been known as Two-Gun Sue.
Pig Pen settled shakily into his seat, rolled his eyes again, and began to cry.
Somebody pounded up to the door, rattled the knob, and yelled, 'Hey! Hey in there!' It looked like Mr. Johnson, who had been talking about the Hessians. 1 picked up the pistol and put a bullet through the chicken-wired glass. It made a neat little hole beside Mr. Johnson's head, and Mr. Johnson went out of sight like a crash-diving submarine. The class (with the possible exception of Ted) watched all the action with close interest, as if they had stumbled into a pretty good movie by accident.
'Somebody in there's got a gun!' Mr. Johnson yelled. There was a faint bumping sound as he crawled away. The fire alarm buzzed hoarsely on and on.
'Now what?' Harmon Jackson asked again. He was a small boy, usually with a big cockeyed grin on his face, but now he looked helpless, all at sea.
I couldn't think of an answer to that, so I let it pass. Outside, kids were milling restlessly around on the lawn, talking and pointing at Room 16 as the grapevine passed the word among them. After a little bit, some teachers-the men teachers-began shooing them back toward the gymnasium end of the building.
In town the fire whistle on the Municipal Building began to scream, rising and falling in hysterical cycles.
'It's like the end of the world,' Sandra Cross said softly.
I had no answer for that, either.
Chapter 12
No one said anything for maybe five minutes-not until the fire engines got to the high school. They looked at me, and I looked at them. Maybe they still could have bolted, and they're still asking me why they didn't.
I'm not taking on any of those things, hey, I'm in no shape for crusades these days. I'm just telling you that American kids labor under a huge life of violence, both real and make-believe. Besides, I was kind of interesting: Hey, Charlie Decker went apeshit today, didja hear? No! Did he? Yeah. Yeah. I was there. It was just like
I know they thought they'd be all right. That's part of it. What I wonder about is this: Were they hoping I'd get somebody else?
Another shrieking sound had joined the fire siren, this one getting closer real fast. Not the cops. It was that hysterical yodeling note that is all the latest rage in ambulances and paramedic vehicles these days. I've always thought the day will come when all the disaster vehicles will get smart and stop scaring the almighty shit out of everyone they're coming to save. When there's a fire or an accident or a natural disaster like me, the red vehicles will rush to the scene accompanied by the amplified sound of the Darktown Strutters playing 'Banjo Rag.' Someday. Oh, boy.
Chapter 13
Seeing as how it was the school, the town fire department went whole hog. The fire chief came first, gunning into the big semicircular school driveway in his blue bubble-topped Ford Pinto. Behind him was a hook-and-ladder trailing firemen like battle banners. There were two pumpers behind that.
'You going to let them in?' Jack Goldman asked.
'The fire's out there,' I said. 'Not in here.'
'Did you shut ya locka door?' Sylvia Ragan asked. She was a big blond girl with great soft cardiganed breasts and gently rotting teeth.
'Yes. '
'Prolly out already, then.'
Mike Gavin looked at the scurrying firemen and snickered. 'Two of 'em just ran into each other,' he said. 'Holy moly.'
The two downed firemen untangled themselves, and the whole group was preparing to charge into the inferno when two suit-coated figures ran over to them. One was Mr. Johnson, the Human Submarine, and the other was Mr. Grace. They were talking hard and fast to the fire chief.
Great rolls of hose with shiny nozzles were being unreeled from the pumpers and dragged toward the front doors. The fire chief turned around and yelled, 'Hold it! ' They stood irresolutely on the lawn, their nozzles gripped and held out before them like comic brass phalluses.
The fire chief was still in conference with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Grace. Mr. Johnson pointed at Room 16. Thomas Denver, the Principal with the Amazing Overshaved Neck, ran over and joined the discussion. It was starting to look like a pitcher's mound conference in the last half of the ninth.
'I want to go home!' Irma Bates said wildly.
'Blow it out,' I said.
The fire chief had started to gesture toward his knights again, and Mr. Grace shook his head angrily and put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to Denver and said something to him. Denver nodded and ran toward the main doors.
The chief was nodding reluctantly. He went back to his car, rummaged in the back seat, and came up with a really nice Radio Shack battery-powered bullhorn. I bet they had some real tussles back at the fire station about who got to use that. Today the chief was obviously pulling rank. He pointed it at the milling students.
