He is immediately proven right. The men who
formerly scorned his company now show up at his
house regularly, falling into a nightly ritual of spec-
ulation about the true nature of the thing in the
bottle. Charlie’s wife glowers her disapproval but is
powerless to change things. The jar begins to dom-
inate the small community, for each person sees
something different in it, an evocation of past
memories or present fears. Sometimes the response
is hysterical as people imagine that they have
caught glimpses of long-lost children reflected in
the jar’s contents or believe that there is move-
ment and that whatever is in the jar is still alive.
Thedy, Charlie’s wife, grows increasingly jeal-
ous of his popularity. She tracks down the carnival
owner and learns the truth, or at least is told what
is perhaps the truth: that the contents of the jar
are just rubber, plastic, and metal. She threatens to
tell everyone and spoil Charlie’s fun, but her hus-
band is not about to relinquish his claim to fame
and popularity. The scene jumps suddenly to the
next gathering. Charlie tells everyone that Thedy
is off visiting her family as they settle down to their
usual ritual, trying to interpret what they can see
in the jar and puzzled by some apparent changes in
the color of the eyes and hair. And the reader real-
izes the truth, that Charlie has used parts of Thedy
to increase the mystery of the jar. Wrapped around
the simple but effective story is an insightful look
at the way we delude ourselves and sometimes pre-
fer the illusion of things to the reality.
“Jeffty Is Five”Harlan Ellison(1979)
Too often stories about childhood end up being
sloppily sentimental. Harlan Ellison is neither
sloppy nor sentimental in this tightly told, nostal-
gic, bittersweet story of Jeffty, Jeff Kinzer, who re-
mains five years old even while the rest of the
world ages around him. Donny, the narrator, is one
of his playmates who grows older, moves away and
back, then attends college. As Donny gets older he
begins to have ambivalent feelings about progress
and maturity, because some things are much im-
proved, but some of the best moments of the past
are gone forever. The exception is Jeffty, who is still
five and whose peculiarity people are beginning to
notice. His parents pass through concern to fear to
animosity and end up accepting the fact of their
son’s existence sullenly. The other children will not
play with Jeffty, and only the narrator remains his
steadfast friend.
But things are much stranger than just Jeffty
being a boy who does not age. Jeffty listens to the
radio in his room and picks up dramatic shows
such as Captain Midnightand Terry and the Pirates
that have long since passed into history, and the
episodes are new and involve current events. He
also has comic books that have never been issued
and receives mail order premiums that cannot pos-
sibly exist. Donny gets caught up in his friend’s
anomalous existence, living one life in the present
and spending increasing amounts of time with
Jeffty so that he can continually sample the past.
The reader will have anticipated by now that
things will have to change, and not for the better.
Donny and Jeffty have grown to be too different
for the situation to remain stable, and a chance se-
ries of events and Donny’s growing commitment to
the present make it possible for the present to de-
stroy the past. The present eventually disturbs
Jeffty’s hold on whatever it is that allows him to
exist independent of time. With that certainty
shaken, the rest of the magic dissipates, and his
unique ability to remain outside the normal course
of time and history vanishes. The story avoids cloy-
ing sentimentality while still providing a genuine
emotional experience. Neither Donny nor Ellison
pretend that the past was better than the present,
only that by progressing, we have unfortunately
lost some of the good along with the bad. When
Donny allows his adult desire to pursue his busi-
ness interests and accumulate wealth at the ex-
pense of his friendship, he is also destroying what
remains of his old childhood and the perpetual
childhood of his closest friend.Jones, Diana Wynne(1934– )
Fans of Diana Wynne Jones point out with some
justification that she was writing clever young
adult fantasies long before J. K. ROWLINGemerged
as a superstar. Her first fantasy novel was Wilkins’
Tooth(1973, also published as Witch’s Business), an
amusing but light tale of two children who get into
trouble with a local witch. Jones quickly shed anyJones, Diana Wynne 183