But by God, it worked. He rehearsed the fight for hours with Hart, who had some very direct techniques he’d learned in the pens—most of them unsuitable for dealing with anyone you didn’t want to cripple or maim, but still it made one feel better to know one could. “I don’t know,” Willie had said finally. “I’m not mad at him right now.”
“Good,” said Hart, “then this is the time.” And he pointed Willie gently in Parry Winzek’s direction.
The encounter was a rousing success. Will couldn’t come away from it with the soul-deep satisfaction he would have felt if he could beat Parry Winzek while in the grip of a violent temper—but he had the satisfaction of winning, which was something he didn’t have before. Parry seemed beautifully shocked by the whole event.
Hart watched it all. He did not offer Parry his handkerchief. The next day he said to Will, “Beat him up every morning.”
“But he hasn’t done anything,” said Will. “He’s thinking,” said Hart; “stop it there.” And for the next week Will did so, though without enjoyment. It was like some stupid chore he’d been assigned, and he tackled it as dutifully.
When he discontinued the process, Parry showed no inclination to start it up again. In fact, Parry avoided him entirely.
The teacher, if it was a teacher, turned around at last and went back inside. Will let out a breath. That’s what revisiting Sangaree does, he thought; it cuts about forty points off your IQ. To avoid possible danger on the outer streets you walk through the tunnel and end up in a situation just as dangerous. You would think you’d remember the last time you were here—it wasn’t exactly a forgettable incident.
Ir was sort of ironic, though. In the dark he couldn’t even tell if that teacher were male or female.
Those two years were the happiest of Will’s life. He resented thinking of it that way later, but the truth was the truth. Hartley Quince seemed totally without fear, completely unaware of the boundaries normal people knew were there. There were things you could do, and things you couldn’t do, and everybody knew it but Hart.
It was like being set free. There were few places in this part of Sangaree that didn’t hold memories of the adventures of that time.
Hart in school: a well-behaved, background-blending Hart. His hair was lighter in those days, almost blond, cut neatly, and his shoes were polished. His shirt was pressed enough to be presentable to the teachers and not so much as to call attention to him with the other students; his grades were much the same. Hart before and after school, with Will: dirty-faced and bright-eyed after figuring how to get into the teachers’ residence through the branch off the access tunnels. (Hart had gotten into the maintenance rooms and looked at the maps.) Delighted with Will’s success in quashing Parry Winzek’s companions. (“Don’t let him up until he says it,” advised Hart from the sidelines.) A face shining with pleasure after they successfully followed the local black marketeer through three levels to find his next contact point—why Hart had thought that necessary, Willie never did find out. Borderline though Hart’s activities were, Will was never alarmed by them; Hart’s confidence was contagious. And he was never angry, never hated, never screamed at Will the way his family did, never, in fact, raised a hand in violence to anybody, which was like a cool draught of water after the rest of Sangaree. Beating up Parry Winzek wasn’t something Willie would ordinarily have thought of doing outside the heat of the moment; but with Hart there was no question of heat. A short temper was an evil thing and adults were unreliable beings who might explode at any time, but Hart was easy and deliberate. How wrong could what they did be?
But one day Willie went solo, and it all went bad.
It was love that did it.
Her name was Miss Smith, and she was his new teacher, replacing Old Miss Deaville who’d died in the night and been taken away. That happened, Willie knew; dead people and bad people got taken away. “They get cut into parts,” his father used to say, and he’d look pleased when Willie was scared. But Miss Smith was a revelation: She didn’t slap kids who gave the wrong answer, or scream at anybody while they cried. As far as Will could remember, she never took the rod down off the wall at all.
She didn’t know a lot about math, which Will was good in, and when the school observer sat in on class they often did the same arithmetic lesson all over again— assignment nine, basic multiplication and division. However, this was irrelevant to Will, who was beginning to see Miss Smith in the light of a saint. It was some time later that the glow around Miss Smith began to be connected in his mind with her shining black hair and her dark eyes and the graceful, easy way she walked. It was fascinating to see the way she crossed her legs under the long skirt; there was a slidey sound when she did it that was delightful.
“They say she’s riathic,” said Hart one day, watching Will’s glance follow Miss Smith from the yard to the front of the school.
Will didn’t like the way Hart said that; it sounded like something bad. “What does that mean?”
“A neuter,” said Hart. “Brought up to be in the Dome of Service, but got sent away. Maybe she failed at whatever she was supposed to do. Maybe she didn’t have a good voice for the choir or she couldn’t hold her own in prayer meetings. Anyway, sometimes the failures get sent to teach school.”
“Miss Smith isn’t a failure.”
“I’m just telling
