(Arm)Pitted Memory

I've been rereading John Christopher's The White Mountain series, which I last read over forty years ago, so that I can talk about the novels with BH's son, who got the books as a present from BH. For decades, I've recalled vividly that the narrator, Will, had a transmitter implanted in his armpit that had to be dug out, but somewhere over those same decades, I conflated the transmitter with the mind-control caps that the Tripod-enslaved humans wear.

Misremembering as I was--thinking that the Tripods enslave humans by implanting devices in the humans' armpits rather than in the humans' brains--I was flummoxed when someone told me that the humans were controlled by caps and that nothing at all was implanted in any armpits, ever. I decided that I had not only a really bad memory but also a sick imagination: I'd apparently invented an entire, bloody, flesh-rending scene about a semi-impolite body part.

Fastforward to present day. I am sitting comfortably in my chair, reading the first book in the series, seeing that yes, the humans are capped, how stupid I was to forget, of course they are capped, and here Will and his friends are fleeing, yes, this is tantalizingly familiar, my word I am enjoying this book, run Will, run, the Tripod is coming, it is ever so close and menacing, tracking you no matter which way you turn . . . Um, how is it doing that? I turn the page. Will has a nasty metal transmitter implanted in his armpit! And Beanpole has to dig it out with a knife: excruciating pain, bloody scraps of flesh, post-surgery vomiting.

Alone in my room, with great satisfaction I raise the book over my head and say, "Yessssss."