Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SAVIOUR thinking that way and to show him what sensible people thought of such things. After that first time he’d been care- ful not to give her the oppor- tunity of laughing at him. He shrugged his shoulders very slightly. “‘I like wander- ing about during the holidays,” he said, by way of explanation. *“And it seems silly to wear good clothes for that sort of thing. They’d only get dirty. If I wear old clothes like these it doesn’t matter.’ The lie came easily to his lips, At one time he’d always tried to tell her the truth, but once he’d Started to realise how many arguments and scenes resulted from it, he’d stopped. It just didn’t seem worth it. You told the truth and she flew into a rage and started scold- ing or—worse still—she got that catch in her voice and that look in her eyes that told you very plainly that she was going to puil the hard-done- by-mother-with-a-good -for- nothing-son stunt. The first few times had made him feel ashamed, but when she tried it more and more frequently in an obvious effort to change him from what he was into what she wanted him to be— well, he’d grown callous. He walked over to the door. “Bye,” he said, not giving her 35 time to make an argument out of what he’d said. “Don’t be too late,” she called after him. He didn’t bother to answer her. He’d heard the same thing on sO Many, many occasions that he’d grown to accept the fact that she’d say the same thing, whenever he went out, for as long as he lived in the same house. To her he was still a baby. Still a private, per- sonal possession. It would never make any difference how old he was; to her he’d still be a baby with wrong ideas that it was her duty to correct, because they were different from her own. The fact that in a year and a bit he’d be old enough to be thrown into a Mole Heavy and sent out to fight in order to protect her and everyone else didn’t matter a bit. Would she think enough of him to try to help him get out of the fight- ing when he was eighteen? Never. She’d been conditioned to accept the war; it was part of her life. He gave himself a mental shaking. To hell with it all! He was going to meet Mar- garet; he’d got a few credits in his pocket and he’d got the whole day and the evening in front of him with no one to tell him what to do. commicloooks.com