She looked at him and said, "He's a fine boy, that one. I have a tabby at home who could have come from the same litter."

I said solemnly, "He's Frederica's cat. I had to bring him along because... well, it was necessary. No one to take care of him."

"Oh, the poor little fellow!" She scratched him under the chin, doing it properly, thank goodness, and Pete accepted it, thank goodness again, stretching his neck and closing his eyes and looking indecently pleased. He is capable of taking a very stiff line with strangers if he does not fancy their overtures.

The guardian of youth told me to sit down at a table under the trees outside the headquarters. It was far enough away to permit a private visit but still under her careful eye. I thanked her and waited.

I didn't see Ricky come up. I heard a shout, "Uncle Danny!" and another one as I turned, "And you brought Pete! Oh, this is wonderful!"

Pete gave a long bubbling bleerrrt and leaped from my arms to hers. She caught him neatly, rearranged him in the support position he likes best, and they ignored me for a few seconds while exchanging cat protocols. Then she looked up and said soberly, "Uncle Danny, I'm awful glad you're here."

I didn't kiss her; I did not touch her at all. I've never been one to paw children and Ricky was the sort of little girl who only put up with it when she could not avoid it. Our original relationship, back when she was six, had been founded on mutual decent respect for the other's individualism and personal dignity.

But I did look at her. Knobby knees, stringy, shooting up fast, not yet filled out, she was not as pretty as she had been as a baby girl. The shorts and T-shirt she was wearing, combined with peeling sunburn, scratches, bruises, and an understandable amount of dirt, did not add up to feminine glamour. She was a matchstick sketch of the woman she would become, her coltish gawkiness relieved only by her enormous solemn eyes and the pixie beauty of her thin smudged features.

She looked adorable.

I said, "And I'm awful glad to be here, Ricky."

Trying awkwardly to manage Pete with one arm, she reached with her other hand for a bulging pocket in her shorts. "I'm surprised too. I just this minute got a letter from you-they dragged me away from mail call; I haven't even had a chance to open it. Does it say that you're coming today?" She got it out, creased and mussed from being crammed into a pocket too small.

"No, it doesn't, Ricky. It says I'm going away. But after I mailed it, I decided I just had to come say good-by in person."

She looked bleak and dropped her eyes. "You're going away?"

"Yes. I'll explain, Ricky, but it's rather long. Let's sit down and I'll tell you about it." So we sat on opposite sides of the picnic table under the ponderosas and I talked. Pete lay on the table between us, making a library lion of himself with his forepaws on the creased letter, and sang a low song like bees buzzing in deep clover, while he narrowed his eyes in contentment.

I was much relieved to find that she already knew that Miles had married Belle-I hadn't relished having to break that to her. She glanced up, dropped her eyes at once, and said with no expression at all, "Yes, I know. Daddy wrote me about it."

"Oh. I see."

She suddenly looked grim and not at all a child. "I'm not going back there, Danny. I won't go back there."

"But-Look here, Rikki-tikki-tavi, I know how you feel. I certainly don't want you to go back there-I'd take you away myself if I could. But how can you help going back? He's your daddy and you are only eleven."

"I don't have to go back. He's not my real daddy. My grandmother is coming to get me."

"What? When's she coming?"

"Tomorrow. She has to drive up from Brawley. I wrote her about it and asked her if I could come live with her because I wouldn't live with Daddy any more with her there." She managed to put more contempt into one pronoun than an adult could have squeezed out of profanity. "Grandma wrote back and said that I didn't have to live there if I didn't want to because he had never adopted me and she was my `guardian of record.'" She looked up anxiously. "That's right, isn't it? They can't make me?"

I felt an overpowering flood of relief. The one thing I had not been able to figure out, a problem that had worried me for months, was how to keep Ricky from being subjected to the poisonous influence of Belle for-well, two years; it had seemed certain that it would be about two years. "If he never adopted you, Ricky, I'm certain that your grandmother can make it stick if you are both firm about it." Then I frowned and chewed my lip. "But you may have some trouble tomorrow. They may object to letting you go with her."

"How can they stop me? I'll just get in the car and go."

"It's not that simple, Ricky. These people who run the camp, they have to follow rules. Your daddy-Miles, I mean-Miles turned you over to them; they won't be willing to turn you back over to anyone but him."

She stuck out her lower lip. "I won't go. I'm going with Grandma."

"Yes. But maybe I can tell you how to make it easy. If I were you, I wouldn't tell them that I'm leaving camp; I'd just tell them that your grandmother wants to take you for a ride-then don't come back."

Some of her tension relaxed. "All right."

"Uh... don't pack a bag or anything or they may guess what you're doing. Don't try to take any clothes but those you are wearing at the time. Put any money or anything you really want to save into your pockets. You don't have much here that you would really mind losing, I suppose?"

"I guess not." But she looked wistful. "rye got a brand-new swim suit."

How do you explain to a child that there are times when you just must abandon your baggage? You can't-they'll go back into a burning building to save a doll or a toy elephant. "Mmm...Ricky, have your grandmother tell them that she is taking you over to Arrowhead to have a swim with her... and that she may take you to dinner at the hotel there, but that she will have you back before taps. Then you can carry your swimming suit and a towel. But nothing else. Er, will your grandmother tell that fib for you?"

"I guess so. Yes, I'm sure she will. She says people have to tell little white fibs or else people couldn't stand each other. But she says fibs were meant to be used, not abused."

"She sounds like a sensible person. You'll do it that way?"

"I'll do it just that way, Danny."

`Good." I picked up the battered envelope. "Picky, I told you I had to go away. I have to go away for a very long time."

"How long?"

"Thirty years."

Her eyes grew wider if possible. At eleven, thirty years is not a long time; it's forever. I added, "I'm sorry, Ricky. But I have to."

"Why?"

I could not answer that one. The true answer was unbelievable and a lie would not do. "Picky, it's much too hard to explain. But I have to. I can't help it." I hesitated, then added, "I'm going to take the Long Sleep. The cold sleep-you know what I mean."

She knew. Children get used to new ideas faster than adults do; cold sleep was a favorite comic-book theme. She looked horrified and protested, "But, Danny, I'll never see you again~"

"Yes, you will. It's a long time but I'll see you again. And so will Pete. Because Pete is going with me; he's going to cold-sleep too."

She glanced at Pete and looked more woebegone than ever.

"But-Danny, why don't you and Pete just come down to Brawley and live with us? That would be ever so much better. Grandma will like Pete. She'll like you too-she says there's nothing like having a man around the house."

"Ricky... dear Ricky... I have to. Please don't tease me." I started to tear open the envelope.

She looked angry and her chin started to quiver. "I think she has something to do with this!"