 What kind of relationship does the narrator have with his children?
Volpla By WYMAN GUIN Illustrated by [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Dozens of limp little mutants that would have sent an academic zoologist into hysterics lay there in the metabolic accelerator. I heard my daughter's running feet in the animal rooms and her rollerskates banging at her side. Volplas at last. Yet I had always been so sure I could create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, twelve. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had given me the idea of a flying mutant. I smiled with nostalgia when the fifth fingers of his hands, four times as long as the others, uncurled as he spun about the cage. "Tell your mother that I retaliate. Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. My wife tried the door, too, but more subtly, as if casually touching the knob while calling. I flipped a hamburger and a slice of onion onto a plate and picked up the ketchup and said, "I've reached the dangerous age." I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, "Yes, sir, the dangerous age. I kissed her until I heard rollerskates coming across the terrace from one direction and a horse galloping toward the terrace from the other direction. My wife brought me a bowl of salad and I munched the hamburger and watched the boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture. I've only had the feeling once before in a small way, but I've always...." "Well, when my old man was pumping his first fortune out of some oil wells in Oklahoma, we lived down there. Outside this little town, I found a litter of flat stones that had young black-snakes under each slab. I learned how great it can be to stand around quietly and watch people encounter the surprise that you have prepared for them."
 The children see him as a kind but absent father figure who is dedicated to his science
 The children don't talk to him at all, because they are constantly disappointed by his not sharing his work with them  The children see him as a kind but absent father figure who is dedicated to his science  The children think he is nice but odd, perhaps a bit too talkative about his own pride around his work  The children are upset with him because they think he is too strict, making them swim with bathing suits, and things like this