Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
Before passing judgment, just ask yourself one question: Would you like answering for humanity any better than Ernie Meeker did? The Invisible Being shifted his anchorage a bit in Earth's gravitational field, which felt like a push rather than a pull to him, requirements. I'd say he's a suitable recipient for the Gifts." and were the best of friends. "Well, how many Gifts would you suggest "No—at least I question the last. After all, the Great Gifts aren't as important, really, as the Big Gifts. Besides...." "Besides what? Come on, spit it out!" The Invisible Being was the What Little Gifts would you suggest?" our Gifts—three Little, two Big, and one Great?" Ernie Meeker—of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. of A., Occident, Terra, Sol, Starswarm 37, Rim Sector, Milky Way Galaxy—rubbed his chin and slanted across the street to a drugstore. packet he'd placed on the coin-whitened glass between them. He gave a suspicious look, as if the customer had palmed them. Ernie blinked. After a moment, he pointed toward the center of the counter. "There they are," he said, dropping a coin beside them. sneak something without your seeing could sneak it back the same way. He rang up the sale and closed the register fast. Ernie Meeker went home and shaved. Five days—and shaves—later, he pushed the first blade, uncomfortably dull now, through the tiny slot beside the bathroom mirror. He unwrapped the second blade from the them to, in accordance with their flimsy souls, he told himself at the the Wonderful One Horse Shay and leave me with a chin full of steel porcupine quills. No, thanks." So Ernie Meeker pushed through the little slot beside the mirror and heard tinkle faintly down and away the first of the Little Gifts, the Everlasting Razor Blade. One hundred and fifty thousand years later, from Antares Gamma. Those wise history-mad beings handed it about wonderingly, from tentacle to impatient tentacle. That day, Ernie felt a little sick, somehow. After dinner, he decided it was the Thuringer sausage he'd eaten at lunch. He hurried up to the the box said distinctly, in a small inward-outward voice: "No, no, no!" Ernie sat down suddenly on the toilet seat. The spoon rattled against the porcelain finish of the washbowl as he laid it down. He held the box firmly in both hands and studied it. part that was left was all seething. And the bathroom was markedly warmer. "Ernie! Are you going to be much longer?" The knock hadn't been loud and his widowed sister's voice was more apologetic than peremptory, but he jumped, of course. She nodded absently. Sleep refused even to flirt with Ernie, his mind was full of so many things, especially calculations involving the distance between his car and the house and the length of the garden hose. In desperation, historical treatise in small print. He turned two pages, three, then closed it with a clap and looked at the wall with frightened eyes. Ernie Meeker had discovered, inside the birthday box that was himself, the first of the Big Gifts. The trouble was that in that wee-hour, lonely bedroom, it didn't himself, generated by the excitement of the crazy discovery he'd made secrets patter down into the palm of his outstretched hand—just before the walls close in. Ernie Meeker was not a drinking man, then. A pint had stood a week on his closet shelf and only been diminished three shots. But now he did a good job on the sturdy remainder. the universe-macaroni cooked down to a thick white soup uniform as he could of the remainder (he still could taste the stuff!) and he'd emptied the fuel line and carburator, more or less. Further than that, in the way of engine hygiene, Ernie's strictly sighed, squared his shoulders a little, and lifted the box out of his (except himself). vanishing letters ... "torque-twisters, translators" ... a box that talked.... At that point, simple faith came to Ernie's rescue: in the same bathroom, he had over his shoulder without slowing down. Ernie felt light-headed. He decided there was enough water in the gas tank, capped it, and momentarily continued to water the lawn. "Ernie! Come on in and have breakfast!" He heeded his sister's call, telling himself it would be a good idea "to give the stuff time to mix" before testing the engine. He had divined her question and was ready with an answer. seven in the morning or after seven in the evenings. It's the law." It was the day for their monthly drive out to Wheaton to visit Uncle Fabius. On the whole, Ernie was glad his sister was in the car when he turned the key in the starter—it forced him to be calm and collected, "But then how ... Ernie, didn't you once tell me the gauge doesn't work?" spoiled, but a few minutes of silence brought it back. He thought of or some usable fuel. "Who's been getting at you?" Uncle Fabius demanded sharply, to Ernie's proposition, though?" With considerable difficulty, Ernie convinced his uncle that he had "just heard the story from a friend." "In that case," Uncle Fabius opined, "you can be sure some fuel-powder prosperity, America, money, know-how, and a number of other institutions that defended pretty easily, so that the situation was wholly normal when Ernie's sister returned. she said. "I knew that for some reason you lied to me when—" The motor, starting readily again, cut short her remark and Ernie didn't press his small triumph by asking her what she was about to say. To tell the truth, Ernie wasn't feeling as elated about today's fifty-mile drive as he'd imagined he would. Now he thought he could put his finger on the reason: It was the completely ... well, If he'd concocted it himself, or been given it by a shady promoter, or one word about exhaust velocities. From that moment, the fuel-powder became a trial to Ernie rather than a secret glory. He'd wake in the middle of the night doubting that he had ever really read the mind-dizzying lettering, ever really tested the He couldn't decide on a safe place to keep the box and took to carrying it around with him day and night. Bill spotted it once down at the office and by an unhappy coincidence needed some bicarb just then for a troubled stomach. Ernie explained on the spur of the moment that he was decidedly eccentric, even butter-brained. Bill took to calling him "the sculptor." Meanwhile, besides the problem of the white powder, Ernie was having other unsettling experiences, stemming (though of course he didn't know that) from the other Gifts—and not just the Big Gift of Page-at-a-Glance Reading, though that still returned from time to time to shock his consciousness and send him hurrying for a few quick shots. Like many another car-owning commuter, Ernie found the traffic and parking problems a bit too much for comfort and so used the fast electric train to carry him five times a week to the heart of the city. During those brief, swift, crowded trips Ernie, generally looking steadily out the window at the brown buildings and black stanchions whipping past, enjoyed a kind of anonymity and privacy more refreshing total strangers struck up conversations almost every morning and afternoon. Ernie couldn't figure out the reason and wasn't at all sure he liked it—except for Vivian. She was the sort of girl Ernie dreamed about, improperly. Tall, blonde and knowing, excitedly curved but armored in a black suit, friendly and funny but given to making almost cruelly deflating remarks, as if the

<question>:
Who on Earth was given the presents?

<options>:
A One person from each country, though the presents were not the same
B One person from each family in Chicago
C At least two people that were then deemed to be crazy by the rest of the public
D Only Ernie Meeker

<answer>:

D