Shadowland

perhaps led on by a certain ill-considered remark from this podium' — here a freezing glance at Whipple — 'have been indulging morbid fantasies, giving rein to that poison, exactly in the way that Mr. Thorpe preached against a month ago.

    'Now, I know what causes this. Its cause is nothing more or less than guilt. Nightmares are caused by guilt. Caused by a guilty mind and soul. And a guilty mind and soul are dangerous to all about them — they corrupt. All of you have been touched by this disease.

    'First of all, I am going to order you to stop this sick indulgence in a corrupt practice.'

    Behind me, in the second freshman row, I heard Tom Pinfold whisper to Marcus Reilly, 'Does he mean beating off?' Reilly snickered.

    'There will be no more — no more — talk of nightmares in this school. If some of you continue to be troubled in this way, I suggest that you see our school psychologist. If anyone continues to trouble us by bragging about bad dreams or by putting accounts of them up in a public place, that boy will be expelled. That is that. Finis. No more.'

    The glasses went on again, and his face settled into a grim, lined hunter's mask.

    'Secondly. I am going to root out the corruption in our midst and expose it here and now. The boy at the bottom of this perverse craze does not deserve to stay among us a minute longer. We are going to rid ourselves of him during this chapel, gentlemen, we are going to expose him. The boy who stole from Ventnor School will be cleaning out his locker by the end of the hour.'

    I risked a glance back at the seniors' rows, and saw the face of Skeleton Ridpath, tilted back, moony and empty.

    Mr. Broome darted forward from the podium and pointed at Morris Fielding, who was seated at the right- hand end of the first row. 'You. Fielding did you steal that owl?'

    'No, sir,' Morris got out.

    'You.' The finger moved to Bobby Hollingsworth.

    Astonished, by the time he had passed me and reached the second row of freshmen, I realized that he was going to question every one of the hundred boys in chapel.

    He finished with the freshmen and moved on to the sophomores. The rows were close together, and as he swept through the aisles, he bumped against the backs of seats in front and sometimes cracked against them so hard as to jolt them sideways; he took no notice. Our class had turned around on its seats to watch. Each time, the jabbing finger, the accusing shout.

    'You. Shreck. Did you steal it?'

    I could see his shoulders tremble beneath the fabric of his blue worsted suit.

    Mr. Thorpe, who had been sitting at the front in the second wooden chair, stood and walked quickly down the side of the auditorium to confer with Mrs. Olinger. As with the boys whose chairs he had knocked aside, Mr. Broome took no notice. The other teachers clustered around the Latin teacher and Mrs. Olinger.

    'You. King. Admit that you stole it. . . . You. Hamilton. You're guilty. Admit it.'

    Finally he got to the seniors, leaving a maze of twisted chairs to show where he had been. The trembling in his shoulders was more pronounced, and his voice was ragged from all the shouting.

    'You. Wax. Wax! Look at me! Did you?'

    ''No, sir.'

    'Peters! You, Peters. Was it you?'

    'Uh-uh, sir, No.'

    I watched with dread as he approached Skeleton, half-hoping, half-fearing that Skeleton would begin to shriek. As Broome worked down the aisle toward him, Ridpath never looked his way but kept his dazed, empty face pointed toward the ceiling, fixing it on the spot where the color wheel had revolved during the homecoming dance. Then Broome was there. 'You. Ridpath! Ridpath! Look at me! Did you steal it?'

    'ANSWER ME!'

' . . . ' Still that weird silence.

    'DID YOU?'

    Then we all heard Skeleton's drawling answer. 'Not me, Mr. Broome. I forgot all about it.'

    'AAAAH!' Mr. Broome raised his fists in the air and wailed. The teachers at the back of the auditorium leaned forward, afraid to move — all except Mr. Thorpe, who took a brisk two steps toward the headmaster. Broome waved him back.

    'Okay. Next boy. You, Teagarden. Was it you?'

    And it went on until the last senior had said no. Mr. Broome stood at the end of the aisle with his back turned to the school. The cloth of his jacket shook. I was afraid that he would turn around and start all over again with the freshmen, and looked at my watch and saw that the whole first period had disappeared. Just then a bell rang in the hall. 'Okay,' Mr. Broome said. 'We're not finished yet. One of you has lied to me twice. I am not through with him. Dismissed.'

    During the next class I looked through the windows onto the parking lot and saw Mr. Thorpe driving Mr. Broome out onto Santa Rosa Boulevard. An hour later Mr. Thorpe drove back in alone. Mr. Broome did not appear back at Carson for two days.

11

Hazing

After English class the next day we had a free period. Morris and his trio had permission to practice on the stage, and so did Del; the club performances were now only three weeks away. Morris immediately set off around the back of the school and down the stairs — we could see the two sophomores who struggled with bass and drums already swinging open the big door off the downstairs corridor. Del hung indecisively by his locker for a few minutes, wondering how he could work on his act without his partner. Tom had stayed home — gossip told us — because his father had been taken to the hospital 'for good.' Then Del muttered to the rest of us, 'Oh, well, it's better than study hall,' and wandered away after Morris.

    'I think that guy's a homo,' Bobby Hollingsworth said. Sherman told him to shut his trap.

    After five or ten minutes in the library, I realized that I had left one of the books I needed in my locker. Dave Brick was across the table from me, but he too had forgotten to bring the book — it took a long time to extract this information. Ever since Laker Broome's astonishing chapel performance, Brick had begun to look dopey and half-awake everywhere but in algebra class. 'Hey, I have to look at that too,' he whispered, surfacing out of his daze. 'You can have mine when I'm done,' I whispered back, and got permission to leave the library.

    I found the book in the jumble at the bottom of my locker and turned around. The halls were empty. A lively conversational buzz came from Fitz-Hallan's room, a disgruntled roar from Whipple's. A door to the Senior Room at the end of the back corridor cracked open, and Skeleton Ridpath edged around it, still with that moony look on his face. Then he stiffened and turned toward the far corner; a second later he began to run down the empty hall. What the dickens? I thought. Through the thick­nesses of glass I saw him round the corner and race down the stairs. Finally I realized that he had heard the piano. 'Oh, no,' I said out loud, and began to go quickly down the corridor. I had just reached the Senior Room when I saw the top-left-hand corner of the door to the stage — all that was visible to me — swing out.

    I ran down the stairs and opened the door again just in time nearly to be knocked down by Brown and Hanna, the sophomores working with Morris. 'Don't go in there,' Hanna said, and sprinted up the stairs. Brown was leaning his bass against the wall just inside the door and trying to get outside at the same time, and he just stared at me as if I were nuts. I could hear Ridpath's voice but not his words. Brown left the bass rattling from side to side like a heavy pendulum, and flashed around the door.

    I went into the gloom. ' . . . and don't come back or I'll cut your balls off,' I heard Skeleton curse. 'Now for you two.'

    The first thing I saw was Morris' pale face far off above the piano, looking both frightened and obstinate. Then I saw Del standing beside a table covered in black velvet. He had turned in my direction. He just looked frightened, and about ten years old. Skeleton's long back hovered before me, about ten feet away. From the way his head was turned, he was looking at Del.

    'They have a right to be here,' I said, and was going to continue, but Skeleton whirled around and stopped the words in my throat. I had never seen anything like his face.