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CHAPTER 20

  Eldred's feeling that events might have taken a turn for the better was quite soon confirmed.

  The Head of the First School announced that as there were spare places on the coach for the top class's visit to a nuclear power station, a limited number of children from the lower classes would be allowed to go. Any children wishing to go on the trip should give their names to their own class teacher and bring the money to school by Monday at the latest.

  Eldred accosted Mrs Garcia immediately after assembly. 'Please,’ he said, 'I'd like to go to visit the nuclear power station.’

  'I might have known you would,’ said his class teacher. 'The question is, should you be allowed to go, considering your behaviour after the last school trip you went on? Not to mention your behaviour during it, Eldred. You were disruptive and selfish.’

  'Please,’ Eldred begged. 'I won't be again. I'll be extremely good.’

  'That's the trouble, Eldred,’ Mrs Garcia sighed. 'You're extremely everything. Why do you have to be so extreme?’

  Eldred bowed his head. 'I don't know.’ He recalled Louise's words to him in the park. 'Maybe it's because I have a zeal to learn,’ he suggested.

  'Well,’ said Mrs Garcia, 'that's not a bad thing in itself. I would be the last person to discourage that in a child. Bring your money to me by Monday - provided your parents give their permission, that is.’

  Mildred and Edgar had a private discussion that evening about whether to give their permission.

  'The teachers know about him now,’ Edgar reasoned. 'They wouldn't let him go if they thought they couldn't keep him under control, would they?’

  'I don't know,’ said Mildred. 'They thought he was under control the last time, didn't they? What harm can a child come to from visiting a farm? But look what it did to his mind: all het up over that machine he thought he could design. What effect is a nuclear power station going to have on him? He won't sleep for nights after that.’

  'We can't hold him back, Mother,’ said Edgar. 'That last journalist said it must be a strain for him, being so clever and not having enough to learn at school. If he has something he can get his teeth into, it might calm him down and then he'd be easier at home too.’

  'It has the opposite effect, if you ask me,’ Mildred said. 'This trip is likely to get him all worked up again. It's better when he is a bit bored; he's less trouble than when he's trying to know more than his elders. He only puts people's backs up, and what good will that do him?’

  'It's not his fault exactly,’ Edgar defended him. 'He can't help being one step ahead.’

  'He doesn't have to show it all the time,’ Mildred said irritably, 'as though he must be trying to prove he's better than the rest of us.’

  Edgar stubbed out his cigarette as carefully as he did everything and handed the ashtray to Mildred to empty. 'Perhaps he is,’ he said.

  Eldred was sitting on the stairs trying to hear what they were deciding but failed to make out the words. After a while he went back to bed but he couldn't sleep. Experience warned him it was no use trying to rush his parents into letting him know their decision; he would have to wait till morning.

  Lying in his bed, rigid with fear that they might not let him go, Eldred addressed his first-ever remarks to the Unknown.

  'If there is a God,’ he said aloud, 'who can't be known by the intellect alone, please make yourself known to me by whatever your usual method is - grace or faith or whatever else it's called. And if it wouldn't interfere with your wider plan then a good sign of your existence, for me, would be to arrange for me to go to the nuclear power station as this would be of great interest to me and, I would imagine, of benefit to my soul, though I expect you would know better than me whether this assumption is correct. Thank you and goodnight.’

  Eldred slept.

  In the morning, Mildred handed him the money in an envelope and said, 'You can go. On one condition.’

  'All right,’ said Eldred, who would have agreed to anything.

  'You don't get all overexcited between now and then, you come straight home afterwards, and you don't give Dad or me any trouble over this.’

  'Okay.’ A bit unfair, Eldred thought; that was three conditions, not one. But he said nothing.

  'And Eldred?’

  'Yes.’

  'I know you don't listen to me, but will you, on this one occasion?’

  He was hurt. 'I do listen to you, Mum.’

  'Well, just this once will you believe I might know better than you, Eldred?’

  Eldred nodded his agreement.

  'The people who work in these places - the people who'll show you round - they're experts in their job, right?’

  'Right,’ said Eldred. 'Well, they may not be expert scientists, of course; they may just be experts in showing people round and explaining ...’

  'Eldred,’ Mildred said. ‘Just listen.’

  'Okay,’ said Eldred.

  'Whatever it is they do, they are trained to do it and paid to do it, all right? And they know enough about it to do their job, in the ordinary way of things. If someone like you comes along -a little boy, not trained to do their kind of job - and asks a lot of questions they don't know the answers to, they don't like it. Do you understand?’

  'I understand they might not like the idea,’ Eldred conceded, 'but the questions, which they might not have thought of asking themselves, might arouse in them a greater interest in their field of work and inspire them to go and find out the answers and so learn more about it and become even more expert, and they might find that rewarding, don't you think?’

  'No,’ said Mildred.

  'Oh.’

  'Not everyone wants to be inspired to know more,’ Mildred explained. 'Some people are quite content with what they know already. Does that make sense to you, Eldred?’

  Eldred thought about it. 'I suppose so,’ he said.

  'Good, because I want you to keep that in mind while you're on your school trip. All right?’

  'All right,’ Eldred said. He inserted a fingertip up one nostril thoughtfully. 'Maybe,’ he said, 'not everybody has a zeal to learn.’

  'Maybe not,’ said Mildred, 'and maybe it's a good thing that we're not all alike. Don't pick your nose, Eldred.’

  'I wasn't picking it,’ Eldred explained. 'I was feeling what it was like on the inside.’

  Mildred drew a deep breath. 'Go to school,’ she said.