Memory: Read as a kid and remember being disappointed at the unsatisfying conclusion.
It is morning in a sunny cul-de-sac dotted with McMansions and a poorly placed park where the kids play, but is impossible to get to without crossing a street.
Pinked-hatted ten (?) year old Mink (Katharine Isabelle (Torment, American Mary, and the almost homonymic Ginger Snaps)), is elated when she finds what the kids have been searching for.
Inside, Mink’s mother Mary Morris is having a work-at-home Saturday. She gets a call on her futuristic (in 1992) 27-inch picture-phone from her husband — a great technology allowing people on opposite sides of the earth to communicate visually in real-time. He is calling her from the kitchen, though, so not really a great use of the tech. He too has to work, and goes to his office.
The kids huddle around a spot in the park. All at once, they scatter to their homes and begin collecting a seemingly random pile of items — spoons, colanders, camera tripods, cheese graters, pliers, etc. Mink’s mom asks what kind of game these items are for and Mink says, “Invasion!” as she runs out.
The kids reassemble in the park and Mink takes the lead in putting the parts together. A couple of older boys, maybe 13, start to be dicks in the way only 13 year old boys can be. And 13 year old girls. Also older boys and girls. And most grown-ups too, for that matter. Mink tells them they are too big to understand and they should beat it.
MInk’s mother has the TV on and the big news is that no country now has possession of any nuclear weapons. They are all being held by an organization called Earth Mutual Defense. Meanwhile her daughter is outside telepathically receiving instructions, words and formulas that she doesn’t comprehend.
Mink is called in for lunch. She runs in, grabs a hexagonal cookie cutter, and runs out again. She says it is for her new friend Drill. Her mother is impressed at all the big words Drill seems to know. Mink, not exactly tight-lipped tells her mother that Drill has a plan to use kids to invade earth because adults are too busy to notice.
Mary gets another call on the picture phone, from her sister on the other coast. Her little boy is also looking for a hexagon and mentions his friend Drill. Mary hears a scream and goes outside to check on the kids. Apparently one of the girls has gotten to old for the game during lunch, and starts crying as she realizes what is happening.
Mink starts a gyroscope spinning on her hand, and in a few seconds, it just disappears. After seeing that, Mary starts to worry and runs back inside. When her husband gets home, she frantically drags him up to the attic and locks the door. He naturally thinks his wife is crazy — and not just from the insane hair-do she has had the whole episode — until he hears a lot of footsteps downstairs.
Footsteps. A little humming sound. The attic lock melted. The door opened. Mink peered inside, tall blue shadows behind her. “Peekaboo,” said Mink.
That is the end of the short story which underwhelmed me long ago.
It worked much better for me this time around as I absorbed the entire story and not just the last three words. The episode follows the short story almost exactly, a rarity with no padding and nothing significant left out. One of RBT’s best.
Post-Post:
- First published in Planet Stories, Fall 1947.
Well let’s see. Mink could have peeked in and said “Company,” as in “The Emissary.” That might have been fun. More points if she’d have brought the rotting corpse of Martin’s teacher along with Drill & Co.
Mom (Sally Kirkland) still tends to spout various hairstyles. She was nominated for an Oscar for the 1987 film “Anna,” and has the distinction of being in one of the first scenes of 1991’s “JFK” – being tossed-out of a moving car. Hope it didn’t mess her hair up too much.
Okay – on the ‘plus side’, screenwriter Bradbury remains true to his original short story. And while I’m all in for alien invasion stories, this one bothered me on multiple levels.
The story opens on the little tykes gathering items for Drill’s arrival – what, no prior exposition? Why not? Better pacing of the story arc would’ve provided palpable contrast between the seemingly idyllic suburban backdrop, and the malevolent undercurrent of the children’s activities outside.
And, as this seems to be a recurring theme in several Bradbury stories, I gotta ask: why are these kids so petulant, that they have to take it out on their parents, in homicidal ways, no less? No hints of violence, physical, sexual or emotional abuse implied, so what is the catalyst for this simmering resentment?
Both “Zero Hour” and “The Veldt” find kids with too much time on their hands to accomplish anything constructive, so they take out their apparent ‘boredom’ on their parents? In the real world, most of us as children had the occasional desire to see our parents dead – but it was always precipitated by some act of negligence, disappointment or punishment. No such qualifiers here.
Final thought: that kid Mink is nothing less than a spoiled brat – spoiled by all the conveniences she never had to work or lift a finger for. Maybe parents of the future should invest in atomic rayguns!