'Are you five feet tall, Owen?' Dan asked him.
'Since when do you weigh a hundred pounds?' I said.
'I'VE BEEN EATING A LOT OF BANANAS, AND ICE CREAM,' said Owen Meany, 'AND WHEN THEY MEASURED ME, I TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND STOOD ON MY TOES!'
Well, it was only proper to congratulate him; he was quite pleased with arranging his college 'scholarship' in his own way. And, at the time, it appeared that he had defeated Randy White completely. Back then, neither Dan nor I knew about his ' 'dream''; I think we might have been a little worried about his involvement with the U.S. Army if we'd had that dream described to us. And that February morning, when the Rev. Lewis Merrill entered The Great Hall and stared with such horror at the decapitated and amputated Mary Magdalene, Dan Needham and I weren't thinking very far into the future; we were worried only that the Rev. Mr. Merrill might be too terrified to deliver his prayer-that the condition of Mary Magdalene might seize hold of his normally slight stutter and render him incomprehensible. He stood at the foot of the stage, staring up at her-for a long moment, he even forgot to remove his Navy pea jacket and his seaman's watch cap; and since Congrega-tionalists don't always wear the clerical collar, the Rev. Lewis Merrill looked less like our school minister than like a drunken sailor who had finally staggered up against the incentive for his own religious conversion. The Rev. Mr. Merrill was standing there, thus stricken, when the headmaster arrived in The Great Hall. If Randy White was surprised to see so many faculty faces at morning meeting, it did not alter his usual aggressive stride; he took the stairs up to the stage at his usual two-at-a-time pace. And the headmaster did not flinch-or even appear the slightest surprised-to see someone already standing at the podium. The Rev. Lewis Merrill often announced the opening hymn; Pastor Merrill often followed the opening hymn with his prayer. Then the headmaster would make his remarks-he also told us the page number for the closing hymn; and that would be that. It took the headmaster a few seconds to recognize Mr. Merrill, who was standing at the foot of the stage in his pea jacket and wearing his watch cap and gawking at the figure who beseeched us from the podium. Our headmaster was a man who was used to taking charge-he was used to making decisions, our Randy White. When he saw the monstrosity at the podium, he did the first and most headmasterly thing that came into his mind; he strode up to the saint and seized her around her modest robes-he grabbed her around her waist and attempted to lift her. I don't think he took any notice of the steel bands girdling her hips, or the four-inch bolts that penetrated her feet and were welded to their respective nuts under the stage. I suppose his back was still a trifle sore from his impressive effort with Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen; but the headmaster didn't pay any attention to his back, either. He simply seized Mary Magdalene around her middle; he gave a grunt-and nothing happened. Mary Magdalene, and all that she represented, was not as easy to throw around as a Volkswagen.
'I suppose you think this is funny ' the headmaster said to the assembled school; but nobody was laughing. 'Well, I'll tell you what this is,' said Randy White. 'This is a crime,' he said. 'This is vandalism, this is theft-and desecration! This is willful abuse of personal, even sacred property.'
One of the students yelled. 'What's the hymn?' the student yelled.
'What did you say?' Randy White said.
'Tell us the number of the hymn!' someone shouted.
'What's the hymnT' said a few more students-in unison. I had not seen the Rev. Mr. Merrill climb-I suppose, shakily-to the stage; when I noticed him, he was standing beside the martyred Mary Magdalene. 'The hymn is on page three-eighty-eight,' Pastor Merrill said clearly. The headmaster spoke sharply to him, but we couldn't hear what the headmaster said-there was too much creaking of benches and bumping of hymnals as we rose to sing. I don't know what influenced Mr. Merrill's choice of the hymn. If Owen had told me about his dream, I might have found the hymn especially ominous; but as it was, it was simply familiar-a frequent choice, probably because it was victorious in tone, and squarely in that category of 'pilgrimage and conflict,' which is often so inspiring to young men. The Son of God goes forth to war, A king-ly crown to gain; His blood-red ban-ner streams a-far; Who follows in his train? Who best can drink his cup of woe, Tri-um-phant o-ver pain, Who pa-tient bears his cross be-low, He fol-lows in his train.
It was a hymn that Owen liked, and we belted it out; we sang much more heartily-much more defiantly-than usual. The headmaster had nowhere to stand; he occupied the center stage- but with nothing to stand behind, he looked exposed and unsure of himself. As we roared out the hymn, the Rev. Lewis Merrill appeared to gain in confidence-and even in stature. Although he didn't look exactly comfortable beside the headless Mary Magdalene, he stood so close to her that the podium light shone on him, too. When we finished the hymn, the Rev. Mr. Merrill said: 'Let us pray. Let us pray for Owen Meany,' he said. It was very quiet in The Great Hall, and although our heads were bowed, our eyes were on the headmaster. We waited for Mr. Merrill to begin. Perhaps he was trying to begin, I thought; then I realized that-awkward as ever-he had meant for us to pray for Owen. What he'd meant was that we were to offer our silent prayers for Owen Meany; and as the silence went on, and on, it became clear that the Rev. Lewis Merrill had no intention of hurrying us. He was not a brave man, I thought; but he was trying to be brave. On and on, we prayed and prayed; and if I had known about Owen's dream, I would have prayed much harder. Suddenly, the headmaster said, 'That's enough.'
'I'ms-s-s-sorry,' Mr. Merrill stuttered, 'but/'M say when it's 'enough.' '
I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost; he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed; and we kept praying. Even as
