"You saw it! Gawdd.a.m.n it, you did it! All of a sudden, a hunk of sh.e.l.l is there. It didn't grow or fall from any place or, it was just there!"

"How did you feel?"

"Terrible!"

"I mean, what did you feel?"

"Whattaya mean, sugar, what did I feel? I'm just looking where you say and then, " She stopped and peered at him and looked angry. "I get it now, you spooky ba.s.sar! You're hypnotizing me! You're not supposed to be able to do it to anybody doesn't want it done. And I don't like it. So cut it out, hear?"

"I'm not hypnotizing you, and stop getting sore. Now I want to try something else. If it works, it might frighten you at first, but, "

"No more, Kirby!"

"Didn't you say you wanted to help me?"

"Sure, but, "

"And you love me?"

"I guess so, but, "

"Then let me try this, and I swear it won't hurt you in any way, and I'll explain it to you if it does work."

She looked at him sullenly, dubiously, and then gave a nod of agreement. He moved over close to her and put his arm around her. He held the watch in both hands in front of her. "Put your hands over mine."

She did so and said, "What has that old gold turnip watch g, "

The world was red and she was frozen, unyielding. Maybe you couldn't take another person into the red world, take someone out of "real" time. He snapped the silver hand back.

", ot to do with it?" she said.

"Try touching the watch this time."

"Make up your mind," she said. Again she was a statue in the redness.

He came back to reality. "This time, get your fingers like this, your thumb right against the stem, and now as I press down, you press down too and give a little turn and, "

He was alone on the bench, his arms holding a girl no longer there. The watch was gone also.

He had the immediate memory of closeness, of the lithe warmth of her. She had winked away into nothingness, and in its own special way, it was a nastier, more gut-wrenching shock than his initial foray into the red and silent world.

No, two could not go.

Kirby sat stunned with the realization of what he had done to her. She had neither the maturity nor the background to cope with the silent horror of that other world. He stared into distance and did not see her. Her primitive mind, shrewd though it was, would shatter under such an impact. He had a horrible thought. Perhaps, believing the watch to blame, she would hurl it into the sea. It would stop, and leave her forever trapped in that red time, where no one could see her or hear her, where all the rest of her life might pa.s.s within, perhaps, a half-hour of real time.

He sat dazed by guilt, by the enormity of what he had inadvertently, stupidly done to Bonny Lee Beaumont.

Chapter Nine.

Not until Kirby stood up did he see, beyond the end of the concrete bench, a little pile of clothing, a pair of lime slacks, white sandals, a white blouse with a yellow figure, a yellow jacket, a white purse. He picked them up and put them on the bench. The items missing were the blue-green nylon bra, the matching panties.

Her voice came from ten feet behind him. "Hey! Hey, sugar, this is more d.a.m.n fun!"

He spun and saw her there in the sunlight, brown and beautiful, winded, glowing with excitement. The sun glinted on the gold watch in her hand. She put her fingers on the stem of the watch. "Give it to me!" he yelled, but she was gone before he could say the last word.

He heard thin cries, almost but not quite like the yelping of the gulls. He looked far down the beach to the north where the crowd was the thickest and it seemed to him that all the people down here had gone mad simultaneously.

He squinted against the glare and thought he saw Bonny Lee appear and disappear again in the middle distance, but he could not be certain.

He began to realize that he had made a poor estimate of her response to the red world. Bonny Lee had a totally pragmatic mind. She would not give a d.a.m.n for theory. All that would concern her was that it worked, and he had given her the clue as to how to make it work. Though, from the viewpoint of his limited experience, she had given him ample, skillful and luxurious proof that she was a woman grown, and even though she had devised a philosophy of existence which seemed to suit her and seemed to work for her, he remembered that she was but "twenny, practically," that there was a child inside the woman, and the child had never had much chance for the games of childhood, and that she was a hoyden, reckless, irreverent, comical and inventive. He remembered, too, that she was in bursting health, firm, fleet and tireless.

He squinted at the people running to and fro in the distance, yelping, and he wondered if he had not inadvertently loosed upon them on this pleasant Tuesday morning something just as fearful as a playful tiger. He remembered the mischief and the satisfaction of tucking the gull under the fat boy's shirt. He had astonished himself with that act. Surely Bonny Lee would go a good deal further than that before astonishing herself.

He wondered if he should walk down the beach and see what was happening. But Bonny Lee would expect to find him at the bench.

He saw two figures coming up the beach at a dead run. They seemed more energetic than fleet. He stared at them as they went by. First one would hold the lead and then the other would overtake her and pa.s.s her. They seemed to be heading for the parking lot. They were a pair of young women of rather generous construction, naked as a pair of eggs.

An elderly tourist who had been walking by came to a dead stop near the bench and stared at the running women. He wore a Truman shirt, Bahama hat, Bermuda shorts, blue sneakers. He watched them make the sweeping curve toward the parking lot and disappear. He turned and stared questioningly at Kirby.

" 'Til this very minute, son, I prided myself on twenty-twenty vision." "Sir?"

"Mind telling me what just run by?" "Uh, two young women."

The man moved closer. "Son, what would you say they were wearing?"

"They didn't seem to be wearing anything."

The old man peered at him. "If I was your age, son, I'd be right with 'em, running like a deer. You don't seem even interested. You sick?"

"I, was thinking of something else."

"I got down here from Michigan day before yesterday. Maybe I got the wrong idea. Maybe that ain't so unusual a , sight around here."

"Well, I wouldn't, "

"Good day in the morning, here comes another one!" She was a small sunburned redhead, with a transistor radio in one hand and a thermos bottle in the other. She was near the end of her endurance, wobbling from side to side as she cantered along.

After she, too, was out of sight, the old man sighed heavily. "One thing I give you, son. You picked the right place to set. Is it a new fad, you think?" "I don't know."

"I hope it catches on." He shaded his eyes and peered up the beach.

Suddenly Bonny Lee was close enough to touch and there was a pile of paper money on Kirby's lap. It spilled onto the bench and onto the sand. She laughed once and was gone.

The old man whirled around. "Son, you got a high laugh on, ain't you spilling something?" "Oh, this?" "Money, ain't it?"

"Yes," Kirby said heartily. "It certainly is." He grabbed at the bills that started to blow away.