Frank Belknap Long

“ He's grooved too deeply into human space. Human hands made him, Johnny. He's just an ugly thought-pattern made of drift material. He's solid, Johnny. You're not!"
Sweat came out on Johnny's face and froze to his face. A silent cold seemed to bite through him.
"We know how you feel, Johnny! You're still a little human boy in some respects, but you can break out now if you try. You're old enough and wise enough. If you take our hands and walk with us, you'll cease to be human."
"And Fuzzy Head?"
"Johnny, a doll can't walk with the more-than-human. No, Johnny! ”

“ Fuzzy Head was ten years young, a medium-sized walking and talking doll with a wooden trunk, metal limbs and a plaster-of-Paris face. Modern, functional dolls are fearfully and wonderfully made, but old-fashioned dolls speak the language of childhood, of dark, unexplored attics, hidden jam pots, and calico-draped dressmaking dummies as slim as mother used to be. ”

“ Once Fuzzy Head was just a wooden doll in a toy shop on earth. But Johnny poured a part of himself into Fuzzy Head. A child always does that. Even when a human child puts itself into its fantasy life there's almost a physical transference. And Johnny could do it better than a human child! ”

“ It's natural for a child to stop at odd crossways and ask advice. Fuzzy Head just happens to be standing at an important crossroad in Johnny's life."
"But he's had that doll for seven years now, Stephen! You said yourself it was sissified for a boy of eight to play with dolls. You never did. Have you changed your mind?"
"No ... I'm not too happy about that," Stephen admitted. "Every father wants his son to be a real he-guy. But you've got to remember that Fuzzy Head isn't a baby doll. He's a little old man doll, more of a character toy than a doll." ”

“ Stephen's lips tightened and all the levity ebbed from his stare. "You asked me how I can think such things. I don't think them. But you do, subconsciously. Helen, listen to me. All kids become little strangers at times. If their parents love them, it doesn't matter. Just being a child is a frightful nervous strain on the child itself. ”

“ Some of my favorite authors believe that kids like our Johnny belong to another race entirely. They're born human or almost human, but they grow out of it. Super-kids who grow up to become multi-dimensional, all shining cubes and bright impossible angles. They're only human in the caterpillar stage of their development. ”

“ So he made the mistake of assuming that, if he gave those stories their due, and a little more than their due, her antagonism would become a shield, insulating and protecting her.
"You have a psychological block, but you can overcome it," he said. "Next time you dust my books look inside the ones you're always putting back upside down. They contain a master plan for changing the genes of human inheritance." ”

“ Coming to take him away from us."
"He's living in a world of fantasy," Stephen said, scowling. "All children do, more or less."
"Stephen, it isn't only that. He keeps talking to Fuzzy Head, making a confidant of Fuzzy Head. When I go to him he pushes me away. But nothing's too good for that ridiculous doll. It's horrible, but I've got to say it, Stephen. Johnny's developing a fixation!" ”

“ At this, Stephen made one last heroic attempt to convince his wife that he had spoken with his tongue in his cheek. "The Hindus believe that man was made by Prajapati, after many efforts in which the experimental beings did not harmonize with their environment. Maybe somebody like Prajapati is trying to make a race of super-beings, and our Johnny's just an experiment." ”

“ Stephen nodded. "The brightest crop of post-Wellsian imaginative science writers are convinced that if you bombard one, or both parents of a child, with atomic radiations well in advance of the event you're likely to get a little stranger in the house. A mutant child who isn't quite human. ”