Jorma found himself sitting on his beloved Mother's lap. Her nose was green. Hedi was kneeling by their side. She, too, had got herself a green leafy nose and was busy writing her name on the sand. When she finished it, she smoothed out the sand and started anew.

Father was sitting a little apart with his back to them. He was staring at the sea though he expected some monster emerge from the waves.

Mother cuddled Jorma tenderly in her arms and asked,

"How are you, ducky?"

Jorma gave one last sob, a deep one, and uttered his first comprehensible words after the dive,

"I just wanted to take a swim, but Daddy threw me into the water."

He said so in a firm hope that Mother would take Father to task: why should he act foolish like that, very silly of him, and let it be the last time.

But Mother was in no hurry with the scolding. Father seized the opportunity to argue,

"It was because you started kicking and struggling. I had to keep you balanced, I couldn't watch my step... "

Jorma took it to be a lame excuse. He shouted,

"And still one mustn't throw kids into water."

Father shook his head as if he were absolutely innocent.

But who then was guilty? Someone had to be. It couldn't be that he, Jorma, nearly got drowned and nobody was to blame.

"I feel very bad when I'm thrown into water!" Jorma whined louder. "Don't you understand?"

Yet nobody understood. Mother even tried to defend Father:

"My dear boy, it wasn't on purpose that Daddy threw you into water."

Now Father got angry with Mother.

"What nonsense!" he shouted with a hurt. "How can you think I'd throw my own son into water?!"

"He threw me into water, he did!" Jorma assured his Mother.

"Father just dropped you... " Mother said.

"No, I didn't drop him," protested Father.

"Yes, you did! You dropped me on purpose!" Jorma stood his ground.

"Hush!" said Mother in a low voice. "There are other people on the beach here."

Jorma didn't quite understand whether the remark was addressed to him or to his Father. To be on the safe side he stopped quiet. He didn't feel like continuing the argument. As it was, nobody seemed to understand him. At least Father refused to see Jorma's point, because he turned him his back and stared at the sea again.

"Very well," Jorma thought. "If you don't want to know me, I don't want to know you either." He cleared his throat the way Father used to do and said with studied indifference,

"Daddy, you haven't got a little boy any more."

"Hmm!" Father grinned and asked, "What's happened? Are you drowned?"

"I'm not drowned, but I'm not your son any longer," Jorma declared.

Had Father told Jorma that he no longer was his father, the boy would have been very sad. But his hard words had no effect on Father. And he sounded quite light-hearted when he said,

"I would rather not have a son who won't stop grumbling over a mouthful of sea water."

"Stop it, please," Mother said to Father reproachfully while she stroked the boy's head tenderly.

While doing so she noticed the bump on her dear son's forehead. She pushed his hair aside with caution and said "Oh! Oh!" sympathetically. She touched Jorma's brow with her lips and turned to Father,

"No wonder the boy feels unhappy—he has got such a terrible bump on his head."

This news greatly disturbed Father.

"What bump?" he was bewildered. He scrambled nearer, saw the slight swelling and said defiantly,

"Nobody can get a bump in the water. That's a fact. The boy hit himself against something harder."

"You ought to know what stone it was the child struck against," said Mother. "It was you who dropped him into the water."

Mother pronounced the words very calmly but Jorma realized that in fact she was scolding Father. At long last!

Father hang his head as befitted the occasion and went back to where he had been sitting without a word.

That was a triumph of justice: the innocently wronged Jorma was being caressed, the defiant Father got duly punished. Where words were of no help, the swelling would see him through.

Unfortunately there came a setback immediately. It came from where Jorma had least expected it. Hedi stopped writing her name and said,

"Jorma, you'd better say where you got the bump."

Father raised his head. He exclaimed triumphantly,

"Aha! That's some news!"

Jorma averted his head.

"Perhaps you want to go to bed now?" Father asked with a smile.

He was jeering at the boy. It had happened once that Jorma suddenly wanted to go to bed when he was asked who had shorn Mother's cacti.

This time, however, Jorma grew excited. He protested,

"I don't want to go to bed! I just want home!"

"You may go if you want to, we are going to stay here,"

Father retorted.

"Then I'll go alone," said Jorma and slipped himself down from Mother's lap. He was sure that Mother wouldn't allow him to go, or at least Hedi would beg him to stay. Neither said a word. That caused a wave of self-pity surge up in him, but at the same time it made his heart hard. "If none of you cares for me, I don't care for you either," he said to himself.

And with a resolute step he started on his way home.

Jason Ladock

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