“There’s a book,” he said, “that I want to look at. It’s up in your room-Here and Now, by Herbert Block. Will you bring it down, please?”
Though it meant climbing two flights with a full stomach, I was glad to oblige, out of appreciation for his calm acceptance of my announcement of my shattered hopes. He could have been very vocal. So I mounted the stairs cheerfully, went to my room, and crossed to the shelves where I keep a few books. There were only a couple of dozen of them, and I knew where each one was, but Here and Now wasn’t there. Where it should have been was a gap. I looked around, saw a book on the dresser, and stepped to it. It was Here and Now, and lying on top of it was a pair of white cotton gloves.
I gawked.
Chapter 4
I WOULD LIKE TO say that I caught on immediately, the second I spotted them, but I didn’t. I had picked them up and looked them over, and put one of them on and taken it off again, before I fully realized that there was only one possible explanation. Having realized it, instantly there was a traffic jam inside my skull, horns blowing, brakes squealing, head-on collisions. To deal with it I went to a chair and sat. It took me maybe a minute to reach my first clear conclusion.
He had taken this method of telling me he was Santa Claus, instead of just telling me, because he wanted me to think it over on my own before we talked it over together.
Why did he want me to think it over on my own? That took a little longer, but with the traffic under control I found my way through to the only acceptable answer.