Teddy by J. D. Salinger

Part 3
Teddy took in most of his head. "They float very nicely," he said without turning
around. "That's interesting."
"Teddy. For the last time. I'm going to count three, and then I'm-"
"I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "It's interesting that I know
about them being there. If I hadn't seen them, then I wouldn't know they were there,
and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't be able to say that they even exist.
That's a very nice, perfect example of the way--"
"Teddy," Mrs. McArdle interrupted, without visibly stirring under her top sheet. "Go
find Booper for me. Where is she? I don't want her lolling around in that sun again
today, with that bum."
"She's adequately covered. I made her wear her dungarees," Teddy said. "Some of
them are starting to sink now. In a few minutes, the only place they'll still be floating
will be inside my mind. That's quite interesting, because if you look at it a certain way,
that's where they started floating in the first place. If I'd never been standing here at all,
or if somebody'd come along and sort of chopped my head off right while I was--"
"Where is she now?" Mrs. McArdle asked. "Look at Mother a minute, Teddy."
Teddy turned and looked at his mother. "What?" he said.
"Where's Booper now? I don't want her meandering all around the deck chairs again,
bothering people. If that awful man--"
"She's all right. I gave her the camera."

Mr. McArdle lurched up on one arm. "You gave her the cameral" he said. "What the
hell's the idea? My goddam Leica! I'm not going to have a six-year-old child gallivanting
all over--"
"I showed her how to hold it so she won't drop it," Teddy said. "And I took the film
out, naturally."
"I want that camera, Teddy. You hear me? I want you to get down off that bag this
minute, and I want that camera back in this room in five minutes--or there's going to be
one little genius among the missing. Is that clear?"
Teddy turned his feet around on the Gladstone, and stepped down. He bent over and
tied the lace of his left sneaker while his father, still raised up on one elbow, watched
him like a monitor.
"Tell Booper I want her," Mrs. McArdle said. "And give Mother a kiss."
Finished tying his sneaker lace, Teddy perfunctorily gave his mother a kiss on the
cheek. She in turn brought her left arm out from under the sheet, as if bent on
encircling Teddy's waist with it, but by the time she had got it out from under, Teddy
had moved on. He had come around the other side and entered the space between the
two beds. He stooped, and stood up with his father's pillow under his left arm and the
glass ashtray that belonged on the night table in his right hand. Switching the ashtray
over to his left hand, he went up to the night table and, with the edge of his right hand,
swept his father's cigarette stubs and ashes into the ashtray. Then, before putting the
ashtray back where it belonged, he used the under side of his forearm to wipe off the
filmy wake of ashes from the glass top of the table. He wiped off his forearm on his
seersucker shorts. Then he placed the ashtray on the glass top, with a world of care, as
if he believed an ashtray should be dead-centered on the surface of a night table or not
placed at all. At that point, his father, who had been watching him, abruptly gave up
watching him. "Don't you want your pillow?" Teddy asked him.
"I want that camera, young man."
"You can't be very comfortable in that position. It isn't possible," Teddy said. "I'll leave
it right here." He placed the pillow on the foot of the bed, clear of his father's feet. He
started out of the cabin.
"Teddy," his mother said, without turning over. "Tell Booper I want to see her before
her swimming lesson."
"Why don't you leave the kid alone?" Mr. McArdle asked. "You seem to resent her
having a few lousy minutes' freedom. You know how you treat her? I'll tell you exactly
how you treat her. You treat her like a bloomin' criminal."
"Bloomin'! Oh, that's cute! You're getting so English, lover."