27 August, 1924 5 страница

Del jumped and uttered a noise like the squeal of a month-old puppy. He whirled around and saw Skeleton before him and promptly backed into a table. 'Gee, I'm sorry, Florence, ' Skeleton said, showing the palms of his hands in a false gesture of sympathy. I could barely hear his words, but I took in straight and clear the taunting mock-humility in which they were encased. The two boys, the small one in the white jacket and the one like a black worm, circled around, each walking backward. Only Bobby Hollingsworth and I saw this, apart from two or three amused seniors at a nearby table. When Skeleton and Del had circled completely around, Skeleton opened his mouth and I saw his lips move: Catch you later, hey, Florence? Del started backpedaling away, butted up against the same table, then turned his back on Ridpath and went for the side door into the hallway. Skeleton slumped into one of the camp chairs near the steps. He ran a bony hand over his face and grinned up at nothing in particular. On his face was still that look of abstract, unearthly good cheer.

When the band took an intermission I watched Skeleton climb up the steps and disappear behind the instrument stands.

Mr. Robbin kept checking his watch after the band's return, and when he was satisfied the satellite was visible, he stood, cupped his hands to his mouth, and said, 'Anybody wants to see a miracle, come out now. ' His wife dutifully stood up beside him, but no one else paid any attention. He shouted, 'Come on! This is more important than dancing. ' Finally he waved the band to a sputtering halt. 'You guys too, ' he said. 'Take a break. Get some fresh air. '

'Shit, man, ' said the bass player, inspiring some laughter from the students on the dance floor. Two of the trumpet players immediately plugged cigarettes into their mouths. Most of the other musicians shrugged and set down their horns.

Tom Said Later

When the rest of the school and the band filed out into the cold air — Tom said later — Skeleton stole away from whatever he had been doing at the back of the stage and took a chair fifteen feet from the hall door, to one side of the refectory table. He was leaning back smiling at them when Tom and Del returned from the bathroom. 'Cleaned up now? ' he asked. 'Must have been pretty uncomfortable, all that crap going down your shirt. '

'Leave him alone, ' Tom said. Both boys skirted Ridpath and went to the far side of the long table.

'Shut up, stupid. You think I'm talking to you? ' Ridpath twisted his chair so that he was looking directly at them again. A few musicians smoked on an otherwise empty stage; a few couples bent toward each other at the far end of the auditorium. 'You're afraid of me, aren't you, Florence? '

The question was devastatingly simple.

'Yes, ' Del answered.

'Yes, what? '

'Yes, Mr. Ridpath. '

'Yeah. That's good. Because you'll do anything I tell you to, just the way you're supposed to. I get sick looking at you, you know that. You look like a little bug, Florence, a shitty little cockroach. . . . ' Ridpath stood up, and Tom saw flecks of white at the edges of his mouth. He had somehow strolled up to the front of the table without their seeing him move: he threw out a stabbing punch, and Del jumped backward to avoid it.

Tom opened his mouth, and Skeleton whispered fiercely: 'Keep out of this, Flanagan, or I'll tear you apart. ' He turned his shining gaze toward Del again.

'You saw him too. '

Del shook his head.

'I know you did. I saw you. Who is he? Come on, runt. Who is he? He wants me to do something, doesn't he? '

'You're crazy, ' Del said.

'Oh no I'm not oh no I'm not oh no I'm not, ' Skeleton said softly, all in a rush, leaning over the table toward Del. 'See, nobody's watching. We might as well be all alone here. ' He snatched at Del's hand and clamped his fingers around the wrist. 'Who was he? '

Del shook his head.

'You saw him. You know him. '

Del's whole being constricted with revulsion, and he tried to wrench himself away. Skeleton changed his grip with a wrestler's quickness and began to squeeze Del's hand in his. 'Little girl, ' he muttered. 'Trying to hide from me, aren't you, little girl? ' Ridpath did his best to break the bones in Del's hand.

Tom lunged at Skeleton's wrist.

Skeleton jerked his hand aloft, nearly lifting Del off the floor. Then he looked at Tom in fury and despair and still with that sick gladness and swung his arm down hard into the side of the punch bowl. At the last second he released his fingers and used his palm to smack Del's hand against the heavy bowl.

Del screamed. The bowl shattered, and purple-brownish liquid gouted into the air. The two boys were instantly soaked, Skeleton less so because he had jumped back immediately after the impact; Del half-fell into the mess on the table.

'I want to know, ' Skeleton said, and ran out through the hall door.

When the rest of us came back into the auditorium, after seeing a red speck drift far above Over the field house, Tom and Del were mopping the floor. Del's hand, not broken, bled in a straight line across his knuckles: his face stricken, he wielded the mop with one hand while awkwardly holding his torn hand out from his side, letting it bleed into a bucket.

'Jeez, you monkeys are clumsy, ' Mr. Robbin said, and ordered his wife to get cotton and tape from the first-aid box in the office.

Night

'But why not tell me? I'm your best friend. '

'There's nothing to tell. '

'But I bet I know who it is already. '

'Dandy. '

'What's the big mystery? '

'Don't ask me, ask Skeleton. I don't even know what he's talking about. '

Alis Volat

The next weekend we had an away game at Ventnor Prep, which was just over a hundred miles to the north, in a suburb even more affluent than our own, and was indisputably a first-rate school: unlike Carson, Ventnor was known all over the Southwest. It was the only school for three states around with a crew team. They also had a fencing squad and a rugby team. We thought of Ventnor as a school for intolerable snobs. It owned a famous collection of antique porcelain and glassware which was supposed to exert a refining influence on the students there.

The bus ride took two and a half hours, and when we arrived we were soon given refreshment — presumably we needed Cokes and watercress sandwiches to toughen us up for the game. Members of the Ventnor Mothers' Committee served the waferlike sandwiches in a reception room that appeared to have been modeled on Laker Broome's office. This was a 'pregame mixer, ' to be followed by a 'postgame tea, ' but there was no mixing. The Ventnor boys clustered on one side of the reception room, we on the other.

Skeleton Ridpath spoke to no one on the way down and in the reception room drank five or six glasses of Coke and prowled around looking at the ornaments on the shelves. These were a display of some of the famous antiques, but Skeleton remained unrefined. He grinned whenever he looked at Del. He looked ghastly, ready for a hospital bed.

Del's hand was still bandaged, and the white gauze flashed like a lamp against his olive skin. He wore a tailored blue blazer, a white shirt, a blue-and-red-striped tie. In this sober outfit he somehow appeared prematurely sophisticated. The dazzling whiteness of new gauze against his skin was dashing as a medal — romantic as an eyepatch. He suddenly appeared to already — novelizing me in the role of one destined to be famous.

Mr. Ridpath coughed into his hand, said, 'Well, boys, ' and began to herd us toward the locker room.

Once again, both games ended in disaster. The JV's lost by three touchdowns; the varsity made a touchdown in the first quarter, but the Ventnor quarterback snapped off two passes which brought them ahead, and in the second half a fullback named Creech recovered a fumble and ran thirty yards. After that our defense fell to bits. Ventnor simply marched down the field every time they had the ball. 'This place is so rich they buy athletes, ' Chip Hogan told me as we filed out of the stands to walk across several hundred yards of manicured field to return to the reception room and the tea. 'Did you see those two huge guys in the line. . . and that enormous fullback? I know those guys from the city. They get scholarships and living allowances, and uniform allowances. They even get a training table at meals. Nobody stuffs them full of veal birds. ' He gritted his teeth. 'See you at the shitty tea, ' he said, and began to run because he could not bear to move more slowly.

At the bottom of the stands, I could go either the way Chip was running, directly across the football field and over a hill to the main building, or along a path which followed the landscaped contours of the grounds and trailed up and down the little rises past the artificial lake. About half my class was visible on this path, too embarrassed by our failure to want to appear at the tea before they had to. I turned away from the school buildings and went down the path toward my friends.

'Jesus, I don't want any of their tea, ' Bobby Hollingsworth said after I had caught up with them.

'We don't have any choice, really, ' said Morris. 'But to tell you the truth, I'd rather lie down here and go to sleep. '

'Maybe we'll have some fun on the bus going home, ' Tom suggested.

'With Ridpath on the bus? Get serious. ' Bobby jammed his hands in his pockets and ostentatiously surveyed the grounds. 'Can you believe this place? Have you ever seen anything more nouveau riche? It makes me sick. '

'I think it's kind of pretty, ' Del said.

'Well, shit, Florence, why don't you buy it? ' Bobby flamed out. 'Give it to somebody for Christmas. '

'Don't jump down his throat, ' Tom said. 'You're just mad because we lost again. '

'I guess, ' Bobby said. Of course he would not apologize. 'I suppose you like losing. Lose a game, horse around on the bus. Right? Get your jollies. Why not get Florence to buy the bus, then we could kick Ridpath off. Jesus. '

Del had begun to look extremely uncomfortable, and said something about getting cold. He obviously intended that all of us start walking again and join the team in the reception room.

From where we stood, backed by the big trees shielding the lake, we could see across all of the school's grounds to the gymnasium and the other buildings. Most of the varsity players had showered and changed and were walking in small slow-moving groups toward the administration building. It was too dark and they were too far away for us to really see their faces, but we could identify them by their various gaits and postures. Miles Teagarden and Terry Peters slouched along between the two buildings. Teagarden, who had fumbled, was bent over so far he appeared to be policing the grass. 'Ugh, ' Tom said when Skeleton Ridpath lounged through the door of the gym — his was a figure no one could mistake. Skeleton ambled toward the rear door of the administration building. Defeat held no embarrassment for him.

Then I heard Del, already six or seven feet ahead of us, moan softly: just as if he'd been lightly punched in the gut. The man in the Foreign Intrigue costume was walking, very erect and unselfconsciously, down into one of the sculptured hollows between ourselves and the school. His back toward us, he was moving toward the grandstand and football field. Around him the darkening air was granular, pointillistic. The brim of his hat pulled down, the belt of his coat dangling, the ends swinging.

'Let's move it, Del, ' Tom said.

But Del stood frozen in position, and so all of us watched the man receding into the hollow.

'The janitor works late around here, ' said Bobby Hollingsworth. 'I hope he breaks his neck. '

Del held his bandaged hand chest-high, as if flashing a signal or warding off a blow.

'I don't see the point of watching the janitor, ' Morris Fielding said. 'I'm getting cold too. '

'No, he's a Ventnor parent, ' said Bob Sherman. 'Those coats cost about two hundred bucks. '

'See you there, ' Morris said, and resolutely turned his back and set off down the path.

'Two hundred bucks for a coat, ' Sherman mused.

By now all of us were watching the retreating figure as if mesmerized. The ends of his wide belt swung, the tails of the coat billowed. The dark air glimmered around him and seemed to melt into his clothing. For the second time that day, I fantasized that I was seeing not an ordinary mortal but a figure from the world of Romance.

He disappeared around the side of the grandstand.

'Oh, let's move, ' Tom said. 'Maybe we can catch up with Morris. '

More than a hundred yards away, Skeleton Ridpath let out a wild shriek — a sound not of terror but of some terrible consummation. I looked over at him and saw his gaunt arms flung up above his head, his body twitching in a grotesque jig. He was positively dancing. Then I faintly heard the beating of wings, and glanced back over my shoulder to see a huge bird lifting itself up over the grandstand.

'Yeah, let's go, ' Del said in an utterly toneless voice. He yanked at Tom's arm and pulled him down the path in the direction Morris Fielding had gone.

One more event of that day must be recorded. When we joined the tea, the reception room was much more crowded than it had been during the mixer. Ventnor fathers leaned patronizingly toward men in wrinkled gabardine jackets who were surely Ventnor leathers, Ventnor mothers poured lemon tea from the Ventnor silver to other Ventnor mothers. They all looked understandably smug. I was given a cup of the delicate tea by a woman with the elastic, self-aware beauty of a model and went to stand beside Dave Brick. He too had never left the bench. 'I just worked it out, ' Brick said, flipping his slide rule into its holster. 'Two-point-three-six of our school would fit into what they've got here. I'm talking about land mass. ' 'Terrific, ' I said. Skeleton Ridpath drifted past holding a cup of tea in a swimming saucer. He looked crazy enough to levitate. Brick and I backed away, but Skeleton was not paying attention to us. He went a few paces toward one wall, then moonily shifted off at an angle. His mousy hair was still slicked down from the shower. I saw Ventnor parents stare at him, then look quickly away. Skeleton drifted up to the shelves of things where he had browsed before the games. Dave Brick and I, not believing, saw him lift a small glass object from a shelf and slide it in his pocket.

Tom's Room

Here there were no star charts, skulls, exotic fish; no photographs of magicians, only of Tom and his father on horseback, sitting in a rowboat with fishing poles, toting shotguns across a Montana field. The only other, picture was a reproduction of one of the Blue Period Picasso's sad-faced acrobats. One side of the room held a built-in desk and a rank of shelves: after returning from Ventnor, both boys had eaten dinner with Tom's parents and then gone into the bedroom to study.

At ten-thirty Del said his eyes hurt and closed his books and flopped down onto the guest bed.

'You're going to flunk, math. '

'I don't care. ' He burrowed deeper into the white pillowcase. 'I'm not like Dave Brick. '

'Well, if you don't care, then I don't either. But the exams start on Wednesday. ' Tom looked interrogatively over his shoulder, but his friend's small form still lay face down on the guest bed. Suffering seemed to come from him in waves; for a second this emotion pouring from his friend confused itself in Tom's mind with bereavement, and he thought that he would be unable to keep from crying. Hartley Flanagan had gone through dinner like a man concentrating on a mountain several miles off. There had been another long session with his doctor that afternoon. All Tom's instincts told him that soon his mother or his father would say that they had to have a long talk: after the talk, nothing would remain unchanged. Tom stared at the wall before him, almost seeing his own face looking back from the cream-painted plaster, a face about to record an alteration, a shock; he saw himself ten, twenty years hence, as isolated as Skeleton Ridpath.

As isolated as Del — that suddenly came to him.

He turned around, pushing his books back with his elbows. 'Don't you think you ought to talk about it? '

Del relaxed slightly. 'I don't know. '

'I damn near bit my tongue in half on the bus, but I knew you wouldn't want to talk there. '

Del shook his head.

'And we couldn't talk during dinner. '

'No. ' He rolled over and looked up at Tom.

'Well, we've been sitting in here for three hours. You read some of those pages four times. You look terrible. I'm so tired I could drop off right here. Isn't it about time? '

'Time for what? '

'For you to tell me about that guy. '

'I don't know anything about him, so I can't. '

'Come off it. That can't be true. '

'It is true. Why do you think I'd know anything about him? ' Del brought up his knees and dropped his head onto them. To Tom he looked as though he were decreasing in size, knotting himself up into a disappearing bundle.

'Because. . . ' Tom plunged on, now unsure of himself. 'Because I think it was that guy you talk about all the time. Your uncle. '

'Can't be. ' Del was still huddling into himself.

'You say. '

Del looked up. 'You want to talk about my Uncle Cole? Okay. He's in New England. I know he's in New England. He's studying. '

'Studying magic? '

'Sure. Why not? That's what he does. And that's where he is. Why didn't you know? Because you never asked. Because you never seemed that interested before. ' His face trembled.

'Hey, Del. . . ' Now Tom was in a morass. 'I didn't. . . I didn't know what. . . ' I didn't know what you would tell me. And from that first day, heard Bud Copeland's warning: Take care, Red. 'Well, sure, I was interested, ' he lamely said.

'Yeah, you and Skeleton. ' Del dropped his head onto his knees again. 'Everything's changing, ' he said in a muffled voice.

'Well. . . ? '

'Just changing. I think everything should always be the same. Then you'd always know. . . '

Where you were. What was going to happen.

Del lowered his legs and sat absolutely upright on the bed. 'I get this feeling, ' he said. He was as rigid as an Indian on a bed of nails. 'Did you ever read Frankenstein or The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym? No? I get this feeling I'm headed toward something like the end of those books — ice all around, everything all white, freezing or boiling, it doesn't matter, no. . . towers of ice. No way out — nothing. Just towers of ice. And something real bad coming. . . . '

'Sure, ' Tom said. 'And then a prince will come along and say the magic words and three ravens will give you the magic tokens and a fish will carry you on his back. ' He tried to smile.

'No. Like what Mr. Thorpe says if someone can't answer a question. Hic vigilans somniat. He dreams awake. That's how I am. Like I'm dreaming, not living. I don't believe anything that's happening to me. How would you like to try living with Tim and Valerie Hillman? '

'I didn't think. . . '

'You're right. That's not what we were talking about. '

'Okay. So let's go back to the towers of ice and the prince and the three ravens and the magic fish. '

'By all means, let us leave the Hillmans behind. I have an idea. '

'It's about time. '

'You were talking about rescue. Prince — ravens — that stuff. '

'I guess. Sure. I guess. '

'Why don't you come to visit Cole Collins with me over Christmas? I'm supposed to go see him. Come with me. Then you could meet him. '

Tom felt an extraordinary mix of emotions, fear and pleasure and dread and anticipation, protectiveness and weakness: He looked at Del, and wanted to embrace him. He saw Del all alone in an Arctic landscape. Then he thought of his father and said, 'I can't. I just can't. I'm sorry. '

It took him a second to realize that Del was crying.

'Sometime I will. I will, Del. Jesus, stop that. Let's do some card tricks or something — that shuffle you were showing me. '

'I don't have to be awake to shuffle cards, ' Del said. 'Whatever you want, Master. '

TWO

The Magic Show

On the Monday before the nine-week exams, Laker Broome announced frigidly in chapel that an eighteenth-century glass owl had been stolen from the refectory room at Ventnor School, and that the Ventnor headmaster had told him that the theft must have occurred during the afternoon of our football game. 'Mr. Dunmoore is a tactful man, and he did riot directly accuse our school of harboring the thief, but there are certain inescapable facts. The Ventnor collection is regularly dusted. Last Saturday the pieces on open shelves were dusted by the school housekeeper at eleven-fifteen, shortly before our arrival at the school. They were doing their best to give us a good impression of Ventnor, gentlemen. After our departure it was noticed that the piece was missing, and the matter was immediately reported to Mr. Dunmoore. It represents a serious loss, not only because the piece in question is valued at something like twelve hundred dollars, but because its theft renders the collection incomplete. Therefore, the value of the entire Ventnor collection is affected. And that is a matter of several hundred thousand dollars. '

Mr. Broome whipped his glasses from his head and took a step back from the lectern. 'It is also a matter of the honor of this school, which is beyond any value. I do not wish to believe that any of our boys would do anything so disgraceful, but I am forced to believe it. It is abhorrent to me, but I must accept that looking at me this moment is the boy who stole that owl. Ventnor is a boarding school. Over the weekend, extensive searches were undertaken in the quarters of both students and staff — not a single person at the school failed to cooperate. So you see where that puts us, gentlemen. '

The glasses went back on the taut face. 'We have only a few boys at this school capable of such a disgusting act, , and we know who they are. We believe we know the identity of the thief. I want him to come forward. I want the boy to identify himself to me personally sometime during the school day. Things will go much easier for him if he voluntarily accepts the responsibilities for his actions. If the boy has the courage to confess his deed, we will be able to limit his punishment to expulsion. Otherwise, more serious measures will be called for. '

Mr. Broome inclined his head to look directly at us in the first two rows. He stared almost pugnaciously at Dave Brick, then at Bob Sherman, then at Del Nightingale. 'I promise you, ' he said, 'that the culprit will be found out. Dismissed. '

As we filed out, Dave Brick bulked up beside me. He grabbed my elbow. 'He thinks I did it! '

'Quiet, ' I said.

'What do we do? '

I knew what he meant. We both turned to look for Skeleton Ridpath, and saw him slouching out of the seniors' row, hands in pockets, smiling faintly. We were both too afraid of him to report what we had seen. We went up the stairs in silence.

'But they must know, ' Dave moaned. 'He's the only one who. . . '

We had reached the door of Thorpe's classroom, and Dave Brick exhaled loudly, a sound of pure despair. His skin had suddenly gone white and oily — terror made him look like a thief.

Inside, Mr. Thorpe began to shout almost at once. Of the tirade I can remember only a few words, one of the Latin tags which peppered his classroom rejoinders. Mala causa est quae requirit misercordiam. It is a bad cause which asks for mercy. Ostensibly he was speaking of the exams in two days, but all of us knew that he meant the theft as well. Several times he used the word 'vermin. ' It was a harrowing session, and it left all of us shaken.

As we left Thorpe's classroom to go to our lockers, I looked down across the glassed-in court and saw Skeleton sneaking out through the big doors at the back of the stage. Damn you, I thought, damn you, damn you, damn you. Do us all a favor and flunk out.

One the Monday the exam grades were posted outside the library, I shoved my way up to the board with the freshman list. I read down it to find my name, and saw that I had more or less the same grades as my rivals. We could hear the seniors shouting and groaning before their own board.

Mrs. Tute struggled through us to get to the library door, muttering, 'Heavens! Heavens! ' Her palsied head looked pained and angry — all of the staff had looked irritated since the theft at Ventnor.

Back at the Upper School after lunch, I saw that only Hollis Wax was standing before the seniors' grade list, and I crossed the hall and stood beside him. 'You never gave me those gin-and-tonics, ' he said. 'Freshman labor is unreliable this year. ' 'Yes, sir, ' I answered, and searched out Ridpath, S., hoping for a row of F's. When I found his name I was amazed to see that he had three A's and two B's. Hollis Wax had nothing better than a C. 'Nosy maggot, ' he said, and dropped his books on the floor. I picked them up and did ten push-ups and tied his shoes.

Dave Brick had been summoned to Laker Broome's office. The note was delivered to Mr. Thorpe's class in the hands of Mrs. Olinger, who looked as bruising and chill as an iceberg: even Mr. Thorpe submitted quietly to her presence. He unfolded the note, looked both stern and pleased, and said, 'Brick, see the headmaster. ' Poor Brick the Prick shuffled his books into his briefcase and trembled toward the door. He'd had a particularly brutal haircut just before the exams, and on his cannonball head all the visible flesh turned bright pink. After that he was not seen for the rest of the morning. His frightened ghost seemed to wail from his empty desks during the two remaining classes before lunch.

'Actually, it's neat, ' Sherman told me. 'This way, Snake proves that he runs a taut ship, and everybody else is off the hook. '

Brick's absence from classes and later from his table at lunch affected the teachers much as it did Sherman. They were more relaxed; and most of us, seeing their new ease, realized with a little shock that the staff had also decided that Brick was the thief. I decided that if Brick had been expelled, I would see Mr. Fitz-Hallan privately and tell him what I knew.

But Brick was sitting on the stone back steps of the Upper School as we came up from lunch, and he saw us and stopped tapping his slide-rule case against the concrete. The five or six of us walking together stalled for a moment, unsure of how to treat him. But then we realized that he would not still be at the school if Broome had expelled him during the first period, and we surged forward, full of questions.

He did not want to answer most of them. 'Hey, guys, all he wanted was just to talk to me — honest. That's all he wanted. ' Close up, it was obvious that he had been crying, but he said nothing about it and we were too embarrassed to ask; though I saw Bobby Hollingsworth revving himself up to say something truly vile, he had the sense to check it before someone punched him. Dave Brick had been given the complete Lake-the-Snake treatment, and he had not deserved it and he had come through it well; at that moment he had more goodwill than he'd ever known at Carson.