He looked at the door and saw it shake as if something had jumped against it from the other side.
“Of course not,” he said.
At dinner they ate alone, for Wendy and Peter were at a special plastic fair across town. They had
called home earlier to say they’d be late. So George Hadley, deep in thought, sat watching the
dining-room table produce warm dishes of food from the machines inside.
“We forgot the tomato sauce,” he said.
“Sorry,” said a small voice within the table, and tomato sauce appeared.
As for the nursery, thought George Hadley, it won’t hurt for the children to be locked out of it a
while. Too much of anything isn’t good for anyone. And it was clearly indicated that the children
had been spending a little too much time on Africa. That sun. He could still feel it on his neck, like a
hot paw. And the lions. And the smell of blood. Remarkable how the nursery read the thoughts in
the children’s minds and created life to fill their every desire. The children thought lions, and there
were lions. The children thought zebras, and there were zebras. Sun – sun. Giraffes – giraffes. Death
and death.
That last. He ate the meat that the table had cut for him without tasting it. Death thoughts. They
were awfully young, Wendy and Peter, for death thoughts. Or, no, you were never too young, really.
Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else. When you were two
years old you were shooting people with toy guns.
But this – the long, hot African veldt. The awful death in the jaws of a lion. And repeated again and
again.
“Where are you going?”
George didn’t answer Lydia… he was too busy thinking of something else. He let the lights shine
softly on ahead of him, turn off behind him as he walked quietly to the nursery door. He listened
against it. Far away, a lion roared. He unlocked the door and opened it. Just before he stepped
inside, he heard a faraway scream. And then another roar from the lions, which died down quickly.
He stepped into Africa.
How many times in the last year had he opened this door and found Wonderland with Alice and the
Mock Turtle, or Aladdin and his Magical Lamp, or Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, or Dr. Doolittle, or the
cow jumping over a very real-looking moon. All the most enjoyable creations of an imaginary
world. How often had he seen Pegasus the winged horse flying in the sky ceiling, or seen
explosions of red fireworks, or heard beautiful singing.
But now, is yellow hot Africa, this bake oven with murder in the heat. Perhaps Lydia was right.
Perhaps they needed a little vacation from the fantasy which was growing a bit too real for ten-year-
old children. It was all right to exercise one’s mind with unusual fantasies, but when the lively child
mind settled on one pattern..?
It seemed that, at a distance, for the past month, he had heard lions roaring, and noticed their strong
smell which carried as far away as his study door. But, being busy, he had paid it no attention.
George Hadley stood on the African veldt alone. The lions looked up from their feeding, watching