On the way home from school, Chauncey beat him up. Nat went by on the other side of the street, pretending not to notice.
‘Look, a deal’s a deal, okay? I always help you, so—’
‘Yeah only we’ll be late to school. I mean sure I wanted to help you only I hadda get home early. My ma gets real mad—’
‘A deal’s a deal. Blood and oil and you never helped me once. Cripes some blood-oil brother you turned out to be. If you don’t look out I’ll delete you.’
‘Yeah? You’re not so tough — what’s delete?’
‘Like I take your name off the files, like the school don’t even know your name, how’d you like that?’
Nat picked up a twig and pretended to smoke it, blowing out steam in the cold air. ‘How come you can do that? You’re just kidding.’
‘No really, Mr Fest gave me this program, it’s supposed to be all about the guy who wrote the flag see, this Francis somebody—’
‘That’s a girl’s name! Anyway nobody writes flags, you’re just dumb.’
‘I don’t care, it’s what he said, and it’s not, it’s all about us it’s like files see, like it’s got your name and your picture and what grade you’re in, and like mine says I got the shits—’
‘Ha ha. Ricky’s got the shee-its, Ricky’s got—’
‘That’s all you know, I deleted that. I can delete stuff all over the place, I can do anything I want with anybody’s file. So you better come across on our deal, that’s all.’
‘Hey look, there’s Chaunce and Billy — and they got can-opners!’ Nat began to run. ‘I’m gonna be late, see you.’
The electric can-openers were nothing against the invincible strength of the
‘You just wait till recess, boy. I’ll fix you.’
But at recess Chauncey and Billy had a couple of friends, one of whom was Nat. They followed him all over the school playground, telling everyone how he shit his pants, until the enraged man of steel turned on them and lashed out with:
‘Okay that’s it, you’ve had it, boy, I’m gonna fix your files.’
He hurried back to the janitor’s closet and flicked on the machine. ‘Bangfield, Chauncey,’ became ‘Bangfield, Piggy Dirty Bastard,’ and the accompanying picture, through the magic of a light pen, developed missing teeth, a bandit moustache and glasses. Under ‘Comments’ he listed every mean thing he could remember (or invent) and then went on to deal likewise with Nat, Billy, all his enemies… and what the heck, why not get old Pesty Festy while he was at it?
On Friday afternoon suddenly old Pesty ripped open the door. ‘Gotcha! Red-handed! And don’t try to bullshit me, son, that ain’t American history on that screen is it? IS IT?’ He grabbed Roderick’s neck and forced his face close to the screen which read: ‘Call allfile faculty allfile pupil delete…’
‘Well no it’s—’
‘Shut it off, just shut it off NOW! MOVE!’ But as Roderick moved, he said: ‘Wait, don’t touch it. Do it myself, I’m not gonna trust a little bastard like you to do any more dam—’
‘Yeah but if you… no if you push that STOP button it doesn’t stop it, not in this mode, it—’
‘Shuttup you. There.’
‘Yeah but it just means you finished the command, now it’s gonna delete all—’
‘Shut. Up. And come with me. Buddy, you’re up shit creek and I got the lawnmower — think you can fuck around with my pay check do you?’
‘Your pay—?’ For the first time, Roderick began to understand that the ‘files’ were not just stuff in the machine. Fest was waving a blue piece of paper at him. He had forgotten the latest name until he saw it:
There were other teachers in Miss Borden’s office; they could hardly squeeze in the door. Fest hoisted him up and set him on the desk.
‘I wondered what in the world,’ said Ms Russo through her teeth. ‘When I went to call the roll, here were all these names, Pig Bottom and Horse Dork, but I mean they were printed right out on the magnetic cards so I — I just called them.’
Mrs Dorano said, ‘Well I certainly did not, and I’m keeping my cards as evidence! No child ever thought up all by himself such filth, such—’
Mr Goun shook his head hard, as though trying to straighten the drooping moustache. ‘Poor kid, he’s really twisted, I mean the isolationizing factor must’ve catalyzed something—’
Miss Borden took hold of Roderick’s claws and looked into his eyes. ‘How could you? How could you? The files, the files are — well I mean they’re
Roderick looked down at it. There was his picture, with a smile added to the face and big muscles to the arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was just — I didn’t know — heck — it was gonna go in print and all — I’m sorry.’
‘We’ll have to expel the boy of course,’ she said.
‘Expel him? I’d like to break every—’
‘That will do, Captain. The main thing is, we’ve got to keep this quiet. Dr Froid and the county board are already breathing down our necks, and wouldn’t the papers just love something like this? So we can’t even call the expelling expelling, we’ll have to recommend a transfer on account of his handicap, something like that. As for the files—’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Roderick. ‘They’re all fixed up now.’
‘Fixed—?’
‘Just now. Everything’s deleted. All the files.’
Miss Borden looked around her office at the stacks of forms, pink, green, pale green, buff, blue, yellow, gold, white, lavender — at lavender she began to grind her teeth.
Louie Honk-Honk was pouting. ‘It’s not so cold.’
‘Louie it
‘Nope! Your folks would just get mad.’
‘No they wouldn’t, they—’
‘They would so! They would so!’
‘Okay then, your house?’
‘Yeah okay. But look, we’ll just have to call it off for the winter. When it’s warmer—’
Louie stamped his enormous foot. ‘But you — you didn’t even
Roderick held up the paperback.
‘Just some of it, huh Roddy? Some of it?’
‘Okay here’s the title, now what’s this word?’
‘Dee. Eye. Eee.
‘Good, you got that easy.’
‘Hey the next is
Louie managed to sound out the hard word
