The short story “Jeffty is Five,” is a great example of mutant children and the ways that other people can be affected . At the beginning of the story, Don and Jeffty were five years old together and played together. Don went to live with his Aunt Patricia for two years and when he came back home, Jeffty was still five years old. Don was sent to military school for four years when he was ten, and when he came back Jeffty was still five years old. When Don came home from college he was twenty-two and Jeffty had not changed. He was still five years old, not a day older. These ideas made me wonder if Jeffty had some kind of illness or disorder that made it harder for him to learn and develop. In the story, Don says that Jeffty is “Smart as a whip for five years old; very bright, quick, cute, a funny kid.” This made me realize that the only strange thing is that he was supposed to be the same age Don was: twenty-two.
“Things I should have noticed so many times before, I first began to notice only that afternoon.” This sentence made me ask the question of what kinds of things? When Don noticed that Jeffty was holding a Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Badge he said the toy was a miracle. This is the beginning of everything that Don would soon learn about Jeffty. Don heard Jeffty listening to many different TV shows that were created and were playing only when Don was five years old. This is when Jeffty took Don into his world and showed him that he is able to bring things from the past to the present. I think that this is a very interesting ability for a child to have. I noticed that Don would sometimes get so absorbed in Jeffty’s world that he would forget to do everyday things in the real world around him. Although this is a little dangerous, I think this would be a cool ability to have because you would be able to revisit things from your past that you really enjoyed.
