Gremlins by George Gipe

feeling she just wouldn’t buy it.
    Arriving home shortly after one o’clock, Lynn and Rand were both exhausted. The hall light was on but no light came from beneath Billy’s door.
    “I guess he went to bed hours ago,” Rand said, yawning.
    He brushed his teeth quickly and undressed, eager to experience their bed’s softness. Having already folded back the covers, Lynn gave him a little kiss as she went into the bathroom. Rand stretched, sat on the bed, lifted his perennially aching feet, and slipped them between the sheets.
    Suddenly they encountered something cold and hard, causing him to recoil so violently he nearly fell onto the floor.
    Billy was up early the next morning, despite sleeping only fitfully. Immediately after being locked in the transporter, the five new Mogwai had tried for nearly an hour to intimidate him with their threatening-sounding gibberish, but he had managed to outlast them. Stripe, the final holdout, had finally given up the ghost with a final snarl and all of them had fallen asleep.
    They were somewhat restless but quiet when Billy got up, dressed, and went downstairs.
    His mother was in the kitchen, having already made the coffee and set the table for breakfast. She smiled a greeting at Billy, then turned her head slightly sideways.
    “Why did you do that last night?” she asked.
    “Do what?”
    “Put the rack from the oven in our bed.”
    Billy looked blank for a moment.
    “Only you could have done it,” Lynn said. “I didn’t do it, and your father was so shocked I’m sure he didn’t do it.”
    “Oh.”
    “What’s that mean?” Lynn asked.
    “It means I have to talk with you and Dad.”
    “He’s in his workroom.”
    Rand was at the bench in the incredibly messy basement area that served as his workroom. Years ago he had staked it out and paneled the walls himself, promptly lining them with portraits of Thomas Edison, Elias Howe, Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel F. B. Morse, Guglielmo Marconi, and perhaps his greatest hero, Whitcomb L. Judson. Once, when Billy had asked who he was, Rand had waxed eloquent. “These other men made great contributions and were rewarded with fame,” he said. “And there’s no doubt the phonograph, sewing machine, telegraph, and wireless have benefited our society. But where would we be without the zipper? That’s what Judson gave us, my boy, only they were called ‘universal fasteners’ or ‘slide fasteners’ back in the 1890s when he invented them.”
    Now, bent beneath a giant blueprint of the Bathroom Buddy pinned to the wall above the desk, Rand was tinkering with the strange-looking object which could solve all one’s morning grooming problems, providing, of course, one had several engineering degrees and lots of patience.
    Billy knocked lightly and entered.
    “Just added a new feature to the Bathroom Buddy,” Rand said, not looking up from his work. Launching immediately into his sales pitch, he held up the object. “Say you’re a few minutes late before that big meeting. You reach up and touch your chin, and . . . Oh, no! You forgot to shave. Now what?”
    “Do a lot of people forget to shave before big meetings?” Billy asked ingenuously.
    “Sure,” Rand replied. “It can happen.”
    “But then you’d have to forget to shower or take a bath, too, wouldn’t you?”
    “Not necessarily. Some people shower or bathe the night before, so they’ll save time.”
    Billy nodded.
    Looking pleased with himself, as if he’d won a major point in the battle against ignorance, Rand flipped a switch. A tiny double-edged razor appeared from a slot in the side as if by magic.
    “Hey, neat.” Billy smiled.
    He reached out to take the Bathroom Buddy, holding it as if to shave. Then, noticing another button on the side near the razor, he said, “I guess this is for the foam, huh?”
    “No—I mean, don’t!”
    It was too late. Billy had already touched the button, causing a jet of white cream to head for the ceiling. Nearly