"Alexei Panshin - Farewell to Yesterdays Tomorrows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Panshin Alexei)

instability. I don’t hold too much with the Army, but I’d still give him thirty twitch points for that. He
started out as a teaching assistant here, but he started twitching in front of the class and now he’s a
research assistant. You can give him another thirty points for that.”

“So what’s your diagnosis, Doctor?” Holland said.

Wooley shrugged. “I don’t know. Manic-depressive, maybe. One day he’ll overflow all over you, try to
be friends—try to be buddies and ask you out for a beer. You can’t imagine how funny that is between
his trying to get into a bar in the first place and the fact that he can’t stand beer. He’ll tell you all his
problems. The next day he won’t talk to you at all, hide his little secrets away. And when he’s
unpleasant, which is more than half the time, he’ll leave three-inch scars all over you. Give him fifteen
points for that and the last twenty points for his excuses.”

“All right. What are they?”

Wooley paused for effect. “He thinks—he says he’s finally figured it out—that he’s living at a slower rate
than most people, and he really isn’t grown up yet. He still has to get his physical and emotional growth.
He’s where everybody else his age was years ago.”

“Why does he think that?”

Wooley smiled. “Well, he thinks he is growing. He thinks he’s gaining height.”

Holland said seriously, “You know, if it were so, it would really be something, wouldn’t it? I can see why
it would make somebody twitchy. To be that far out of step, not know why, and be incapable of doing
what people expect of you would certainly be a burden. You’d be bound to think it was you and that
would only make things worse.”

“Perfect excuse, isn’t it?” Wooley asked drily. “There’s only one problem and that is it’s just wishful
thinking.”

“Well, if he’s growing . . .”

“He isn’t growing. He just thinks he is. Come on and I’ll show you.”

He led the way down the hall to another cubicle that was similar to their own except that there was only
one desk. The extra space was taken up by bookshelves. Wooley flipped on the light.

“Come on in,” he said to Holland, and Holland stepped inside.

Wooley pointed to the wall at a point where a wood strip connected pieces of particle board. There
were a few faint pencil ticks there, the top and the bottom marks being perhaps an inch and a half apart.

“There,” Wooley said. “That’s the growing he thinks he’s done.”

“Only he hasn’t?”

“No,” Wooley said, chuckling. “I’ve been moving the marks. I add them on the bottom and erase the top
mark. He just keeps putting it back and thinking he’s that much taller.”