Invasion of the Body Snatchers Read Free

answer for a moment. Staring down at the tip of my shoe, I didn't dare glance at Becky, and for a moment I couldn't look at poor Wilma. Then I raised my head, looking her squarely in the eyes, and said it: "Then look, Wilma, he is Uncle Ira. Can't you see that? No matter how you feel, he is -"
    She just shook her head and sat back on the swing. "He's not."
    For a moment I was stuck, rattled; I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Where's your Aunt Aleda?"
    "It's all right; she's upstairs. Just be sure he doesn't hear."
    I sat chewing my lip, trying to think. "What about his habits, Wilma?" I said then. "Little mannerisms?"
    "All the same as Uncle Ira's. Exactly."
    Of course I shouldn't have, but for an instant I lost my patience. "Well, what is the difference, then? If there isn't any, how can you tell-" I quieted right down, and tried to be constructive. "Wilma, what about memories? There must be little things only you and Uncle Ira would know."
    Pushing her feet against the floor, she began gently rocking the swing, gazing out at Uncle Ira, who was staring up at a tree now, as though wondering if it didn't need pruning. "I've tested that, too," she said quietly. "Talked to him about when I was a child." She sighed, trying uselessly, and knowing it was useless, to make me understand.
    "Once, years ago, he took me with him into a hardware store. There was a miniature door, set in a little frame, standing on the counter, an advertisement for some kind of lock, I think. It had little hinges, a little doorknob, even a tiny brass knocker. Well, I wanted it, of course, and raised a fuss when I couldn't have it. He remembers that. All about it. What I said, what the clerk said, what he said. Even the name of the store, and it's been gone for years. He even remembers things I'd forgotten completely - a cloud we saw late one Saturday afternoon, when he called for me at the movie after the matinee. It was shaped like a rabbit. Oh, he remembers, all right - everything. Just as Uncle Ira would have."
    I'm a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist, and I was out of my depth and knew it. For a few moments I just sat staring down at the interlaced fingers and the backs of my hands, listening to the chains of the swing creaking gently overhead.
    Then I made one more try, talking quietly, and as persuasively as I could, remembering not to talk down to Wilma and that whatever might have happened to it, her brain was a good one. "Look, Wilma, I'm on your side; my business is people in trouble. This is trouble and needs fixing, and you know that as well as I do, and I'm going to find a way to help you. Now, listen to me. I don't expect you, or ask you, to suddenly agree that this has all been a mistake, that it's really Uncle Ira after all, and you don't know what could have happened to you. I mean I don't expect you to stop feeling emotionally that this isn't your uncle. But I do want you to realize he's your uncle, no matter what you feel, and that the trouble is inside you . It's absolutely impossible for two people to look exactly alike, no matter what you've read in stories or seen in the movies. Even identical twins can always be told apart - always - by their intimates. No one could possibly impersonate your Uncle Ira for more than a moment, without you, Becky, or even me, seeing a million little differences. Realize that, Wilma, think about it and get it into your head, and you'll know the trouble is inside you. And then we'll be able to do something about it."
    I sat back against the porch column - I'd shot my wad - and waited for an answer.
    Still swinging gently, her foot pushing rhythmically against the floor, Wilma sat thinking about what I'd just said. Then - eyes staring absently off across the porch - she pursed her lips, and slowly shook her head no.
    " Listen, Wilma." I spat the words out, leaning far forward, holding her eyes. "Your Aunt Aleda would know! Can't you see that? She couldn't be fooled, of all people! What