Shadowland (20 page)

 
   I began to go toward him on all fours. Morris followed. Del's face was streaked with what looked like mud; finally I saw that it was the dust melting on his wet face. 'It doesn't matter,' Del said. 'Get my shirt.'

 
   'Doesn't matter?' Morris said as he stood up and went for the discarded shirt. 'We can get him expelled now. He's done. And he hurt you. Look at your back.'

 
   'I can't look at my back,' Del said. He raised himself up on his knees and put one hand on the piano bench. 'May I please have my shirt?'

 
   Morris came up white-faced and handed it over. Del's face was red, but composed. The wet dust looked like thick warpaint. 'Do you need help standing up?' Morris asked.

 
   'No.'

 
   All three of us heard the door opening again, andMorris hissingly drew in his breath; Del and I probably did the same.

 
   'You in here?' came a familiar voice. 'Hey, I can't find you.' Expecting Skeleton's return, none of us could identify the speaker.

 
   'Hey, I was looking all over for you,' Dave Brick said, walking slowly toward us out of the gloom. 'You get that book? Holy cow.' This last because now he could see the way we were staring at him, Morris and I fearfully, Del with the warpaint on his face.

 
   'Holy
cow,'
Brick repeated when he was close enough to see Del's back just before Del struggled into his shirt. 'What have you guys been
doing?'

 
   'Nothing,' Del said.

 
   'Skeleton hit him with a belt,' Morris said, standing up and dusting off his knees. 'He's out of his mind.' ' . . . a belt . . . ?' Brick made as if to help Del put on his jacket, but Del waved him away.

 
   'Really out of his mind. Are you okay, Del?'

 
   Del nodded and turned away from us.

 
   'Does it hurt?'

 
   'No.'

 
   'We can actually get rid of Skeleton now,' Morris hammered on.

 
   Brick went ' . . . geez . . . ' and sat down on the piano bench. 'Right here?' he asked stupidly. 'In school?'

 
   Morris was looking thoughtfully at the piano and the bench. 'You know what I think,' he said.

 
   'Uh?' Brick said. Del, who was still facing the curtains, and I said nothing.

 
   'I'm thinking that's the second time Skeleton went nuts when he saw me playing that piano.'

 
   'No kidding,' Brick said, gazing in wonder at the piano.

 
   'Why would he do that?' Morris inquired. 'Because he put something there he wants to keep hidden. Sound good?'

 
   Brick and I looked at each other, finally understanding. 'My God,' I said. 'Get off that bench, Brick.' He jumped away from the piano bench, and he and I lifted the lid as Morris folded his arms and peered in.

 
   Brick screamed. Something small and crystalline flewup out of the bench, a silvery mothlike thing that rattled like a beetle. Dave Brick's scream had jolted Del out of his trance, and he turned around and watched with the rest of us as the small silvery thing flew in a wide arc across the apron of the stage and fell with a soft thud into the pile of old curtains.

 
   'What was
that?'
Morris asked.

 
   Brick ran heavily, echoingly, across the stage to the pile of curtains. He bent to touch what lay there, but pulled back his hand. 'That owl. From Ventnor.'

 
   'But it flew,' Morris said.

 
   'It flew,' I repeated.

 
   'Yes,' Del said. I glanced at him, and was startled by the shadowy smile I saw lurking in his face.

 
   'You shook the bench,' Morris said. Brick leaned down and picked up the owl. 'That's what happened. You shook it.'

 
   'No,' said Del, but no one paid any attention.

 
   'Yeah,' Brick said. 'We both did, I guess.'

 
   'Sure you did,' Morris said. 'Glass owls can't fly.' He leaned over again. 'Well, what else do we have here?' And pulled out copied exam after copied exam. 'Well, now I know why he used to sneak back up here all the time. He wanted to make sure it was all still where he put it. When we tell people about this, he won't last another five minutes at this school.'

 
   'We've got him by the short hairs,' Brick said, suddenly stunned by joy.

 
   Del looked at all of us and said, 'No.' He extended his right hand toward Dave Brick, and Brick came toward us and put the owl in his hand. 'Wait a second there,' Morris said, but Del was already raising his arm. He hurled the owl at the stage. It made a noise like a bomb and flew apart into a million shining pieces. Dave gawped at him in sheer dumb amazement for a moment, and — you have already guessed it — wept.

 
Del walked out after that, just before the bell rang for a new period. 'What do we do?' Brick asked, wiping his face on his sleeve. 'We go to our next class,' Morris said firmly. 'And after?' I asked. 'We find someone to tell all this to,' Morris said. 'I get a funny feeling about all this,'I said. 'Like maybe Del won't help us.' Morris shrugged, then looked uncomfortable. 'The owl,' Brick blubbed. The three of us looked at the fragments on the stage — nothing faintly owllike remained. 'We didn't shake the bench,' Brick said. 'You had to,' Morris said. 'No,' I said, and heard myself echoing Del —
no
was about the extent of what he had said ever since Skeleton had run out. I could still hear the rattling noise it had made as it flew. 'Darn,' Morris said. 'We have to go. Look.' He faced me, still believing that something reasonable could be extricated from a scene in which one student insanely beat another with a belt and glass owls flew thirty feet across stages. 'Fitz-Hallan likes you. He eats you up. Why don't you talk to him about this?' I nodded.

 
   On the way to my next class, I passed the Senior Room. A student was laughing in there, and all of my insides tingled. I knew with a cave dweller's atavistic knowledge that it was Skeleton Ridpath, all alone. During a free period, I did go to see Fitz-Hallan, but he was no help; Carson closed ranks, denied the mystery.

 
13

 
Thorpe

 
'I have spoken to Mr. Fitz-Hallan,' he said, 'and last night I communicated with Nightingale and also with his godparents, Mr. and Mrs. Hillman. This morning I spoke privately to Morris Fielding. Now I must ask you, is there anything in your story you would care to change, in the light of its quite extraordinary nature?' Mr. Thorpe glared at me. He was controlling his anger very well, but I could still feel its heat. We were in the office Thorpe used as assistant headmaster, a bare cubicle on the other side of the corridor from the secretary's offices. Mr. Fitz-Hallan was sitting in a typing chair beside Mr. Thorpe; I stood before the metal desk. Mr. Weatherbee, my form adviser, stood beside me.

 
   'No, sir,' I said. 'But may I ask you a question?'

 
   He nodded.

 
   'Did you also speak to Steve Ridpath?'

 
   His eyes flickered. 'We shall come to that in time.' He arranged three pencils before him, the sharpened points toward me like a row of tiny stakes. 'Firstly, boy, whatever aim you may have in concocting a preposterous story like this is quite beyond me. I have told you that I spoke to young Nightingale. He completely denies that he was beaten with a belt. He did admit that Mr. Ridpath's son, a senior, found you in an area normally off limits to frosh, and rebuked you for being there.' He held up a hand to shut off my protest. 'It is true that two of you, Morris Fielding and young Nightingale, had permission to be on stage. Steven Ridpath of course had no way of knowing that. He may have acted imprudently, but he acted in the interest of discipline, which is in line with the general improvement in his work this year. I requested Mr. Hillman to inspect his godson's back, and Mr. Hillman reported to me that he found no indications of any such beating as you — and Fielding, regrettably — claim took place.'

 
   'No indications,' I said, not believing.

 
   'None whatsoever. How do you account for that?'

 
   I shook my head. Those welts could not have disappeared so soon.

 
   'I can explain it to you, then. None took place. I believe Steven Ridpath when he says that he made young Nightingale do several push-ups and slapped his back, which was covered by shirt and jacket, when the push-ups were performed sloppily. Initiation is officially over, but in unusual circumstances the school has turned a blind eye to its continuance. When we felt that it was done to preserve order.'

 
   'Order,' I said.

 
   'Something it seems you know little about. To proceed. Of course we found no traces of the Ventnor owl backstage. Because it was never there. We did find written — out examinations in young Ridpath's handwriting, to be used by him as a study aid after the examinations took place.'

 
   'That doesn't make sense. He used the exams as study aids when he'd already taken them?'

 
   'Precisely. To keep his grasp of the older material. A very wise thing to do, I might add.'

 
   'So he's going to get away with it,' I said, unable to keep from blurting it out.

 
   
'Quiet!'
Mr. Thorpe banged the metal desk and made the pencils jump crazily. 'Consider, boy. We are going to be lenient with you. Because young Fielding's family has attended the Carson School for fifty years, and he thinks he saw what you also think you saw, Mr. Fitz-Hallan and I agree that perhaps you are not consciously trying to mislead us. But you leaped to conclusions and substituted your imagination for what you actually saw — a typical example of the irrationality which has been sweeping through this school, and which Mr. Broome has worked so hard to combat.' The thought of this seemed to deepen his rage. 'Such fantastification as we have had here in the past month is beyond my experience. Perhaps some of our English people should stick to factual texts in the future.' A burning sideways glance at Fitz-Hallan. 'A school is no place for fantasy. The world is no place for fantasy. I have already said this to Morris Fielding. Mr. Weatherbee . . . '

 
   The adviser straightened up beside me. 'Perhaps you can keep a closer eye on incipient hysteria in the freshmen. Teachers must do more than teach, here at Carson.'

 
When our class went to the locker room to undress for an intramural basketball game, I looked at Del Nightingale's back as he pulled off his shirt. It was unmarked. Morris Fielding noticed that at the same time I did. I remembered the glass owl flying or seeming to fly out of the bench, making a whirring beetlelike noise, and knew from Morris' expression that he remembered it too. And though I had planned to use the minutes before the intermural game to talk to Del, I backed away, as if from the uncanny.