“Don’t apologize, Uncle Jake. I don’t really understand it. I’m just making guesses. Medical exam, huh? These people aren’t interested in how your heart’s doing. They want to look at your head.”

“Well, would that really be all that bad, Mandy?” said Jake a little belligerently. “What if I went ahead and took their exam? Maybe they could tell me how I make things slipt.”

“Uncle Jake, I’ve told you, people like this, if they get interested in you, they’re going to want to make use of you and your ability. For money.”

“But how can they do that?” he whispered into the darkness. “I don’t know how I do it. Besides, there are easier ways to open bottles and clean cars.”

“How do you know that’s all you can do, Uncle Jake? You’ve never tried anything else. These people are going to make you try, whether you want to or not. How do you know you can’t make something else slipt?”

“I don’t, but….”

“It’s something you should think about,” she murmured to him. He could see that she was sitting by the window again, because he could see the light on Lavaca Bay in his own thoughts. “The exam doesn’t worry me that much, Uncle Jake. What does worry me is that big corporations rarely care much for the well-being of the people they use. These people only care about your ability. They’re going to push you as far as they can in their tests, and with your heart….”

That got to him. Jake Pickett was a strong man, tall and full of compact, wiry strength, but that damn bad engine he carried around inside his chest made him vulnerable.

“I told you,” he said, “this fella Huddy seems like a nice sort.” He could hear her sigh mentally.

“Uncle Jake, in some ways you’re an awfully smart man, but you haven’t had to deal with people much. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals. There are good doctors and bad doctors. There are medical people who want to help you and those who look at you like you’re something to be cut and sliced and put under a microscope. I haven’t met this Mr. Huddy, but from what you’ve told me he sure sounds like the microscope type.”

“Well, I told him already that I’m not going with him or his people for any exam.”

“His people?”

“He brought a couple of others with him last time. I think they were his assistants. I guess they were.”

“Two of them,” Amanda muttered.

“Yeah. Come to think of it, they were pretty husky fellas. Neither of them said much.”

“That settles it, Uncle Jake,” she said decisively. “I want you to leave. You get out of that house. You get out right now.”

“But I told them I wouldn’t take the exam.”

“Oh, you’ll take it if you stay there, Uncle Jake. That ‘nice sort’ will see to that. I know it. I can feel it. You get out of there right now before they come back for you.”

“Get out? But….” This was not at all how he’d expected the conversation to go. He sat up in the bed, seeing nothing in the dark room. “Get out where? This is my home. Maybe I can talk to these people.”

“You’ve already talked to them. Uncle Jake. That’s part of the problem.”

“You really think they’d try to hurt me if I didn’t cooperate with them?”

“No. No, they won’t try to hurt you, Uncle Jake. Not that that makes much of a difference when they do. They’ll smile and apologize as they run their tests. This man Huddy won’t try to hurt you. He just won’t care if he does.”

“Then I won’t do a damn thing for him and his friends. I won’t take their tests no matter what they do to me.”

“You’ll take the tests whether you like it or not, Uncle Jake, if they get their hands on you. You can’t talk to these people. You must get away from them. Leave. Run away.”

Jake could not have said at what point he became the child listening to the adult Amanda. “But you don’t understand, Mandy. Running away’s not as easy as just saying it.”

“Uncle Jake, even I can see you doing it, and I can’t even run. We’ll figure out a way to keep these people off your back. But you have to get out of there now, before they come back for you. I need time to think about what to do. You said they gave you some time to think over the exam?”

“Two days,” he told her.

“Then you’ll have a full day’s head start. I know,” she said, delight momentarily overcoming concern, “why don’t you come to Port Lavaca? You haven’t visited us in years and years. I’ve been trying all this time to get you to come. Now you have a good excuse.”

“Mandy, if you feel that strongly about it, then I’ll do it. I’m still not convinced you’re right about Mr. Huddy or his company, but if it’s going to worry you that much….”

“It would,” she assured him.

“… Then I’ll come visit. Mighty sneaky way to talk me into coming down, though.” He tried to turn the situation into a joke. “You ought to send Mr. Huddy a thank-you note for giving you the means for talking me into this.”

“I don’t think I ever want to meet your Mr. Huddy,” she replied humorlessly. “Get yourself together fast, Uncle Jake. I know you won’t need to bring much. Once you’re here we can figure something out to discourage Huddy from bothering you. He won’t try anything around a busy household. Mom and dad will be here to help, too.”

“I’ll leave first thing in the morning,” he promised her.

“Can’t you leave right now?”

“No, I can’t.” He slipped back down under the light covers. He was tired these days, so tired. He hadn’t always tired so quickly or easily, he remembered. Getting old was no fun. He didn’t feel old. He just didn’t work as well as he used to. “Not tonight, Mandy.”

“Please, Uncle Jake? Please?”

“Give your Uncle Jake a break, Mandy.” He was already half asleep. “You’ve already talked me into coming to see you. Isn’t that enough for one evening? You know that your poor old Uncle Jake gets worn out easy. I’ll run away a lot better if I do it on a good night’s sleep. Huddy gave me two days, remember. I have plenty of time.”

“Okay,” she said worriedly, “but don’t dally around in the morning.”

“Me, a dallier?” He smiled to the empty room. “I’ll leave here first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll be up with the sun like usual and I’ll leave. But a good night’s sleep is important.”

“Alright, Uncle Jake. I can’t make you leave now. But you make sure you get away before they come back to check on you.”

“Don’t worry.” Her thoughts were already fading. “I will. I will….”

There was only a dull, empty echo of vanished consciousness in Amanda’s mind, like the wind that sweeps under the door of a tightly closed closet. She knew he was asleep.

Pushing away from the window she turned the wheelchair and rolled over to the bed. Using the armrests for support she lifted her upper body onto the mattress, then picked up her legs and pushed them under the covers. She snuggled down into the warm bed.

Worried, she was so terribly worried for him. She’d read the histories of less than ethical medical experiments. That’s surely what this man Huddy wanted to do to her beloved Uncle Jake. Experiment on him. Benignly if possible and otherwise if not. He’d want to find out how Uncle Jake made dirt and bottle caps slipt.

She’d worry all night long, until she knew he was safely out of the little house in California. In a way it might all be for the best, though she couldn’t look at it as lightly as her Uncle did. It would be so good to see him again. He was such a warm, easygoing person, a second father really. They had something in common no other two people in the world could have, something only they could share.

No, she wouldn’t stand for anybody mistreating her Uncle Jake. Everything was going to be alright, though. All he had to do was slip away without being seen. He could make this visit a long one, maybe. She knew that her mom and dad loved Uncle Jake almost as much as she did. They’d be overjoyed to have him stay. There was plenty of room in the house. She wouldn’t worry about him because he wouldn’t be living alone. It wasn’t good for him to be by himself, the Huddys of the world notwithstanding.

Maybe her mom and dad could even persuade him to stay with them permanently, here in Port Lavaca. They’d tried to do that before. Maybe now he’d listen. His heart wasn’t getting any better. Yes, everything might turn out for the good.

She turned on the pillow, smiling to herself now. She felt much better knowing that he was coming to her. As she relaxed she thought about what she hadn’t told him.

It was something she’d come to worry about as a result of all her readings and researches. She’d never managed to learn what gave Uncle Jake the ability to make things slipt or what it might mean. Of course, no one else knew about such things either.

The worry was that although he’d only made little things slipt, like bottle caps and dirt, he might be able to make other things slipt if he was pushed hard. She didn’t worry about what might happen to Uncle Jake if those circumstances ever arose.