It was her mother who took it up. “Oh yes: Nanny from heaven. I’ll never forget the look on your face as long as I live.” Her own face glowed with it; drowsy in sunlight, Elizabeth smiled. She was just exactly in the mood to be drawn into the circle of family reminiscence. But it really had been incredible: mythical. It was a summer day in her childhood. They had been on this same beach. She remembered nothing except the blimp. There it suddenly was, filling all the sky like a friendly whale—like a great silver cigar—like nothing on earth. It was better than balloons, it was better than a walrus. She had looked up, everyone had looked up, because really there was nothing you could do when a blimp appeared except look up. They always frightened her a little but they were so terribly funny: strange and funny as their name, which of course was the wrong name as her father patiently explained. But still. And so the blimp appeared. And suddenly, it was so wonderful, the sky was full of falling things. Swiftly they came slanting down out of the sky, and all at once the little parachutes opened up, green ones and red ones and yellow ones and blue ones: and slowly slanting down they fell far out in the deep water, and then close by in the shallow water, and then on the sand. People shouted, jumped up to catch them, ran into the water. Elizabeth wanted one so badly that she felt she couldn’t stand it; she wanted to cry, or die. But she stayed very still, she was in awe. And then one landed near her, the little colored cloth at the end of the strings came fluttering down, and she pounced. And it was hers. And it was bread. Two slices of white bread in a little package. And her father said, “Nanny from heaven.” And so she said, “Nanny from heaven.”

“Have you seriously failed to deduce the connection?” said Dr. Halstrom.

Elizabeth turned in amazement. “What in the world are you talking about?”

Her father raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You asked what happened to the blimps.”

“Yes? You know what happened to them? What happened to them?”

“Did something happen to the blimps?” said Mrs. Halstrom.

“You noted the absence of blimps,” said Dr. Halstrom, “and you noted the presence of barges. It occurred to me, in the best manner of contemporary thought, to draw the inevitable conclusion. Consider,” he continued, lowering his voice and leaning toward Elizabeth, “the shape of barges. Carrying off the blimps: you can bet your bottom dollar.”

“What?” said Mrs. Halstrom. “I couldn’t hear you. Bess! What did he say? Tell me what’s so funny! Did something happen to the blimps?” Then she too was laughing, because there was laughter; but they wouldn’t tell her what he had said.