'Roderick? He's upstairs in the land of recharge in bed I mean. What do you mean, assaulted?'

Dr Smith grabbed his shirt-front. 'What the fuck do you think I mean? That fucking dirty-filthy machine was out in your back yard this afternoon, playing slimy sex-games with my daughter! Bring him down here! Now! I want the sheriff to see that thing smashed into a million cock-sucking pieces!'

The sheriff separated them and forced Smith into a chair. 'Now sit there and shut up till I find out what happened.'

'I know what happened, Judy told me what hap '

'Button it, Doc.' Sheriff Benson was a gaunt, weary-looking man with rotten teeth. He sucked them to punctuate sentences.

'Well we got the report this afternoon. Miz Violetta Stubbs seen what happened from her back porch and called me. I'da been out here sooner only hey, you know they got a new game show on, Channel 58, this one gal won a Rolls-Royce you know all she had to do '

'Get to the point!' Dr Smith kneaded his fists together.

' just name six vegetables, simple, huh? Anyways like I say Miz Violetta seen your little robot and his little Judy playing it looked like doctors. Soooo ... wonder if I might have a word with the little uh, okay?'

'I'll get him,' said Ma. 'Only keep that maniac away from him.' She went to the stairs and paused. 'Or her,' she said.

Benson sucked his teeth. Just what I was thinking. You know, Doc, this case there ain't no precedent. I mean, if this robot was a live girl I know you wouldn't care two hoots, if it was a live boy I guess we could settle it without much fuss too. But this robot ain't got a sex has it?'

'Don't try to cover up for them, Benny, goddamnit I know what I know. That thing '

'Sit down, Doc. Now looky here, this thing's no bigger than a good-sized breadbox reminds me of a game show where they no, but look at him. Doc? You want me to prefer assault charges against that bitty thing?'

Ma carried him down. 'Is it morning? Is hello, Sheriff, did you bring back our toilet?'

'Set him on the table here Ma, now listen uh son, I want to ask you a coupla questions, you know what the truth is?'

'Sure like in truth tables, like if you ask me three questions I could answer them eight different wa '

'No, well more like Truth or Consequences. Listen, this afternoon, what did you and Judy Smith do out there by the back hedge?'

'Doctors.'

'You played doctors? How does it go?'

'Well you don't have pieces '

'That's a relief. Go on.'

'And you just talk mostly about how the radiologist is batty about some nurse in O.R. Two, she won't give him a second look though because she's head-over-heels in love with young Doctor Something who's been working too hard, two hours sleep in five years he can't go on like this I tell you, with you it's always give, give, let Doctor Whatsit carry some of the load sure he's old and he drinks before surgery '

'Fine, but what do you do besides talk?'

'Well nothing much. She puts it in my hands.'

'Sit down, Doc! Puts what, boy?'

'Her life. In my hands, my capable hands.'

'Think we got nothin' here, Doc, let's go.'

Dr Smith cursed and yelled incoherently for a moment, then left, carrying before him his swollen, pink, capable hands. The sheriff remained behind a moment.

'Real sorry about this, folks. Doc'll pay for the door and all but well, might be better to make sure we don't get any more false alarms, okay?'

Pa said, 'Keep him away from Judy Smith, you mean?'

'I mean, keep him chained up. Seems to me if he ain't a boy or a girl and he ain't exactly a machine, he must be a pet. You get a good strong chain tomorrow, and chain him up.'

Ma shrieked. Pa turned pinker than a dentist's hands. 'What the hell, here, Sheriff, look at all these papers we're trying to adopt him. He's our son. You can't ask us to chain up our own '

'I can and I do. You adopt him, maybe we can forget the chain. Until then that's an order of my office, chain him up or else. I catch him loose on the street, takin' him in to the pound in Belmontane. They might even destroy him.'

Pa and Ma sat up fretting most of the night, but in the morning there was nothing else to do: Pa went to Sam's Newer Hardware and bought a twenty-foot chain and a padlock. Ma sat weeping by her African violets. 'Fetters on a baby!' she said. 'Paul, how can we do this to him?'

'At least he'll be where we can keep an eye on him. He'll be safe.'

'Or she will,' said Ma, blowing her nose. 'Couldn't we just let him or her have one last taste of freedom in the front yard? A minute? Half a minute?'

'Okay, Mary.' They let him out, watched him gambol (more or less) and then went to fetch the chain. They returned to see a tattooed arm drag him into a car, which slammed its door and screeched its tyres and shot out of sight.

'Nobody in town's got a car like that, all colourless,' said Pa, when he could get his breath. 'And the licence plate all dusty.'

'I was afraid of this,' Ma said. 'The gipsies have got him.'

V.

The big woman with the wrinkled face kept saying, 'Jeep, you ain't got the sense of a dehorn, takin' some kid's toy like this.'

Roderick was wedged in the back seat between her and Jeep, the man with pictures all over his arms. There were other people wedged in around them. He could see half an ear wearing an earring, a hand holding a guitar, the bald spot of someone who was snoring, a baby's foot.

'Jeep, you ain't got '

'Come on, Zip, how'd I know? It looked like a lawn-mower to me.'

Roderick said, 'I'm not a lawn-mower, I'm a robot. My name is Roderick Wood '

'Told you: a toy. A damned toy.'

' and I live at 614 Sycamore Aven '

'Osiris!' someone shouted. 'This thing's security-wired! We better stop and dump '

'Stop nothing.' Zip composed her wrinkles. 'You know the rule: when in doubt, keep going.'

The bald spot turned away and a watery eye took its place. 'Oh fine. You know how these rubes are about toys. They get ten times as excited over some fool toy ripoff as they do over a car. And if we get pinched well, there goes my nomination for Gipsy Good Neighbour of the Year.'

Jeep held up a screwdriver. 'Okay okay I'll strip this thing down now and we can sell the parts in Gallonville. Any objections?'

Roderick said, 'Well I '

'Mommy, mommy,' said a voice from the front.

The earring moved. 'Not now, Chepette.'

'Strip and sell, that's the rule,' said the old woman. 'Only maybe this little gizmo's worth more on the hoof, eh? Lemme think a minute.'

'Mommy, can me and Jepper have a toy?'

'You go and play with that pop-bottle, it's down there somewhere ...'

'But Jepper's peeing in it. Mommy couldn't we have a real toy like on Roderick watched the screwdriver. 'Hey can I say something?'

'See what I mean, Jeep, a talk-back toy. Must be worth a buck or two ...'

The conversation went on without him, stopping only now and then when the baby's pink foot became entangled in the hoop of the earring, when the guitar got into the watery eye, or when a tiny voice announced that Jepper was drinking from the pop-bottle. Roderick waited, studying the skin-pictures on the arm next to him.

A snake crawling out of the armpit is marked DON'T READ ON ME. It devours or disgorges an eagle holding a cane in one claw, a string of wienies in the other, and in its beak the Ace of Spades inscribed THEM. The wienies coiled around a heart, pierced by a two-ended sword. The man wielding it has one eye and wears a snail-shell on his head. At his feet is a broken anchor. He stands beneath a tree on which small skulls hang like fruit. The tree is on fire; out of the flames rises a mallard holding one end of a long scroll on whose folds are these letters: t s eliot lived on top a sleek bard The opposite end thickens into a giant hand grasping a dolphin which waves a Confederate flag; one of its stars has shot into the sky to threaten a kite. The kite string is held by a naked woman who crushes a scorpion underfoot. The scorpion grips a key, while the full moon above features a keyhole. From it an eye observes a mer-cupid armed with an oilcan, sprinkling oil upon a crowd of 13 crowned men. Though blindfolded they follow a tank along the road to a distant tower. The tank insignia is a rose inscribed FAI HOP CHAR. Its gun turret fires dice down the wrist, past a parachute ...

Jeep reached up to pick his teeth and the picture changed: Now a snake from a distant tower disgorges dice. An Ace of Spades is the insignia of a tank (FAITH HOPE CHARM) extending its chain of wienies to capture 13 blind kings. The fishtailed kite oils a flaming tree beneath which the one-eyed man embraces nakedness while the scorpion attacks a broken anchor. One sword-blade stabs the moon while along it charges a snail waving a flag, towards the point where the two ends of the scroll meet (beneath a winged umbrella) held by a single penguin.

Roderick tried reading the scroll forwards and backwards. It made no more sense than anything else about this mad, bad family. What was a drab, anyway? What was keeling a pot? Why did they want to destroy him before he could even find out stuff like that?

As he climbed up to the back window for a last look at the world, the invisible child started up again: 'Mommy Jepper says he wants to have toys and live in a house with lots and lots of toys where you don't have to pee in a pop-bottle and you get TV and real strong aluminium foil and pizza-burger mix and doesn't just hide odours, can we huh?'

'Be still now '

'And TV and microsnax and Uncle Whiskers Oldie Tymie Owl It wasn't me Mommy it was Jepper he Ow!'

It seemed a good opening. 'This,' said Roderick clearly, 'is lots better than a house. I like living here.'

None of the adults spoke. Then, 'Yeah but they got TV and '

'Listen, TV ain't much. All they got on TV is stories about people driving around in cars. Sometimes not even people, just the cars, this car drives down a street and then on a freeway and then on a bridge, then this other car sees it and starts chasing it, they both have to jump over a lot of bumps and then one of 'em smashes up, The End. Heck, what do you want that stuff for, here you got a real car. You even got another real car chasing you, look there.'

Jeep looked back. 'Isis wept, wouldn't you know it? Forget about 'em for one minute and the gashers is all over you. Chet, make tracks, boy!'

'Hang on,' said the driver. 'I'm gonna try something.'

Roderick bounced up and down. 'That's just what they say on TV! And then everybody says Yahoo and Watch my dust and Wheels, do your stuff, and there's a lot of banjo music and '

'Hush!' Wrinkles frowned down at him.

'But hey what's Chet gonna try? Is he gonna race across the tracks right in front of this train? Or on this bridge that's going up and he just makes it jumping the gap? Or, or maybe he just pulls off the road and hides in bushes and the cop car is so dumb it goes right on by, is that what he's gonna '

Old Zip clamped her hand firmly over his speaker and kept it there. What Chet tried was pulling over and stopping, getting out to talk to the patrolman for a few minutes, and finally handing over some money.

'Thanks,' said the officer. 'Don't see much real money these days, not out here. Everybody's so scared of hijackers they only carry cards, hell, all they can offer me is a free motel room or maybe a free meal in some Interstate joint, BLT and a malt, you call that a decent bribe? I mean the food's all plastic and full of preservatives and chemicals you get a bad stomach just looking at '

Chet showed some gold teeth. 'Yep, well, we gotta get moving.'

'Oh sure, have a nice day and oh yeah, and don't let me catch you pitching pop-bottles out of the car again, okay?'

In Gallonville the family went to work. First they parked the car next to a little patch of grass, then Old Jeb put three playing-cards in his shirt pocket and strolled away. Then the two young men left, jingling big bunches of car keys and talking about 'recycling us some metal'. Finally Zeb, the young woman with earrings, took the children off to the bus station for 'some street theatre'.

'Street theatre,' old Zip repeated, when only she and Roderick were left. That means they all gonna cry their eyes out until somebody gives them the money for a ticket to Omaha.'

'Why are they going to Omaha?'

'You don't understand anything, do you?' Zip set up a card table and two chairs, and stuck a sign to the side of the car: GIPSY ZEE.

Knows the Past Tells the Future NO CREDIT CARDS.

'Yeah, well if you let Jeep take and recycle me I never will understand anything.'

'True. But so what?' She tied a yellow-and-orange scarf over her head and sat down at the table. 'Okay little puppet, I'll make a deal with you. You keep your mouth shut and help us a little, and we won't junk you.'

They shook on it. Zip kept hold of his mechanical claw for a few seconds, peering at it.

'Interesting hand you got there, you know? I see you've had a real hard life so far.'

Roderick looked too. 'You can see that?'

'Sure. A real hard life, but it's gonna get better soon. You're gonna have lots of money more than you ever dreamed of. You'll get married, too, and have, let's see, three children. First a boy, then two girls.'

'Gosh, it just looks like a claw to me.' He waggled the fingers. 'Where do you see all this?'

'And I see you have headaches some head trouble, right?'

'Yeah, right. Gosh!'

'Now cross my palm with silver.'

'I don't have any silver, Zip.'

She sighed. 'Then skedaddle. Make way for a real customer.'

He left. The first customer was a little deaf, and Roderick could hear Zip shouting: '... than you ever dreamed of. You'll get married soon, and have three kids, first a girl then two boys ... some trouble with your feet, right?'

'Teeth? Say that's dead right!'