Free Rich and Famous by James Lincoln Collier Page A

my Heinlein book and had nothing to do but stare out the window at a lot of wet trees.
    Of course every time I got back to Sinclair’s I was faced with a new worry—had Uncle Ned caught onto something? He didn’t say anything when I came in, except his usual “I guess it’s time to wash up for dinner,” and he didn’t say anything about it at dinner—we just carried on a conversation about Isaac Newton’s theory and how it was different from Einstein’s theory of relativity. Uncle Ned didn’t believe in wasting the dinner time with a few jokes or some interesting story about what happened that day, the way Pop and I did, which I guess is one reason why Pop never spent much time up there. Uncle Ned’s idea was that you were committing a sin unless you launched right into some lively topic like Isaac Newton or air pollution. I wasn’t in favor of air pollution, mind you, but I didn’t see why we had to have it along with our pot roast every night. But to be honest, so long as he didn’t bring up anything about my summer school I wasn’t going to be too upset, even if the conversation wasn’t much more fun than looking at wet leaves for an hour.
    But as it turned out, he was only playing it cool. After dinner, when I was sitting out on the porch reading, so as to escape from being beaten at chess by Sinclair, which I would have to have done if I’d hung around his room, he came up and sat down next to me. “Well, tell me, George,” he said. “How’s your school going?”
    â€œPretty good,” I said. “I mean it’s just at the beginning, it’s sort of confusing.”
    â€œI suppose so. What exactly are you taking?”
    He was trying to trap me, that was clear. “French and math. They didn’t have enough for American history or I would have taken that, too.”
    â€œThat sounds like enough,” he said. “It isn’t sensible to try to do too much at once. I suppose they’ve really loaded you down with homework.”
    â€œI guess they will,” I said. “Only we haven’t got our books yet.”
    â€œThat seems like bad management. Perhaps if you told me the name of the books I could get them for you.”
    I was beginning to sweat around my eyebrows. “Well, they said they’d have them next time.”
    â€œI see. You mean Wednesday—day after tomorrow.”
    â€œThat’s what they said—but maybe something will go wrong.”
    He stood up. “Let’s hope not, George.” Then he went into the house.

Chapter

    Riding down to New York on the train I thought about it. Why was everybody so against me being rich and famous? It just didn’t seem fair. Especially when it probably wasn’t going to work out anyway. I mean, what difference did it make to Pop if I went down to New York and fooled around Camelot Records, instead of sitting up in Uncle Ned’s barn watching Sinclair solder wires onto his computer? Or why should it matter to Uncle Ned what I did? He wasn’t my father, and besides he had a perfect son. He should have been satisfied with that instead of meddling around with me. There wasn’t any way he could make me perfect, no matter what he did. It wasn’t any use for him to try.
    But there wasn’t much point in trying to figure out why he was against me being rich and famous; because I knew perfectly well that as soon as he found out what was going on. he’d capture me away from Camelot Records and keep me locked up in Sinclair State Pen until Pop got home. And that wouldn’t be any help, either, because as soon as Pop found out that I’d been sneaking off to New York to be rich and famous he’d hit the ceiling, ground me for four or five years, and cut off my allowance for the rest of my life, too. I didn’t know how long it would take for Uncle Ned to get the idea. I was positive he’d