang-filled mouth a long red forked tongue flitted about, tasting the air. Its eyes were at first white with red pupils, but moments later they shifted to pitch- black while it looked about as though searching for something. When finally the eyes focused on me they quickly returned back to their original flashy red and white colors. The monstrous looking thing squawked and crawled to me, where it rubbed against my legs like a cat, with apparent affection.

  "Well son of a gun!" I remarked. "There goes the neighborhood!"

  ****

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