The Anything Box

'Aw shaddup! You meathead, you!' said Keeley.
There was a stricken silence in the room as everyone stared aghast atKeeley.
The substitute looked at him dispassionately. 'Keeley, come here.'
'Come and get me if you think you can!' snarled Keeley.
A horrified gasp swept the room and Angie began to sob in terror.
The substitute spoke again, something nobody caught, but the result wasunmistakable. Keeley jerked as though he had been stabbed and his eyes widenedin blank astonishment. The substitute wet his lips and spoke again, 'Comehere, Keeley.'
And Keeley came, stumbling blindly down the aisle, to spend the rest of theafternoon until Physical Ed hunched over his open book in the seat in thefront corner, face to wall.
At PE period, he stumbled out and stood lankly by the basketball court,digging a hole in the ground with the flapping sole of one worn shoe. Thecoach, knowing Keeley in such moods, passed him by with a snort ofexasperation and turned to the clamoring wildness of the rest of the boys.
When the three fifty-five bell rang, the seventh grade readied itself forhome by shoving everything into the drawers and slamming them resoundingly. Asusual, the worn one shot out the other side of the desk and it and itscontents had to be scrambled back into place before a wholly unnatural silence
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fell over the room, a silence through which could be felt almost tangibly, the
straining to be first out the door, first to the bus line, first in the
bus—just to be first.
The substitute stood quietly by his desk. 'Keeley, you will stay after
school.'
The announcement went almost unnoticed. Keeley had spent a good many half
hours after school this year with Miss Amberly sweating out page after page in
his tattered books.
Keeley sat in his own desk, his hands pressed tightly together, his heart
fluttering wildly in his throat as he listened to the receding clatter of
hurried feet across the patio. Something inside him cried. 'Wait! Wait for
me!' as the sounds died away.
The substitute came down the aisle and turned one of the desks so he could
sit facing Keeley. He ran a calculating eye over Keeley's desk.
'Not bad,' he said. 'You have done well with what materials you had. But
why here at school where everyone could see?'
Keeley gulped. 'Have you seen where I live? Couldn't keep nothing there.
Come a rain, wouldn't be no house left. Besides Aunt Mo's too dang nosey.
She'd ask questions. She know I ain't as dumb as I look. Ever body at school
thinks I'm a dope.'
'You certainly have been a stinker today,' grinned the substitute. 'Your
usual behavior?'
Keeley squirmed. 'Naw. I kinda like old lady Amberly. I was mad because I
couldn't get nothing on my radio. I thought it was busted. I didn't know you
was here.'
'Well, I am. Ready to take you with me. Our preliminary training period
shows you to be the kind of material we want.'
'Gee!' Keeley ran his tongue across his lips. 'That's swell. Where's your
ship?'
'It's down by the county dump. Just beyond the hill in back of the tin can
section. Think you can find it tonight?'
'Sure. I know that dump like my hand, but…'
'Good. We'll leave Earth tonight. Be there by dark.' The substitute stood
up. So did Keeley, slowly.
'Leave Earth?'
'Of course,' impatiently. 'You knew we weren't from Earth when we first
made contact.'
'When will I get to come back?'
'There's no reason for you to, ever. We have work geared to your
capabilities to keep you busy and happy from here on out.'
'But,' Keeley sat down slowly, 'leave Earth forever?'
'What has Earth done for you, that you should feel any ties to it?' The
substitute sat down again.
'I was born here.'
'To live like an animal in a cardboard hut that the next rain will melt
away. To wear ragged clothes and live on beans and scrap vegetables except for
free lunch at school.'
'I don't get no free lunch!' retorted Keeley, 'I work ever morning in the
Cafeteria for my lunch. I ain't no charity case.'
'But Keeley, you'll have whole clothes and good quarters and splendid food
in our training center.'
'Food and clothes ain't all there is to living.'
'No, I grant you that,' admitted the substitute. 'But the world calls you
stupid and useless. We can give you the opportunity to work to your full
capacity, to develop your mind and abilities to the level you're capable of
achieving instead of sitting day after day droning out kindergarten pap with a
roomful of stupid …'
'I won't have to do that all my life. When I get to high school. ..'
'With marks like yours? No one's going to ask you how smart you are.
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They're going to see all the 4s and 5s and all the minuses on the citizenship
side of your card and you'll never make it into high school. Besides, Keeley,
you don't need all these petty little steps. Right now, you're trained in math
and physics past college level. You'll go crazy marking time.'
'There's other stuff to learn besides them things.'
'Granted, but are you learning them? Spell because.'
'Bee—that's not important!'
'To this earth it is. What has changed you, Keeley? You were wild to go
…'
'I got to thinking,' said Keeley. 'All afternoon I been thinking. How come
you guys pick brains off of Earth? What's the matter with your world, where
ever it is? You guys ain't leveling with me somewhere.'
The substitute met Keeley's eyes. 'There's nothing sinister about us,' he
said. 'We do need brains. Our world is —different. We don't range from
imbeciles to geniuses like you do. The people are either geniuses on your
scale or just vegetables, capable of little more than keeping themselves
alive. And yet, from the vegetable ranks come the brains, but too seldom for
our present needs. We're trying to find ways to smooth out that gap between