“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the
different sounds,” said Hazel a little envious. “All
the things they think up.”
“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know
what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a
matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance
to the Handicapper General, a woman
named Diana Moon Glampers.
“If I was Diana Moon Glampers,”
said Hazel, “I’d have chimes
on Sunday-just chimes. Kind
of in honor of religion.”
“I could think, if it
was just chimes,”
said George.
“Well-maybe make
‘em real
loud,”
“You been so tired lately-kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If
there was just some way we could make a little hole in the
bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls.
Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for
every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that
a bargain.”
“If you could just take a few out when you came
home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean-you don’t
compete with anybody around here. You just
sit around.”
“If I tried to get away with it,” said
George, “then other people’d get away
with it-and pretty soon we’d be
right back to the dark ages again,
with everybody competing against
everybody else. You wouldn’t
like that, would you?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.
“There you Are,” said George. The minute people
start cheating on laws, what do you think happens
to society?”
If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer
to this question, George couldn’t have supplied
one. A siren was going off in his head.
“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.
“Who knows better than I
do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,”said George. He began to think
glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was
now in jail, about Harrison, but a twentyone-gun salute in his head stopped that.
“What would?” said George blankly.
“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that
what you just said?
“Who knows?” said George.