David J. Bennett | Brown University (original) (raw)

...“You certainly must be very old to have reached the ground already.”

“Oh no,” said Milo seriously. “In my family we all start on the ground and grow up, and we never know how far until we actually get there.”

“What a silly system.” The boy laughed. “Then your head keeps changing its height and you always see things in a different way? Why, when you’re fifteen things won’t look at all the way they did when you were ten, and at twenty everything will change again.”

“I suppose so,” replied Milo, for he had never really thought about the matter.

“We always see things from the same angle,” the boy continued. “It’s much less trouble that way. Besides, it makes more sense to grow down and not up. When you’re very young, you can never hurt yourself falling down if you’re in mid-air, and you certainly can’t get into trouble for scuffing up your shoes or marking the floor if there’s nothing to scuff them on and the floor is three feet away.”

“That’s very true,” thought Tock, who wondered how the dogs in the family liked the arrangement.

“But there are many other ways to look at things,” remarked the boy. “For instance, you had orange juice, boiled eggs, toast and jam, and milk for breakfast,” he said, turning to Milo. “And you are always worried about people wasting time,” he said to Tock. “And you are almost never right about anything,” he said, pointing at the Humbug, “and, when you
are, it’s usually an accident.”

“A gross exaggeration,” protested the furious bug, who didn’t realize that so much was visible to the naked eye.

“Amazing,” gasped Tock. “How do you know all that?” asked Milo.

“Simple,” he said proudly. “I’m Alec Bings; I see through things. I can see whatever is inside, behind, around, covered by, or subsequent to anything else. In fact, the only thing I can’t see is whatever happens to be right in front of my nose.”

“Isn’t that a little inconvenient?” asked Milo, whose neck was becoming quite stiff from looking up.

“It is a little,” replied Alec, “but it is quite important to know what lies behind things, and the family helps me take care of the rest. My father sees to things, my mother looks after things, my brother sees beyond things, my uncle sees the other side of every question, and my little sister Alice sees under things.”

“How can she see under things if she’s all the way up there?” growled the Humbug.

“Well,” added Alec, turning a neat cartwheel, “whatever she can’t see under, she overlooks.”

“Would it be possible for me to see something from up there?” asked Milo politely.

“You could,” said Alec, “but only if you try very hard to look at things...

From:
Juster, Norton; Jules Feiffer, The Phantom Tollbooth.

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