"Sure! Easy!"

"All right. You show Olaf how to run it. Olaf, as soon as you've
dropped Ray at school, take that thing to the Rolls-Cadipac agency,
and get a new one, with a proper instrument board, and a proper
picture book of operating instructions. I'm going to call Sam Huschack
up personally and give him royal hell about this. Sure you can handle
it, now?"

He watched the 'copter rise to the two thousand foot local traffic
level and turn in the direction of Mineola High School, fifty miles
away. He was still looking anxiously after it as it dwindled to a tiny
dot and vanished.

"They'll make it all right," Claire told him. "Olaf has a strong back,
and Ray has a good head."

"It wasn't that that I was worried about." He turned and looked, half
ashamed, at his daughter. "You know, for a minute, there, I thought ... I
thought Ray could read!"

"Father!" She was so shocked that she forgot the nickname they had
given him when he had announced his candidacy for Senate, in the
spring. "You didn't!"

"I know; it's an awful thing to think, but--Well, the kids today do
the craziest things. There's that Hartnett boy he runs around with;
Tom Hartnett bought Literate training for him. And that fellow
Prestonby; I don't trust him--"