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. . . one commendable if not exceptional. Congratulations. Now it's your turn."
Thorby slowly turned purple.
She sniffed and said, "What are you doing to get ready for the Gathering?"
"Uh, I don't know, Grandmother. You see, I don't sing, or play, or dance -- and the only games I know are chess and spat ball and . . . well, I've never seen a Gathering. I don't know what they're like."
"Hmmph! So you haven't."
Thorby felt guilty. He said, "Grandmother . . . you mast have been to lots of Gatherings. Would you tell me about them?"
That did it. She relaxed and said in hushed voice, "They don't have the Gatherings nowadays that they had when I was a girl . . ." Thorby did not have to speak again, other than sounds of awed interest. Long after the rest were waiting for Grandmother's permission to rise, she was saying, ". . . and I had my choice of a hundred ships, let me tell you. I was a pert young thing, with a tiny foot and a saucy nose, and my Grandmother got offers for me throughout the People. But I knew Sisu was for me and I stood up to her. Oh, I was a lively one! Dance all night and as fresh for the games next day as a --"
While it was not a merry occasion, it was not a failure.
Since Thorby had no talent he became an actor.
Aunt Athena Krausa-Fogarth, Chief of Commissary and superlative cook, had the literary disease in its acute form; she had written a play
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