The Happy Clown

								

how to be alike, and understand, and know, so that they would be able
to live together. They learned in many ways, Stevie. One way was by
visiting each other--you've heard about the visitors who come from--"
Steven said, "You mean the Happy Tours."
"Yes. When you're twelve years old you can go on a Happy Tour. Won't
that be fun?"
Steven said, "If I could go alone."
The doctor looked at him sharply. "But you can't. Try to understand,
Stevie, you can't. Now tell me--why don't you like to be with other
people?"
Steven said, "All the time--not all the time."
The doctor repeated patiently, "Why?"
Steven looked at the doctor and said a very strange thing. "They touch
me." He seemed to shrink into himself. "Not just with their hands."
The doctor shook his head sadly. "Of course they do, that's just--well,
maybe you're too young to understand."
The interview went on for quite a while, and at the end of it Steven
was given a series of tests which took a week. The psychiatrist had
not told the truth; what the boy said, during the first interview and
all the tests, was fully recorded on concealed machines. The complete
transcript made a fat dossier in the office of the Clinic Director.
At the end of the tests the Director said seriously to Steven's
parents, "I'll be frank with you. You have a brilliant kiddie
here--right now he has the intelligence of a twelve-year-old--but
brilliance has to be channeled in the right direction. Just now--well,
frankly, it's channeled in the wrong direction. We'll give it a year or
so, and then if things don't clear up I'm afraid we'll have to correct
him."
Richard said through dry lips, "You mean a Steyner?"
The Director nodded. "The only thing."
Harriet shuddered and began to cry. "But there's never been anything
like that in our family! The disgrace--oh, Dickie, it would kill me!"
The Director said kindly, "There's no disgrace, Mrs. Russell.
That's a mistaken idea many people have. These things happen
occasionally--nobody knows why--and there's absolutely no disgrace in a
Steyner. Nothing is altered but the personality, and afterward you have
a happy normal kiddie who hardly remembers that anything was ever wrong
with him. Naturally nobody ever mentions it.... But there's no hurry;
in the case of a kiddie we can wait a while. Bring Stevie in once a
week; we'll try therapy first."
Being, as the Director had said, a brilliant kiddie, Steven soon
understood much of what was kept from him. It did not take him long
to learn what was making his Dadsie look stern and white and what was
making his Mumsie cry. He loved his parents and did not want them to be
unhappy, and he certainly did not want to have his head cut open, and
so he began to act. Even at five, Steven discovered in himself a fine
talent for acting. He began to conform, to adjust, to merge. He became
social and cooperative and acquired the proper attitudes for successful
community living. He gave up the old silver voluntarily, he accepted