The Elroom

Timmy was getting too much 3-dimension television, and he was mistaking it for Mother Nature. So his parents took him out to see the natural wonders, which he unhappily mistook for 3-D television....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

She had never seen violinists work so hard. They were running their bows back and forth so fast their hands were blurred. The musicians' faces were studies in concentration and the concertmaster--he wasn't two feet from her--had worked himself into such a frenzy veins were standing out on his red face.

Mrs. Briggs almost laughed, the way the conductor was sweeping his baton to within inches of her head. Several times she had an impulse to reach up and catch it.

So this was Virilio! Disjointed, cacophonic, sometimes sweet but more often deafening. She had never caught him before. But it was just as advertised, all right. Exciting. And moving. She didn't know if there was supposed to be a love theme in Virilio's new Plenitude on a Thursday Afternoon, but it definitely stirred her.

Just then the door opened and Timmy came walking through the musicians, eating an apple. Once he stopped to stare at the tympani and a second fiddler's bow kept running through his head. It was rather ghostly, Mrs. Briggs thought.

"Timmy!" she yelled above the music. "I didn't see you go. Where have you been?" As if she didn't know.

"Had to get a glass of water. The music made me thirsty," he said loudly, taking his seat beside her. "This is a lousy program, Mom. What's next?"

"_Drama in History_," she said absently, her eyes on a flutist's mustache, wondering how he managed to play.

Timmy chomped on his apple, but in the face of his gustatory enjoyment she couldn't find the heart to tell him to be quiet.

At intermission, she left the Elroom to let Timmy take in the commercial and returned in time for the beginning of Drama in History.

There was a salt spray in the air and a cool wind whipped around them as the lights went out completely. The roar of waves grew loud and the deck creaked beneath their feet.

The ship moved through the dim light. Sailors stood like statues about the deck.

"We're even with the inshore ships, sir!" a voice called hoarsely.

"We've got the French between us, then." Though he was a small man, there was a ring of authority in the voice of the man on the bridge.

"There's the Orient, sir!"

"One of ours has gone aground!"

"She'll mark the shoal for the rest of the fleet," the little man replied calmly. "Ready, Mr. Creston!"

"What's he think he's doing?" the captain's boy whispered.

"Quiet, lad," a peg-legged sailor said softly. "Admiral Nelson will see us through. You'll have your share of action afore mornin', mate!"

The darkness was split by faraway flashes of light. Instantly, there was returning cannon fire that caused the ship to shudder and groan. The Battle of Aboukir Bay had begun....

The red flashers above the door winked their message.

"Damn!" Mrs. Briggs said, switching off.

"Ma!"

"There's someone at the door, Timmy. If it's a salesman--!"

Mrs. Briggs checked the dials on the electrocooker as she went to the door. A small but efficient-looking woman in the standard white and blue of school uniforms had alighted from her g-car and stood at the door.

The woman said she was Bernice Pomeroy from the office of the director of Timmy's public school and Mrs. Briggs, scarcely glancing at her offered identification card, pushed for mezzanine. The woman said nothing; she merely waited until the floor came down hydraulically to mez level. Then Mrs. Briggs ran the magnetic curtains around, and when they were private she saw that the woman was sitting on one of the soft lounge cushions, straight-backed, adjusting her glasses on the small bridge of her nose. She drew a sheaf of papers from her portfolio.

"Mrs. Briggs," Miss Pomeroy said, looking up with officious grey eyes. Then she saw Timmy. "Timmy, I suppose."

"Yes." Mrs. Briggs wished she'd get on with it. It was hard enough leaving Admiral Nelson at the mouth of the Nile, without having her settling down as if for all day.

"Maybe it would be best," Miss Pomeroy coughed a little, "if Timmy--"

"If Timmy what?"

"It's about him, you see."

"I'll send him to the Elroom."

"No," Miss Pomeroy said at once. Then she added: "Perhaps it would be best if he stayed after all." She riffled her papers. "Timmy's latest Auden-Gronet test shows his personality has dropped at least five points from positive during the first half of the school year."

Mrs. Briggs looked at her nine-year-old son. He was down to the core of his apple now, a nice looking boy, she thought, with bright blue eyes, hair that insisted on drooping too far down on his forehead--she'd have to start training it in earnest soon--and a fair supply of freckles. He carried himself well. Had a pleasant speaking voice, she thought, and a good vocabulary. She had noticed no--slipping?

"Timmy's not too far behind factually, Mrs. Briggs," Miss Pomeroy said, referring to her records. "In fact, we'll admit he's ahead in stability and adjustment. But he's getting more negative in aggressiveness and personality development. He just doesn't seem to care. That factor may account for his stability--he doesn't have any reason to be unstable, you see? And he adjusts easily because he doesn't care enough not to. There is a reason, of course."

Mrs. Briggs was annoyed. The schools had gone too far. "And what, may I ask, is the reason?"

"Too much time in the Elroom, Mrs. Briggs."

Mrs. Briggs managed a good-natured laugh. "Miss Pomeroy, you have Timmy all wrong. He doesn't spend any more time in the Elroom than other children do."

"Children are all different," Miss Pomeroy countered.