 How old was the narrator when he discovered he had a special gift?
Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I made the discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle , folded and put it beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see the San Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So I returned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffed gray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seats before me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde. A crossword-puzzle worker, a togetherness-type-magazine reader. Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing I should be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angeles for, and not wanting to. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers and—well, human beings. I always knew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, and therefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. An apple senses about the same as a potato, except for the core and the stem. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a small book, probably an address book, money in a change purse—a few bills and coins. I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade when Miss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eat my sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with some of the other kids. Still, I wonder how many other people are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. Ever so little. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light or heat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler's window. This being earlier than I usually get up, it seems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapement and balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and its delicate ribbon of spiraling steel. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made.
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