where his knees would be when he knelt, and it felt all right. A little soft, but no broken glass. He knelt then and sniffed the water, and it smelled good and was cool to his fingers, so he drank, bending down and sucking up the water with his mouth, then splashing it on his face and the back of his neck.
“Say!” an authoritative voice called. “Say, you boy!”
Little Tib straightened up, picking up his stick again. He thought,
“I am the superintendent.”
That was almost as good. Little Tib tilted his head back so the voice could see his eyes. He had often imagined coming to Sugarland and how it would be there, but he had never considered just what it was he should say when he arrived. He said, “My card . . .” The train was still rumbling away, not too far off.
Another voice said, “Now don’t you hurt that child.” It was not authoritative. There was the sound of responsibility in it.
“You ought to be in school, young man,” the first voice said. “Do you know who I am?”
Little Tib nodded. “The superintendent.”
“That’s right, I’m the superintendent. I’m Mr. Parker himself. Your teacher has told you about me, I’m sure.”
“Now don’t hurt that child,” the second voice said again. “He never did hurt you.”
“Playing hooky. I understand that’s what the children call it. We never use such a term ourselves, of course. You will be referred to as an absentee. What’s your name?”
“George Tibbs.”
“I see. I am Mr. Parker, the superintendent. This is my valet; his name is Nitty.”
“Hello,” Little Tib said.
“Mr. Parker, maybe this absentee boy would like to have something to eat. He looks to me like he has been absentee a long while.”
“Fishing,” Mr. Parker said. “I believe that’s what most of them do.”
“You can’t see, can you?” A hand closed on Little Tib’s arm. The hand was large and hard, but it did not bear down. “You can cross right here. There’s a rock in the middle—step on that.”
Little Tib found the rock with his stick and put one foot there. The hand on his arm seemed to lift him across. He stood on the rock for a moment with his stick in the water, touching bottom to steady himself. “Now a great big step.” His shoe touched the soft bank on the other side. “We got a camp right over here. Mr. Parker, don’t you think this absentee boy would like a sweet roll?”
Little Tib said, “Yes, I would.”
“I would too,” Nitty told him.
“Now, young man, why aren’t you in school?”
“How is he going to see the board?”
“We have special facilities for the blind, Nitty. At Grovehurst there is a class tailored to make allowance for their disability. I can’t at this moment recall the name of the teacher, but she is an exceedingly capable young woman.”
Little Tib asked, “Is Grovehurst in Sugar Land?”
“Grovehurst is in Martinsburg,” Mr. Parker told him. “I am superintendent of the Martinsburg Public School System. How far are we from Martinsburg now, Nitty?”
“Two, three hundred kilometers, I guess.”
“We will enter you in that class as soon as we reach Martinsburg, young man.”
Nitty said, “We’re going to Macon—I keep on tellin’ you.”
“Your papers are all in order, I suppose? Your grade and attendance records from your previous school? Your withdrawal permit, birth certificate, and your retinal pattern card from the Federal Reserve?”
Little Tib sat mute. Someone pushed a sticky pastry into his hands, but he did not raise it to his mouth.
“Mr. Parker, I don’t think he’s got papers.”
“That is a serious—”
“Why he got to have papers? He ain’t no dog!”
Little Tib was weeping. “I see!” Mr. Parker said. “He’s blind; Nitty, I think his retinas have been destroyed. Why, he’s not really here at all.”
“Course he’s here.”
“A ghost. We’re seeing a ghost, Nitty. Sociologically he’s not real—he’s been deprived of existence.”
“I never in my whole life seen a ghost.”
“You dumb bastard,” Mr. Parker exploded.
“You don’t have to talk to me like that, Mr. Parker.”
“You dumb bastard. All my life there’s been nobody around but dumb bastards like you.” Mr. Parker was weeping too. Little Tib felt one of his tears, large and hot, fall on his hand. His own sobbing slowed, then faded away. It was outside his experience to hear grown people—men—cry. He took a bite from the roll he had been
