Coslaw’s tongue crept out a bit and his teeth engaged it firmly. He gripped The Paddle with equal or greater firmness.
“Who did your assignments?”
Blaze said nothing. You didn’t tattle. All the comic-books, TV shows, and movies said the same thing. You didn’t tattle. Especially not on your only friend. And there was something else. Something that struggled for expression.
“You hadn’t ought to strop me,” he said finally.
“Oh?” Coslaw looked amazed. “Do you say so? And why is that, Mr. Blaisdell? Elucidate. I am fascinated.”
Blaze didn’t know those big words, but he knew that look. He had been seeing it his whole life.
“You don’t care nothing about teaching me. You just want to make me feel small, and hurt whoever stopped you doing it for a little while. That’s wrong. You hadn’t ought to strop me when you’re the one who’s wrong.”
The Law no longer looked amazed. Now he only looked mad. So mad a vein was pulsing right in the middle of his forehead. “Who did your assignments?”
Blaze said nothing.
“How could you answer in class? How did that part work?”
Blaze said nothing.
“Was it Cheltzman? I think it was Cheltzman.”
Blaze said nothing. His fists were clenched, trembling. Tears spilled out of his eyes, but he didn’t think they were feeling-small tears now.
Coslaw swung The Paddle and struck Blaze high up on one arm. It made a crack like a small gun. It was the first time Blaze had ever been struck by a teacher anywhere except on the ass, although sometimes, when he was littler, his ear had been twisted (and once or twice, his nose). “
“Fuck you!” Blaze cried, the nameless thing finally leaping all the way free. “Fuck you, fuck you!”
“Come here,” The Law said. His eyes were huge, bugging out. The hand holding The Paddle had gone white. “Come here, you bag of God’s trash.”
And with the nameless thing that was rage now out of him, and because he was after all a child, Blaze went.
When he walked out of The Law’s study twenty minutes later, his breath whistling raggedly in his throat and his nose bleeding — but still dry-eyed and close-mouthed — he became a Hetton House legend.
He was done with Arithmetic. During October and most of November, instead of going to Room 7, he went to Room 19 study hall. That was fine by Blaze. It was two weeks before he could lie on his back comfortably, and then that was fine, too.
One day in late November, he was once more summoned to Headmaster Coslaw’s office. Sitting there in front of the blackboard were a man and a woman of middle age. To Blaze, they looked dry. Like they might have been blown in on the late autumn wind like leaves.
The Law was seated behind his desk. His bowling shirt was nowhere to be seen. The room was cold because the window had been opened to let in the bright, thin November sun. Besides being a bowling nut, The Law was a fresh air fiend. The visiting couple did not seem to mind. The dry man was wearing a gray suit-jacket with padded shoulders and a string tie. The dry woman was wearing a plaid coat and a white blouse under it. Both had blocky, vein-ridged hands. His were callused. Hers were cracked and red.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bowie, this is the boy of whom I spoke. Take off your hat, young Blaisdell.”
Blaze took off his Red Sox cap.
Mr. Bowie looked at him critically. “He’s a big ‘un. Only eleven, you say?”
“Twelve next month. He’ll be a good help around your place.”
“He ain’t got nothin, does he?” Mrs. Bowie asked. Her voice was high and reedy. It sounded strange coming from that mammoth breast, which rose under her plaid coat like a comber at Higgins Beach. “No TB nor nothin?”
“He’s been tested,” said Coslaw. “All our boys are tested regularly. State requirement.”
“Can he chop wood, that’s what I need to know,” Mr. Bowie said. His face was thin and haggard, the face of an unsuccessful TV preacher.
“I’m sure he can,” said Coslaw. “I’m sure he’s capable of hard work. Hard
Mrs. Bowie smiled. It was all lip and no teeth. “I do the cipherin.” She turned to her husband. “Hubert?”
Bowie considered, then nodded. “Ayuh.”
“Step out, please, young Blaisdell,” The Law said. “I’ll speak to you later.”
And so, without a word spoken by him, Blaze became a ward of the Bowies.
“I don’t want you to go,” John said. He was sitting on the cot next to Blaze’s, watching as Blaze loaded a zipper bag with his few personal possessions. Most, like the zipper bag itself, had been provided by Hetton House.
“I’m sorry,” Blaze said, but he wasn’t, or not entirely — he only wished Johnny could come along.
“They’ll start pounding on me as soon as you’re down the road. Everybody will.” John’s eyes moved rapidly back and forth in their sockets, and he picked at a fresh pimple on the side of his nose.
“No they won’t.”
