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

<passage>:
"Well," said his less hearty but unswervingly honest companion, "I'm always afraid that you'll use the granting of a Great Gift as an excuse 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. Ernie Meeker went home and shaved. Five days—and shaves—later, he pushed the first blade, uncomfortably dull now, through the tiny slot myself that a wornout blade was still sharp enough, when it obviously couldn't be. Or maybe—" he grinned a little wryly—"maybe I'd almost 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. After reading that several times, with suitable mind-checking and eye-testing in between, Ernie took up a little of the white powder on the end of a nailfile. He had thought of tasting it, but had instantly abandoned the notion and even refrained from sniffing the stuff—after 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 quite. But he had dislocated for tonight at least the imposed nervous field on which it depended. For want of a better place, Ernie dropped the rubber tube from the bathtub spray into the scrub bucket half full of odorous pink fluid and 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 His neighbor's gate was open and Mr. Jones stood open-mouthed a few wearing the dark blue uniform that always made him look for a moment unpleasantly like a policeman. Ernie swung the hose around, flipping his thumb over the end to make a spray, and nonchalantly began to water the little rectangle of lawn between sidewalk and curb. 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. 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, of being blown up without first explaining to her the risk. But the "I was wrong. Look, the gauge shows it's half full." "But then how ... Ernie, didn't you once tell me the gauge doesn't work?" "Did I?" was a trial, but he did know something about the automobile industry. Ernie chose a moment when his sister was out of the room to ask if he'd ever heard of a white powder that would turn water into gasoline money in this white powder? I suppose someone's approached you with a proposition, though?" With considerable difficulty, Ernie convinced his uncle that he had "just heard the story from a friend." 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. Stopping for a railroad crossing, he braked too hard and the car stalled. His sister grabbed his arm. "I knew that was going to happen," 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, 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 heard a window in Mr. Jones's house slam loudly. It unsettled him. 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 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 neatly furled short umbrella dangling from her wrist might better be a black dog whip. She worked in an office too, a fancier one than Ernie's, as he found stop to analyze it, a physical impossibility, but that I have to admit you, Ernie, actually have. Flashing eyes." "Flashing eyes? Me?" Is that what I do?" "No, Ernie, though you're doing it now," she told him, shaking her head. "No, Ernie, your eyes just give a tiny flash of their own about every five seconds, like a lighthouse, but barely,

<question>:
Why was the neighbor surprised?

<options>:
A He knew that Ernie never went outside before 7 AM
B He was not expecting the smell of gasoline
C He'd never seen Ernie watering the lawn before
D He accidentally saw Ernie using his gift

<answer>:

D