Ray Bradbury had a story called, "Kids: Grow Mushroom in Your Basement." This is a line from the backs of comic books in the fifties and sixties. These kids aren't raising mushrooms but are being contacted by a certain Mr. White who lives on the moon. They use a coiled electronic device to send articles through teleportation. He contacts them through mental telepathy. The parents of one of the boys get wind of this and begin a loving effort to get him to come clean. They realize that he is under the spell of this creature whose physical appearance has been sent to the boy. He's pretty ugly. At one point the boy says too much and is deprived of his speech. There is a level of suspense here because we wonder if there is going to be another cynical message of despair and hopelessness or is there some way to bring this to an end? It's not a bad episode and wears quite well. I enjoyed the physical appearance of the kid; it reminded me of what kids looked like when I was growing up.
Review of Many Happy Returns
