Dr. Louise, fortunately, was highly amused. Snakes were misunderstood creatures, she told the twins, and she was honored to have such a handsome one named after her. And snakes, she added, were on the caduceus, which is the emblem for doctors, so it was all most appropriate.
Louise the Larger had grown considerably since her baptism, and Meg, though not actively afraid of her, was always careful to look for Louise before she sat. Louise, at this moment, was nowhere to be seen, so Meg relaxed and turned her thoughts again to Charles Wallace. “You’re a lot brighter than the twins, but the twins are far from dumb. How do they manage?”
Charles Wallace said, “I wish they’d tell me.”
“They don’t talk at school the way they do at home, for one thing.”
“I thought if I was interested in mitochondria and farandolae, other people would be, too.”
“You were wrong.”
“I really am interested in them. Why is that so peculiar?”
“I don’t suppose it is so peculiar for the son of a physicist and a biologist.”
“Most people aren’t. Interested, I mean.”
“They aren’t children of two scientists, either. Our parents provide us with all kinds of disadvantages. I’ll never be as beautiful as Mother.”
Charles Wallace was tired of reassuring Meg. “And the incredible thing about farandolae is their size.”
Meg was thinking about her hair, the ordinary straight brown of a field mouse, as against her mother’s auburn waves. “What about it?”
“They’re so small that all anyone can do is postulate them; even the most powerful micro-electron microscope can’t show them. But they’re important to us—we’d die if we didn’t have farandolae. But nobody at school is remotely interested. Our teacher has the mind of a grasshopper. As you were saying, it’s not an advantage having famous parents.”
“If they weren’t famous—you bet everybody knows when L.A. calls, or Father makes a trip to the White House— they’d be in for it too7 We’re all different, our family. Except the twins. They do all right. Maybe because they’re normal. Or know how to act it. But then I wonder what normal is, anyhow, or isn’t? Why are you so interested in farandolae?”
“Mother’s working on them.”
“She’s worked on lots of things and you haven’t been this interested.”
“If she really proves their existence, she’ll probably get the Nobel Prize.”
“So? That’s not what’s bugging you about them.” x
“Meg, if something happens to our farandolae—well, it would be disastrous.”
“Why?” Meg shivered, suddenly cold, and buttoned her cardigan. Clouds were scudding across the sky, and with them a rising wind.
“I mentioned mitochondria, didn’t I?”
“You did. What about them?”
“Mitochondria are tiny little organisms living in our cells. That gives you an idea of how tiny they are, doesn’t it?”
“Enough.”
“A human being is a whole world to a mitochondrion, just the way our planet is to us. But we’re much more dependent on our mitochondria than the earth is on us. The earth could get along perfectly well without people, but if anything happened to our mitochondria, we’d die.”
“Why should anything happen to them?”
Charles Wallace gave a small shrug. In the darkening light he looked very pale. “Accidents happen to people. Or diseases. Things can happen to anything. But what I’ve sort of picked up from Mother is that quite a lot of mitochondria are in some kind of trouble because of their farandolae.”
“Has Mother actually told you all this?”
“Some of it. The rest I’ve just—gathered.”
Charles Wallace did gather things out of his mother’s mind, out of Meg’s mind, as another child might gather daisies in a field. “What are farandolae, then?” She shifted position on the hard rocks of the wall.
“Farandolae live in a mitochondrion sort of the same way a mitochondrion lives in a human cell. They’re genetically independent of their mitochondria, just as mitochondria are of us. And if anything happens to the farandolae in a mitochondrion, the mitochondrion gets—gets sick. And probably dies.”
A dry leaf separated from its stem and drifted past Meg’s cheek. “Why should anything happen to them?” she repeated.
Charles Wallace repeated, too, “Accidents happen to people, don’t they? And disease. And people killing each other in wars.”
“Yes, but that’s people. Why are you going on so about mitochondria and farandolae?”
“Meg, Mother’s been working in her lab, night and day, almost literally, for several weeks now. You’ve noticed that.”
“She often does when she’s on to something.”
“She’s on to farandolae. She thinks she’s proved their existence by studying some mitochondria, mitochondria which are dying.”
“You’re not talking about all this stuff at school, are you?”
“I do learn some things, Meg. You aren’t really listening to me.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Then listen. The reason Mother’s been in her lab so much trying to find the effect of farandolae on mitochondria is that she thinks there’s something wrong with my mitochondria.”
“What?” Meg jumped down from the stone wall and swung around to face her brother.
He spoke very quietly, so that she had to bend down to hear. “If my mitochondria get sick, then so do I.”
All the fear which Meg had been trying to hold back threatened to break loose. “How serious is it? Can Mother give you something for it?”
“I don’t know. She won’t talk to me. I’m only guessing. She’s trying to shut me out till she knows more, and I can only get in through the chinks. Maybe it’s not really serious. Maybe it’s all just school; I really do get punched or knocked down almost every day. It’s enough to make me feel— Hey—look at Louise!”
Meg turned, following his gaze. Louise the Larger was slithering along the stones of the wall towards them, moving rapidly, sinuously, her black curves shimmering purple and silver in the autumn light. Meg cried, “Charles! Quick!”
He did not move. “She won’t hurt us.”
“Charles, run! She’s going to attack!”
But Louise stopped her advance, just a few feet from Charles Wallace, and raised herself up, uncoiling until she stood, barely on the last few inches of her length, rearing up and looking around expectantly.
Charles Wallace said, “There’s someone near. Someone Louise knows.”
“The—the dragons?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see anything. Hush, let me feel.” He closed his eyes, not to shut out Louise, not to shut out Meg, but in order1 to see with his inner eye. “The dragons —I think—and a man, but more than a man—very tall and—“ He opened his eyes, and pointed into the shadows where the trees crowded thickly together. “Look!”
Meg thought she saw a dim giant shape moving towards them, but before she could be sure, Fortinbras came galloping across the orchard, barking wildly. It was not his angry bark, but the loud announcing bark with which he greeted either of the Murry parents when they had been away. Then, with his heavy black tail lifted straight out behind him, his nose pointing and quivering, he stalked the length of the orchard, jumped the wall to the north pasture, and ran, still sniffing, to one of the big glacial rocks.
Charles Wallace, panting with effort, followed him.
ties going to where my dragons were! Come on, Meg, maybe he’s found fewmets!”
She hurried after boy and dog. “How would you know a dragon dropping? Fewmets probably look like bigger and better cow pies.”
Charles Wallace was down on his hands and knees. “Look.”
On the moss around the rock was a small drift of feathers. They did not look like bird feathers. They were extraordinarily soft and sparkling at the same time; and between the feathers were bits of glinting silver-gold, leaf-shaped scales which, Meg thought, might well belong to dragons.
“You see, Meg! They were here! My dragons were here!”
2 A Rip in the Galaxy.
When Meg and Charles Wallace returned to the house, silently, each holding strange and new thoughts, evening was moving in with the wind. The twins were waiting for them, and wanted Charles Wallace to go out in the last of the light to play catch.
“It’s too dark already,” Charles Wallace said.
“We’ve got a few minutes. Come on, Charles. You may be bright, but you’re slow at playing ball. I could pitch when I was six, and you can’t even catch without fumbling.”
Dennys patted Charles, a pat more like a whack. “He’s improving. Come on, we’ve only got a few minutes.”
Charles Wallace shook his head. He did not mention that he did not feel well; he just said, firmly, “Not tonight.”
Meg left the twins still arguing with him, and went into the kitchen. Mrs. Murry was just coming in from the laboratory, and her mind was still on her work. She peered vaguely into the refrigerator.
Meg confronted her, “Mother, Charles Wallace thinks something is wrong with his mitochondria or farandolae or something.”
Mrs. Murry shut the refrigerator door. “Sometimes Charles Wallace thinks too much.”