Pratt-shoved the bottle into his hand on the way down the stairs. His face hurt as he talked, and he kept touching the side of his face to be sure it hadn't bloated. His father saw the situation, sympathized for the injury, but refused the whole pardon while relenting to the degree that he supposed Brian was capable of such a trick.
'I didn't say it was him.' Don had retreated, suddenly fearful his father would call the boy in and unknowingly start a war. 'I just think it was.'
Norman seemed doubting, and Don didn't understand. In all his life he'd never done anything like that; he had been told often enough that he was neither to take advantage of his position-whatever that was-nor pretend he was only one of the boys. He wasn't. He was, by fate, special, with special problems to handle. And Norman expected more of him than to have it end up like this.
'End up like what?' He sprang to his feet and approached the desk. 'Dad, why don't you listen to me? I didn't do it!'
Norman stared and said nothing.
'All right, I left the nurse's office when I shouldn't have, I guess, and I wrote out my own pass. All right, that's wrong. Okay. But I did not throw that crap in Mr. Hedley's room!'
'Donald,' his father said in perfect control, 'I will not have you speak to me that way, especially not in here.'
'Oh, Jesus.' And he turned away.
'And you will not swear at me. Ever.'
Don surrendered. Suspended between belief and suspicion, bullied off the subject by time-worn and weary pronouncements, he surrendered, he didn't care, and he didn't argue when he was given six days detention, beginning the next day.
'You should count yourself lucky,' Norman said as he escorted him out the door just as the last bell rang. 'Most other kids would have been suspended.'
'Then suspend me!' he said, surprised to hear himself on the verge of begging. 'Please, suspend me.'
'Don't be smart, son, or I will.'
Don pulled away from the hand that guided him around the counter, ignored the curious looks the five secretaries gave him. 'You don't get it,' he said as he walked out the door. 'You just don't get it.'
He fetched his books and went home. His mother wouldn't be in for at least another hour, and his father would stay at South until just before dinner. That gave him time to unload his gear and change into his jeans, fix himself a peanut butter sandwich and go for a walk.
Shortly before dark he walked into the park.
... and then the crow ...
He stopped, and cocked his head.
He could not see far beyond the lights that ringed the oval, but he was positive he had heard someone approaching out there. Listening, his hands gripping his knees, he guessed it was his mother, come to take him home and scold him and make him eat a bowl of soup or drink a cup of watery cocoa. And when the noise didn't sound again, he convinced himself it wasn't really a footstep he had heard.
He heard it again.
To his left, out there in the dark.
A single sound, sharp on the pavement, like iron striking iron as gently as it could.
Without looking away he zipped his jacket closed and stood, slowly, sidling toward the pond for an angle to let him see through the light.
Again. Sharp. Iron striking iron.
Not his mother at all; someone else.
'Hey, Jeff, that you?' he called, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Iron striking iron. Hollow.
'Jeff?'
The breeze husked, scattering leaves at his feet and making him duck away with his eyes tightly shut. The pond rippled, and a twig snapped, and something small and light scurried up a trunk.
Swallowing, and looking once toward the exit, he walked around the oval and a few steps up the path. With the light now behind him his shadow crept ahead, reaching for the next lamppost fifteen yards away. And between there and here he saw nothing that could have made the sound that he'd heard. A frown, more at his own nervousness than at the puzzle, and he walked on, cautiously, keeping to one side and wincing each time his elbow brushed against a shrub.
Iron striking iron, hollow, an echo.
He started to call again, changed his mind, and made a clumsy about-face. Whatever it was, it didn't want to be seen, and that was all right with him; more than all right, it was perfect. He hurried, shoulders hunched, cheeks burning as the wind worked earnestly to push him faster, the tips of his ears beginning to sting. His own shoes were loud, slapping back from the trees, and his shadow had grown faint, even under the lamps. He looked back only once, but all he could see was the pond reflecting the globes, freezing them in ice, turning the oval into a glaring white stage.
Iron. Striking iron.
He ran the last few yards, skidded onto the sidewalk and gaped at the traffic on the boulevard. The air was warmer, and he took a deep breath as he chided himself for being so foolish.
Then he turned to check one last time.
And heard iron striking iron, muffled and slow, and not once could he see what was back there in the dark.
Tanker cowered in the bushes, covering his face with his hands and praying that the moon would keep him hidden from whatever was walking out there in the dark.
At first it had been perfect. He had been feeling the familiar pressure all day, building in his chest and making it swell, building in his head and making it ache. He had ignored it when it started, thinking it was because he was hungry for people-food; so he had scrounged through some garbage cans, panhandled four bucks in front of the movie theater on the main street and had filled himself with hamburgers and dollar wine. But the pressure wouldn't go away, and his hands shook with anticipation when he could no longer deny it-it was going to be soon, no question about it. Maybe tonight, and that kid was going to help him.
Slowly, using every skill he had left and a few he hadn't learned from the babyfucks in the army, he had made his way through the underbrush toward the oval once he had heard the lone voice telling itself a story.
It was too good to be true, but when he peered through the bushes, he almost shouted. It was the punk from the other night, the one who had been dressed in black and talked about a giant crow. And there he was, looking like he'd just lost his best girl, and for god's sake, would you believe it, telling himself a stupid story.
It was perfect.
Then the punk turned his head sharply, and Tanker had looked back into the park.
Iron striking iron.
There was absolutely no reason for it, but the sound terrified him, loosened his bowels, poured acid into his stomach, and he couldn't help it-he whimpered softly and covered his face with his hands. Listening.
Trying to make himself invisible. Hearing the punk walk away and swearing in a cold sweat that he couldn't follow and get him.
The sound grew louder and Tanker dropped to the ground, shifted his hands to the back of his head and waited, holding his breath, listening as whatever it was moved in front of him, as if following the boy.
And stopped.
The breeze died; there was no traffic noise, no footsteps.
He swallowed and turned his head to expose one eye. Through the shrubs he could see pieces of the pavement, the dark on the other side, and nothing else. A puzzled frown. His hands sliding off his hair to press on the grass and lift him up. Slowly. Bloodshot yellowed eyes darting side to side, taking in as much of the path as they could before his head rose over the top, before his knees straightened, before his arms spread outward to balance for flight, to lunge for a fight.
But there was nothing there.
The path was empty, the punk gone, and when he pushed through to the oval and checked both directions, he realized he was alone.
