Prizes Read Free

do you expect him to be doing—nuclear physics?”
    The severity of his reply disconcerted her. “No—but it wouldn’t be unprecedented if he could do simple arithmetic with these colored blocks. Frankly, Muriel, I’m afraid Peter’s no genius.”
    “So what? He’s still a sweet, adorable child. Do you think I would love you more if you were professor of Physics at Princeton?”
    He looked her straight in the eye and answered, “Yes.”
    Muriel felt Raymond would be less preoccupied with little Peter’s mind if they had another child.
    When she mentioned it, Ray was so enthusiastic that the next day he came home from the lab with a gift-wrapped present—an ovulation thermometer. And his lovemaking seemed to have regained its initial ardor as his enthusiasm grew for their new experiment.
    She announced her pregnancy almost immediately.
    During the months that followed, Ray was warm and caring. No effort was too great. He scoured the health food shops for vitamins, went with her to every doctor’s appointment, helped her practice her Lamaze exercises, and soothed her when she was anxious.
    On the Ides of March, 1972, she went into labor and shortly afterward brought forth a bouncing baby girl.
    A
girl.
    Raymond had been unprepared for this possibility. His own idiosyncratic, unscientific expectation was that he would have only sons.
    Muriel, on the other hand, was overjoyed. She was sure that Ray would quickly be captivated by their new baby’s charm, as well as her long dark curls, and not cherish any absurd fantasies of sending her to Yale while she was still in Pampers.
    At first her instinct seemed correct. Raymond was attentive and affectionate to his bright-eyed little girl, whom they named Isabel after his mother. Muriel spent many happy hours reading to her lovely, lively daughter, who seemed fascinated by words and rather adept with them.
    At first Raymond did not seem aware that, even as she played in the garden with other toddlers whose vocabulary was limited to monosyllables, Isabel was speaking complete sentences.
    But the most astounding discovery was yet to come.
    As Muriel was cleaning up the multicolored remnants after Isabel’s third birthday, scraping ice cream off the rug and scrubbing jellied fingerprints from the wall, she overheard a tiny bell-like voice.
    “ ‘Babar is trying to read, but finds it difficult to concentrate; his thoughts are elsewhere. He tries to write, but again his thoughts wander. He is thinking of his wife and the little baby soon to be born. Will it be handsome and strong? Oh, how hard it is to wait for one’s heart’s desire!’ ”
    She had never read this story to Isabel. Clearly her daughter had simply unwrapped a gift and decided to peruse it herself.
    At first she was stunned, unsure of what to do. And though reluctant to call this amazing event to her husband’s attention, she wanted corroboration that it was not her imagination.
    She quietly slipped from the room and summoned Raymond from his study. Now both parents stood in the doorway dumbstruck, watching their pretty little girl—whose previous exposure to the alphabet had been merely watching “Sesame Street”—recite flawlesslyfrom a book intended for adults to entertain their children.
    “How could she learn all this without us noticing?” Muriel asked, this time sharing her husband’s elation.
    Raymond did not answer. He did not know how bright his daughter was.
    But he was resolved to spare no effort to find out.

3
 
SANDY
    TIME
    SCIENCE
    COVER STORY
    The Man Who Discovered Immortality
    “The most important breakthrough of the decade in the battle against cancer”
    “When I was a kid in the Bronx, I was a classic example of the guy who got sand kicked in his face.”
    Nobody kicks sand in this man’s face anymore.
    The acknowledged leader in the brave new science of genetic engineering, Professor Sandy Raven has already made history by receiving the first federal approval for clinical