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“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

“Nowhere,” said Junior innocently. “Just playing hide-and-go-sink with the squids.”

“With the other polyps,” Mater corrected him primly. She detested slang.

Pater was eyeing Junior with ominous calm. “And where,” he asked, “did you get that stone?”

Junior contracted guiltily. The surfstone slipped from his tentacles and plumped to the sea-floor in a flurry of sand. He edged away, stammering, “Well, I guess maybe ... I might have gone a little ways toward the beach....”

“You guess! When I was a polyp,” said Pater, “the small fry obeyed their elders, and no guess about it!”

“Now, dear—” said Mater.

“And no spawn of mine,” Pater warmed to his lecture, “is going to flout my words! Junior—COME HERE!”

Junior paddled cautiously around the homesite, just out of tentacle-reach. He said in a small voice, “I won’t.”

“DID YOU HEAR ME?”

“Yes,” admitted Junior.

The neighbors stared. The three maiden aunts clutched one another with muted shrieks, savoring beforehand the language Pater would now use.