"Are there any left?"

"Of Project B? Of course." Billings was irritated. "You're Project B. That's why I'm down here. As soon as my report is complete the final disposition of your type can be effected. There is no doubt my recommendation will be identical with that regarding Project A. Since your Project has moved out of jurisdiction to such a degree that for all intents and purposes you are no longer functional -"

But Tommy wasn't listening. He was bent over the wood frame, peering down at the tiny figures within. Nine little people, men and women both. Nine – and no more in all the world.

Tommy began to tremble. Excitement rushed through him. A plan was dawning, bursting alive inside him. He held his face rigid, his body tense.

"I guess I'll be going." He moved from the porch, back into the room toward the hall door.

"Going?" Billings got to his feet. "But -"

"I have to go. It's getting late. I'll see you later." He opened the hall door. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye," Mr Billings said, surprised. "I hope I'll see you again, young man."

"You will," Tommy said.

He ran home as fast as he could. He raced up the porch steps and inside the house.

"Just in time for dinner," his mother said, from the kitchen.

Tommy halted on the stairs. "I have to go out again."

"No you don't! You're going to -"

"Just for awhile. I'll be right back." Tommy hurried up to his room and entered, glancing around.

The bright yellow room. Pennants on the walls. The big dresser and mirror, brush and comb, model airplanes, pictures of baseball players. The paper bag of bottle caps. The small radio with its cracked plastic cabinet. The wooden cigar boxes full of junk, odds and ends, things he had collected.

Tommy grabbed up one of the cigar boxes and dumped its contents out on the bed. He stuck the box under his jacket and headed out of the room.

"Where are you going?" his father demanded, lowering his evening newspaper and looking up.

"I'll be back."

"Your mother said it was time for dinner. Didn't you hear her?"

"I'll be back. This is important." Tommy pushed the front door open. Chill evening air blew in, cold and thin. "Honest. Real important."

"Ten minutes." Vince Jackson looked at his wristwatch. "No longer. Or you don't get any dinner."

"Ten minutes." Tommy slammed the door. He ran down the steps, out into the darkness.

A light showed, flickering under the bottom and through the keyhole of Mr Billings's room.

Tommy hesitated a moment. Then he raised his hand and knocked. For a time there was silence. Then a stirring sound. The sound of heavy footsteps.

The door opened. Mr Billings peered out into the hall.

"Hello," Tommy said.

"You're back!" Mr Billings opened the door wide and Tommy walked quickly into the room. "Did you forget something?"

"No."

Billings closed the door. "Sit down. Would you like anything? An apple? Some milk?"

"No." Tommy wandered nervously around the room, touching things here and there, books and papers and bundles of clippings.

Billings watched the boy a moment. Then he returned to his desk, seating himself with a sigh. "I think I'll continue with my report. I hope to finish very soon." He tapped a pile of notes beside him. "The last of them. Then I can leave here and present the report along with my recommendations."

Billings bent over his immense typewriter, tapping steadily away. The relentless rumble of the ancient machine vibrated through the room. Tommy turned and stepped out of the room, onto the porch.

In the cold evening air the porch was pitch black. He halted, adjusting to the darkness. After a time he made out the sacks of fertilizer, the rickety chair. And in the center, the wood frame with its wire netting over it, heaps of dirt and grass piled around.

Tommy glanced back into the room. Billings was bent over the typewriter, absorbed in his work. He had taken off his dark blue coat and hung it over the chair. He was working in his vest, his sleeves rolled up.

Tommy squatted beside the frame. He slid the cigar box from under his jacket and laid it down, lid open. He grasped the netting and pried it back, loose from the row of nails.

From the frame a few faint apprehensive squeaks sounded. Nervous scuttlings among the dried grass.

Tommy reached down, feeling among the grass and plants. His fingers closed over something, a small thing that squirmed in fright, twisting in wild terror. He dropped it into the cigar box and sought another.

In a moment he had them all. Nine of them, all nine in the wood cigar box.

He closed the lid and slipped it back under his jacket. Quickly he left the porch, returning to the room.

Billings glanced up vaguely from his work, pen in one hand, papers in the other. "Did you want to talk to me?" he murmured, pushing up his glasses.

Tommy shook his head. "I have to go."

"Already? But you just came!"

"I have to go." Tommy opened the door to the hall. "Goodnight."

Billings rubbed his forehead wearily, his face lined with fatigue. "All right, boy. Perhaps I'll see you again before I leave." He resumed his work, tapping slowly away at the great typewriter, bent with fatigue.

Tommy shut the door behind him. He ran down the stairs, outside on the porch. Against his chest the cigar box shook and moved. Nine. All nine of them. He had them all. Now they were his. They belonged to him – and there weren't any more of them, anywhere in the world. His plan had worked perfectly.

He hurried down the street toward his own house, as fast as he could run.

He found an old cage out in the garage he had once kept white rats in. He cleaned it and carried it upstairs to his room. He spread papers on the floor of the cage and fixed a water dish and some sand.

When the cage was ready he emptied the contents of the cigar box into it.

The nine tiny figures huddled together in the center of the cage, a little bundle of pink. Tommy shut the door of the cage and fastened it tightly. He carried the cage to the dresser and then drew a chair up by it so he could watch.

The nine little people began to move around hesitantly, exploring the cage. Tommy's heart beat with rapid excitement as he watched them.

He had got them away from Mr Billings. They were his, now. And Mr Billings didn't know where he lived or even his name.

They were talking to each other. Moving their antennae rapidly, the way he had seen ants do. One of the little people came over to the side of the cage. He stood gripping the wire, peering out into the room. He was joined by another, a female. They were naked. Except for the hair on their heads they were pink and smooth.

He wondered what they ate. From the big refrigerator in the kitchen he took some cheese and some hamburger, adding crumbled up bits of bread and lettuce leaves and a little plate of milk.

They liked the milk and bread. But they left the meat alone. The lettuce leaves they used to begin the making of little huts.

Tommy was fascinated. He watched them all the next morning before school, then again at lunch time, and all afternoon until dinner.

"What you got up there?" his Dad demanded, at dinner.

"Nothing."

"You haven't got a snake, have you?" his Mom asked apprehensively. "If you have another snake up there, young man -"

"No." Tommy shook his head, bolting down his meal. "It's not a snake."

He finished eating and ran upstairs.

The little creatures had finished fixing their huts out of the lettuce leaves. Some were inside. Others were wandering around the cage, exploring it.

Tommy seated himself before the dresser and watched. They were smart. A lot smarter than the white rats he had owned. And cleaner. They used the sand he had put there for them. They were smart – and quite tame.