George tells his wife the nursery walls are "supersensitive color film and mental tape film behind glass screens" and that "It's all odorophonics and sonics, Lydia." What is the room actually putting on those walls?

Standing in the nursery, George smells "the hot straw smell of lion grass," hears "the papery rustling of vultures," and feels a hot sun on his face. What do these details establish about the room?

Alone in the nursery, George orders the room, "Let's have Aladdin and his lamp," and then demands it again. Bradbury writes: "The veldtland remained; the lions remained." What does this establish about the nursery?

George insists there is an Africa in the nursery. Wendy runs ahead alone, and when the adults open the door they find "a green, lovely forest, a lovely river, a purple mountain" and Rima singing. What has happened?

David McClean says one of "the original uses of these nurseries" was to study "the patterns left on the walls by the child's mind" and help the child. What does he say has gone wrong in this nursery?

In the corner where the lions had been, George picks up "an old wallet of mine": it smells of lion, and "it had been chewed, and there were blood smears on both sides." What does this planted detail foreshadow?

Early on Lydia asks, "Did you hear that scream?" Later the couple hear "Two screams. Two people screaming from downstairs," and Lydia says they sound familiar: "Yes, awfully." What is Bradbury preparing?

Lydia asks, "Those lions can't get out of there, can they?" George looks at the nursery door and "saw it tremble as if something had jumped against it from the other side." He answers, "Of course not." What does the moment plant?

On his first visit George sees "nothing over there I can see but cleaned bone, and the vultures dropping for what's left," and guesses the lions have eaten "a zebra or a baby giraffe, maybe." What does Bradbury do with this later?

George watches the lions "eating with great relish whatever it was they had caught" and says, "I wish I knew what it was. Sometimes I can almost see." Why does Bradbury keep the lions' prey off the page?

George and Lydia beat on the nursery door, and outside it Peter says, "Don't let them switch off the nursery and the house." Why have the children locked their parents in?

Lydia tells George, "I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid," and asks whether they can shut the house off for a few days. Why does she want that?

After dinner George broods on what the room makes for the children — "Sun--sun. Giraffes--giraffes. Death and death" — then pads to the nursery door, listens, and hears a lion roar. Why does he unlock it and go in?

McClean advises George to have "the whole damn room torn down," then bends, picks up a bloody scarf and asks, "This yours?" George answers that it belongs to Lydia. Why does George then go to the fuse box?

Lydia says the children "have been acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the rocket to New York," and George replies, "They're not old enough to do that alone, I explained." How does McClean explain their coldness?

George asks, "Lord, how did we ever get in this house? What prompted us to buy a nightmare?" and Lydia answers, "Pride, money, foolishness." What theme does her answer carry?

In the dark George says the children "come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring. They're spoiled and we're spoiled." What does he admit in that last clause?

Bradbury introduces the Happylife Home as the house "which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them." What does the story go on to show about that list of comforts?

As George shuts the machines down Peter shouts, "Oh, I hate you!" and then, "I wish you were dead!" George answers, "We were, for a long while. Now we're going to really start living." Why is his answer ironic?

McClean arrives to find Wendy and Peter "eating a little picnic lunch" in the veldt while the lions feed and the vultures drop. Wendy's last line is, "A cup of tea?" What does that ending show?