Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Stephen Blundelland the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
I WAS A TEEN-AGE SECRET WEAPON
_He could truthfully say that he never hurt anybody. You know--like the eye of a hurricane? It never hurts anybody...._
BY RICHARD SABIA
Illustrated by Freas
"Get away from me!" screamed Dr. Berry at the approaching figure.
"But Ah got to feed an' water the animals an' clean out the cages,"drawled the lanky, eighteen-year-old boy amiably.
"Get out of this laboratory, you hoodoo," shrilled Berry, "or I swearI'll kill you! I'll not give you the chance to do me in!"
Tow-headed Dolliver Wims regarded chubby Dr. Berry with his innocentgreen eyes. "Ah don't know why y'all fuss at me like you do," hecomplained in aggrieved tones.
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHY!" shrieked two hundred and eighteen pounds ofoutraged Dr. Berry. "How _dare_ you stand there and say you don't knowwhy?" Berry flung a pudgy hand within an inch of Wims' nose. Slashedacross the back of it, like frozen lightning, was a new, jagged scar."That's why!" he shouted. Berry twisted his head into profile, thrust itat Wims and pointed to a slightly truncated ear lobe. "And that's why!"he roared. He yanked up a trouser leg, revealing a finely pitted patchof skin. "And also why!" he yelled. He paused to snatch a breath andglared at the boy. "And if I weren't so modest I'd show you anotherwhy!"
"Kin Ah help it if you're always havin' accidents?" Wims replied with ashrug.
Berry turned a deeper red and a dangerous rumble issued from his throat,as if he were a volcano threatening to erupt. Then quite suddenly, withan obvious effort, he capped his seething anger and subsided somewhat.Through taut lips he said, "I'm not going to stand here and argue withyou, Wims; just get out."
"But the animals--"
"You can come back in an hour when I've finished running these ratsthrough the maze."
"But--"
"I SAID OUT!" Berry leaped at Wims with arms outthrust, intending topush him toward the door, but Wims had stepped aside in slight alarm andthe avalanche of meat plunged past and into a bench on which rested ahuge, multilevel glass maze which was a shopping-center model beingtested to determine a design that would subliminally compel shoppersinto bankruptcy. There was a sustained and magnificent tinkling crash asif a Chinese wind-chime factory was entertaining a typhoon. Berryskidded on the shards into a bank of wooden cages and went down in asplintering welter of escaping chimpanzees, Wistar albino rats, ocelotsand other assorted fauna.
Wims moved forward to help extricate the stunned Dr. Berry from theEverest of debris in which he sat immersed.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Berry screeched.
"O.K.," Wims said, retreating, "but Ah guess y'all gonna blame me ferthis, too."
Berry's mouth worked convulsively in sheer rage but he had no words leftto contain it. He put his head on his knees and sobbed.
The other psychologists of the research division came crowding into thelaboratory to seek the cause of all the tumult.
"What happened?" Dr. Wilholm inquired.
"Well, Doc Berry has gone an' riled hisself into 'nuther accident," Wimsinformed him.
"I suppose you had nothing to do with it," Wilholm snapped.
"Cain't rightly say Ah had. He worked it out all by hisself."
"Just like the rest of us, I suppose," Wilholm said with unconcealedhostility.
"Well now y'all mention it, Doc, Ah ain't nevah seen sich a collectiono' slip-fingered folk. Always bustin' either their gear or theirselves."
"Listen, you--"
"Now lookit Doc Castle up on top o' that lockah. He's gonna bust a legif he don't quit foolin' with that critter."
Wilholm turned to see Dr. Castle up near the ceiling trying to get at achimpanzee perched just out of reach on a steam pipe. "Castle, are youcrazy?" he cried. "Get down from there before you hurt yourself."
"But I've got to get Zsa Zsa into a cage before one of the cats getsher," Castle protested. Just then an ocelot leaped for Zsa Zsa and sheleaped for Dr. Castle who promptly lost his balance and plummeted towardDr. Wilholm who foolishly tried to catch him. They all crashed to thefloor and lay stunned for some moments. Castle attempted to rise but hesank back almost immediately with a grimace of pain. "I think my leg isbroken," he announced.
"Well Ah tole you," Wims said. "Ain't that so, Dr. Wilholm?"
Wilholm attempted to hurl Zsa Zsa at Wims but found to his surprise hecould only wriggle his fingers. The effort sent little slivers of painslicing through his back.
By this time the laboratory was resounding with the fury of a riot salein a bargain basement. Sounds of destruction, counterpointed with criesof pain and imprecations increased as the staff pursued maddeninglyelusive animals through a growing jungle of toppled and overturningequipment. At the far end there was a shower of sparks and a flash offlame as something furry plunged into a network of wires and vacuumtubes.
* * * * *
Two hours later, Dr. Titus, the division chief, strolled in just as thefiremen quenched the last stubborn flames. He surveyed the nearly totalruin of the laboratory. "Really!" he said to a thickly bandaged Dr.Berry who was attempting to rescue an undamaged electroencephalographfrom a gleeful fireman's ax, "can't you test your hypothesis withoutbeing so untidy?"
Dr. Berry whirled and struck Dr. Titus.
"Of course you know what this means," Titus said calmly, rubbing hisjaw. "I'll just have to have a closer look at your Rorschach."
"You can just go take a closer look," Berry snarled.
"Now, now," Titus said soothingly, "why don't we just go to my officeand find out what is disturbing us? Hm-m-m?"
The ax came down on the encephalograph and Berry burst into tears andallowed Titus to lead him away.
Titus seated himself at his desk and waited for the sobbing Berry tosubside. "That's it," he said unctuously, "let's just get it right outof our systems, shall we? Hm-m-m?"
Berry stopped in mid-sob and became all tiger again. "Stop talking to meas if I were a schizo!" he roared.
"Now, now, we are not going to become hostile all over again are we?Hm-m-m?"
"Hm-m-m all you want to, Titus, but you'll change your tune soon enoughwhen you hear what happened. It was no band-aid brouhaha this time. I'vewarned you time and again about Wims and you've chosen to treat thematter as airily as possible--almost to the point of being elfin.However, the casualty list ought to bring you back down to earth." Berryticked off the names on his fingers: "Dr. Wilholm hospitalized with abroken back; Dr. Castle, a broken leg; Dr. Angelillo, Dr. Bernstein, Dr.Maranos and four lab technicians severely burned; Dr. Grossblatt and twoassistants, badly clawed; Dr. Cahill, clawed and burned; and no oneknows what's wrong with Dr. Zimmerman. He's locked himself in the broomcloset and refuses to come out. Twelve other people will be out a day ortwo with minor injuries, including your secretary who was pursued byElvira, the orangutan, and is now being treated for shock."
Titus protested, "Why Elvira wouldn't harm--"
"Elvira has been misnamed. Elvis might be more appropriate."
"Why I had no idea," Titus mused. "Now I'll have to rerun those testswith the new bias."
Berry flared up again. "You don't even have a lab left to run a test in.You can't keep Wims after this!"
"Are you blaming poor Wims for what happened?"
"How can you sit there and ask that question without choking? Ever sincethat two-legged disaster was hired to sweep up, everybody in thepsycho-research division has suffered from one accident after another;even you haven't remained unscathed. Why within the month he arrived welost the plaque we had won two years running fo
r our unmarred safetyrecord. In fact, the poor fellow who came to remove it from its place ofhonor in the staff dining room fell from the ladder and broke his neck.Guess who was holding the ladder?"
"I was there at the time," Titus said, "and I saw the entireperformance. Wims did nothing but hold the ladder as he had beeninstructed to do. Old John, instead of confining his attention to whathe was doing, kept worrying about whether or not the ladder was beingheld firmly enough and, as could