COME INTO MY CELLAR
RAY BRADBURY
Hugh Fortnum woke to Saturday’s commotions, and lay eyes shut, savoring each in its turn.
Below, bacon in a skillet; Cynthia waking him with fine cooking instead of cries.
Across the hall, Tom actually taking a shower.
Far off in the bumble-bee dragon-fly light, whose voice was already damning the weather, the time, and the tides? Mrs. Goodbody? Yes. That Christian giantess, six-feet-tall with her shoes off, the gardener extraordinary, the octogenarian-dietitian and town philosopher.
He rose, unhooked the screen and leaned out to hear her cry:
“There! Take that! This’ll fix you! Hah!”
“Happy Saturday, Mrs. Goodbody!”
The old woman froze in clouds of bug-spray pumped from an immense gun.
“Nonsense!” she shouted. “With these fiends and pests to watch for?”
“What kind this time?” called Fortnum.
“I don’t want to shout it to the jaybirds, but—” she glanced suspiciously around—“what would you say if I told you I was the first line of defense concerning Flying Saucers?”
“Fine,” replied Fortnum. “There’ll be rockets between the worlds any year now.”
“There already are!” She pumped, aiming the spray under the hedge. “There! Take that!”
. . .