Nat walked him home from school. ‘I feel safer,’ he explained. ‘Not that I’m really afraid of Chauncey and his gang but heck, two of us got a lot better chance than one, right?’
‘Right.’ said Roderick. ‘I was just wondering you know, how come I read all right at home only at school everything goes wrong?’
‘Yeah? Hey, we could become blood brothers, pledge ourselves to fight to the death, back to back in case Chaun—’
‘Look, I ain’t got any blood.’
‘We could use oil then, you got oil.’
So Roderick tapped a few drops of hydraulic fluid and Nat took a drop of blood from his thumb, and they mixed them.
‘We both swear, right? To defend ourselfs against anybody even Chaunce, we swear on my blood and your oil. Brothers.’
‘Brothers.’
‘To the death.’
‘To the death.’ Roderick walked him to his door. ‘See you tomorrow ’
‘Not tomorrow, hey remember? We got the day off on account of Miz Beek drowning herself in the swimming pool.’
‘See you the day after, then. Brother.’
‘Okay brother.’
‘Settle down, all of you,’ said the principal. ‘I’m not even going to start until you’re quiet. What’s more, no one goes home until we finish here, understood?’
They shifted uneasily, and one or two who had been glancing through the pages of
‘That’s better. Now you all know why I’ve called this special meeting. But in case anyone hasn’t seen today’s
Following the alleged suicide of a teacher at Newer Public School (Stubbs Cty) come rumours of serious mental disturbances among the pupils. Teachers have confirmed that at least one boy thinks he is a mechanical robot.
The boy, Robert Wool, ‘acts just like a little machine,’ according to second-grade teacher Mrs Delia Dorano. He believes he has mechanical grappling hooks for hands, and tank tracks in place of feet. ‘Robert doesn’t even answer to his name,’ she said. ‘No wonder, what with the constant harping on sex and filth everywhere you look. We must protect our children from the sex-merchants of the state educational system.’
‘George George, school psychologist, blamed the computerizing of modern society, including our schools. ‘We have teaching machines, testing machines, magnetic report cards,’ he said. ‘Where do we stop?’ According to another source, books in the school library have been keypunched on to IBM cards which are unreadable. Said George, ‘It’s getting like Brig Bother around here.’ Mr George is the brother of Hal George, prominent hog auctioneer.
Newer Junior High, like Newer P.S., has had its share of tragedies. Last year Beanie Vulich, 16, became the first tragic victim of the school’s ‘Russian roulette club’, whose members made use of a school computer to select a duelling pistol at random from a number…
‘It goes on,’ she said, ‘to mention drugs sold openly in the eighth-grade washroom, thefts and vandalism, and a security man with a drink problem. Any comments?’
Ogilvy was the first to speak. ‘Not fair,’ he said. ‘Buncha lies and distortions. Like sure I take a drink now and then, but they make it sound like I spend all day lying in an alley somewheres with a bottle of Tokay in a paper bag.’
‘What really bothers me,’ said Miss Borden, ‘is the way certain people are using this tragic suicide as an excuse to whine about their own pet peeves.’ She looked at Mrs Dorano. ‘Certain people are going to be sorry they ever opened their big—’
‘The truth will out,’ said Mrs Dorano. ‘You can’t suppress—’
Mr Goun jumped to his feet. ‘Suppress, who the hell are you to talk about—?’
At the same time Mr George said, ‘How did I know they were going to print it that way? I didn’t think you’d take my criticism in a personalized way, rather than in a societally—’
‘Filth and corruption driving that young woman to—’
Captain Fest said, ‘Self-discipline, a hard line, lest we forget, moulding Americans, shaping the future —’
‘—nothing but plain murder, no better than abor—’
‘—catalyzing factors—’
‘—easy way out, no backbone, no self-discip—’
‘—building a bridge—’
‘
‘Fix? Fix? You talk as if they were a bunch of machines! What do you suggest, I get out the old tool-kit and maybe tighten up a few loose screws here and there?’
Mrs Dorano clapped her hands over her ears. ‘I won’t listen to that filth — I won’t!’
Captain Fest muttered, ‘Like to fix that little Robert whatsis-name myself. Hear he refuses to pledge allegiance to his country’s flag. You give him to me for a week, I’ll knock the robot crap out of him.’
George turned on him. ‘Knock the crap out of him, all you can think of, right? If you had the slightest understanding Look, what you ought to be doing is using his problem, making it work for us, for him. I mean, if he thinks he’s a robot maybe he should be on a teaching machine or—’
‘Good idea,’ said Miss Borden. ‘That’s it, then. Captain, you take charge of this boy and set up a teaching machine program.’ She checked something off on a form. ‘What 1 like to see, people forgetting their little individual differences and all pulling together. So much for one child’s problem. Now how about some of these bigger issues? Dope-pushing, theft, vandalism — any suggestions?’
One of the younger teachers murmured something and Miss Borden took it up. ‘Did you say bridge-building, Ms Russo? That’s the first sensible suggestion I’ve heard so far. Isn’t that our job, after all, building bridges? Reaching out—’
Ms Russo blushed. ‘No, what I shaid was—’
‘—reaching out to isolated, disadvantaged children who—’
‘I shaid I hope thish doesn’t take long becaushe I’ve got a dental appointment.’
‘Dental appointment. I see.’
‘Yah, to have a bridge rebuilt. Shee, what happened was that little bash — that Chaunshy Bangfield hit me in the mouth with a trophy. I was making him voluntarily return it.’
Someone muttered, ‘He reached out to her all right, the little disadvantaged—’
‘Any more suggestions?’
Goun spoke of actualizing the problem within a contextual framework of structured situations ranging from verbal correctives to dis-enrolment. In such an intra-systemic…
The digital clock wiped away another minute, and another.
Pa waved a plate of brass shaped like half a violin. ‘Son, what I’m trying to do here is make me a timepiece, but one that keeps real time. Human time. Like when you’re concentrating hard on one thing and it seems like only a minute goes by, why should you have clocks showing you an hour?’ He laid the brass plate on his bench and started hammering. ‘Other. Times. You wait. For some. Thing to. Happen. Like the. Sunrise. When you. Can’tsleep. You think. One. Hour. Goes by. But ord. Inary clocks. Say one. Minute!’ The coughing fit would not pass; Pa had to
