Code to Zero Page 0,15

a rocket launch.

Larry came into the kitchen with his shoelaces untied and his shirt buttons done up awry. She straightened him out, got him started on his cornflakes, and began to scramble eggs.

It was eight-fifteen, and she was almost caught up. She loved her son and her mother, but a secret part of her resented the drudgery of taking care of them.

The radio reporter was now interviewing an army spokesman. 'Aren't these rubbernecks in danger? What if the rocket goes off course and crash-lands right here on the beach?'

"There's no danger of that, sir,' came the reply. 'Every rocket has a self-destruct mechanism. If it veers off course it will be blown up in mid-air.'

'But how can you blow it up after it's already taken off?'

"The explosive device is triggered by a radio signal sent by the range safety officer.'

'That sounds dangerous in itself. Some radio ham fooling around might accidentally set it off.'

"The mechanism responds only to a complex signal, like a code. These rockets are expensive, we don't take any risks.'

Larry said: 'I have to make a space rocket today. Can I take the yoghurt pot to school?'

'No, you can't, it's half full,'she told him.

'But I have to take some containers! Miss Page will be mad if I don't' He was near to tears with the suddenness of a seven-year-old.

'What do you need containers for?'

'To make a space rocket! She told us last week.'

Billie sighed. 'Larry, if you had told me last week, I would have saved a whole bunch of stuff for you. How many times must I ask you not to leave things until the last minute?'

'Well, what am I gonna do?'

'I'll find you something. We'll put the yoghurt in a bowl, and ... what kind of containers do you want?'

'Rocket shape.' -

Billie wondered if schoolteachers ever thought about the amount of work they created for busy mothers when they blithely instructed children to bring things from home. She put buttered toast on three plates and served the scrambled eggs, but she did not eat her own. She went around the house and got a tube-shaped cardboard detergent container, a plastic liquid-soap bottle, an ice-cream carton, and a heart-shaped chocolate box.

Most of the packaging showed the products being used by families - generally a pretty housewife and two happy kids, with a pipe-smoking father in the background. She wondered ifjother women resented the stereotype as much as she did. She had never lived in a family like that Her father, a poor tailor in Dallas, had died when she was a baby, and her mother had brought up five children ingrinding poverty. Billie herself had been divorced since Larry was ,two. There were plenty of families without a man, where the mother was a widow, a divorcee, or what used to be called a fallen woman. But they did not show such families on the cornflakes boxes. . v

She put all the containers in a shopping bag for Larry to carry to school.

'Oh, boy, I bet I have more than anyone!' he said. "Thanks, Mom.'

Her breakfast was cold, but Larry was happy.

A car horn tooted outside, and Billie quickly checked her 'appearance in the glass of a cupboard door. Her curly black hair had been hastily combed, she had no make-up on except the eyeliner she had failed to remove last night, and she was wearing an oversize pink sweater ... but the effect was kind of .sexy. - ---.. .">

The back door opened and Roy Brodsky came in. Roy was Larry's best friend, and the boys greeted one another joyously, as if they had been apart for a month instead of just a few hours. Billie had noticed that all Larry's friends were boys now. In .kindergarten it had been different, boys and girls playing together indiscriminately. She wondered what psychological change took place, around the age of five, that made children prefer their own gender.

Roy was followed by his father, Harold, a good-looking man with soft brown eyes. Harold Brodsky was a widower: Roy's mother had died in a car wreck. Harold taught chemistry at the George Washington University. Billie and Harold were dating. He looked at her adoringly and said: 'My God, you look gorgeous.' She grinned and kissed his cheek.

Like Larry, Roy had a shopping bag full of cartons. Billie said to Harold: 'Did you have to empty half the containers in your kitchen?'

Yes. I have little cereal bowls of soap flakes, chocolates, and processed cheese. And six toilet rolls without the