The TV picture suddenly snapped off. Ron felt himself jerk back a little in surprise. His father had turned it off.

“You don’t have to worry about things like that,” his father said.

Ron looked at him. “If I didn’t do well in the Exams—”

“You won’t be drafted, don’t worry,” Mr. Morgan insisted. “Even if you flunked the Exams, I can buy your way out of the draft. The draft’s not for kids like you, anyway. It’s for those poor slobs—those bums who couldn’t hold down a decent job even if you handed it to them on a platinum platter.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m telling you.” The older man’s voice went up a notch, which meant he wasn’t going to listen to anything Ron had to say on the subject.

“Okay, sure.” For a moment Ron stared at the now-dead TV screen. He could still see the young-old soldiers.

Then he went around the breakfast counter and pulled a package from the freezer. The cold metal foil made his fingers tingle. He put the package in the microwave cooker and thirty seconds later out slid the package, sizzling hot. Ron grabbed it and put it in front of his father quickly, before the heat could get to his fingers.

Mr. Morgan peeled back the metal foil to reveal steaming eggs, pancakes, and sausages. He looked up at his son. “Where’s yours?”

“I’m not hungry,” Ron said.

His father huffed. “You ought to eat something. Get me some juice, will you? At least have a glass of milk. You shouldn’t start the day on an empty stomach.”

Ron got the juice and the milk. He drank half a glass of ice-cold milk and watched his father eating. But he kept glancing at the clock on the wall, next to the TV screen. The call will come at nine o’clock, he knew. They always call at nine sharp.

An hour and a half to go, and the seconds-counter on the digital clock was crawling like a wounded soldier dragging himself through jungle mud.

“I . . . I’m going out to the garage,” Ron said.

His father stared at him a moment, then said, “All right. I’ll call you when the Examiner phones.”

“You’re not going to work today?”

With a tight smile, Ron’s father said, “I’ll wait until the Examiner calls.”

Ron nodded and headed for the back door.

It was cool and pleasant outside. The night’s rain had washed the sky a clean and cloudless blue.

The garage was really more of a workshop than anything else. The family electric car always stayed out on the driveway where the neighbors could see how big and new it was. It took so much electrical power to run it that Mr. Morgan had to keep it plugged in to the garage’s special power-charger all night. Once he had backed out of the driveway without disconnecting the cable. It snapped across the windshield like a whip, crazing it into a million spiderwebs of cracks. Mr. Morgan spent an hour hopping up and down on the driveway next to his car, screaming at everybody about everything except his own forgetfulness.