Mark Clifton 39 min read

There is no past or future, the children said; it all just IS. And at three, a little girl shouldn't be able to cut out a Moebius strip and trace its single surface to prove she understands.

Mark Clifton's 1952 story is a classic psi-powers and social-SF tale of impossibly gifted children. Sharp, warm, thought-provoking golden-age SF. Read it for a beloved story, told through a father's journal, of a super-intelligent child whose games with time and space leave the adults around her far behind.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

39 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

David Stone