Danny Orlis Goes to School (4 page)

"I don't feel that it's best for a Christian to go to movies," he said at last.

The gang laughed as he walked out of the lobby to the street.

Danny took a deep breath. It certainly was different being a Christian at the Angle where his folks and friends were all Christians too. There it seemed easy, almost as though it was the only way a person could live. Here in Iron Mountain it was just the opposite.

For a brief instant a wave of homesickness engulfed him. The people up there wouldn't laugh at him and make fun of him. They believed as he did, or most of them did anyway, and understood what to live like a Christian really meant.

Danny went home, finished his homework, and was just getting ready for bed when Larry came bursting into his room.

"You certainly made a fool of yourself tonight," his cousin stormed. "If you were going to do something like that, why didn't you stay at home in the first place?"

Danny looked up slowly. "That's where I made my mistake, Larry," he said seriously.

"It wouldn't have been so bad if they'd just made fun of you over the deal," Larry continued angrily, "but you made a laughingstock of me too!"

"I'm sorry about that," Danny replied.

"I'll bet you are!" Larry walked over to the dresser, turned and strode back to the door. His face was white, and his lips were trembling with anger. "And another thing—you don't need to bring your government agent buddy to speak to us! We don't want to hear him."

Danny watched in stunned silence while Larry whirled on his heel and stomped back upstairs. The young woodsman bit his lower lip uncertainly, then groped for the switch to turn off the light, and dropped miserably to his knees beside the bed.

The next morning at school a group of guys were waiting on the steps for him.

"There's our preacher boy!" one of them sang out, laughing.

"Won't you preach us a sermon?" another jeered. "Give us one on the evil of movies. Will you,
Reverend
Orlis?"

Even the girls who were standing nearby snickered openly.

"Sometime I'll take you up on that," Danny replied. He spoke pleasantly enough, but he could feel his temper rising and his face beginning to flush. And when he met Larry in the hall, his cousin turned the other way quickly and hurried past.

Back home after supper Danny went down into his room to write a letter home to his folks, trying hard to make it sound as happy and carefree as he knew they wanted him to be.

Meanwhile, in Larry's radio room on the other side of the partition the guys began to gather, coming down the stairs by ones and twos.

"Where's that preacher cousin of yours?" He heard one of the guys ask, tauntingly.

"Let's quit worrying about that stupid cousin of mine and get in here," Larry said, "so we can get the door shut."

"Did you get your broadcasting outfit fixed?" someone asked.

"Got the condenser after school," Larry replied. Then the door must have closed because he didn't hear them anymore.

Danny stared at the half-finished letter on the desk before him and began to write again. There was a timid little knock at the door.

He got up wearily to open it. A red-haired, freckle-faced lad about his own age was standing there. He remembered having seen him the night before, but he didn't know his name.

"I'm Glen Davis," the newcomer said. "I don't think you know me, but I just had to come over and talk to you tonight."

Danny shut the door and motioned his guest to a chair. "Sure thing," he said, curious to learn what his visitor had to say.

Young Davis sat down across from Danny, and for a moment or two the silence hung like a curtain between them.

"I was at the movie last night with the rest of the guys," Glen said at last. "I'm a Christian too, but I haven't had the nerve to turn around and leave like you did when I get in a spot like that. I...I've felt lots of times as though I wanted to, but I've always been afraid of what the other guys would say."

Danny looked at him questioningly.

"But last night when I saw you go out," Glen went on, "I began to see how wrong I've been. I...I did the same thing a couple of minutes later."

"You...you did?" Danny echoed.

The newcomer nodded.

For a moment Danny couldn't say anything. A few minutes before he had been all alone in Iron Mountain without even one friend. Now he had Glen Davis, who was also a Christian. A big smile broke across his face.

They talked for a time like old friends. Then Glen got up and reached for his coat. "I've got to be going now. Why don't we go down to the drugstore and get a soda?"

"That sounds good," Danny replied. "I'll get my coat."

They started out the door when Danny stopped suddenly.

"Listen!" he exclaimed. "Somebody's sending Morse code."

"Sure," Glen replied, "that's Larry and the gang. They come over and broadcast every once in a while."

One of the guys on the other side of the door was talking in a muffled voice. "This is station RATS. Rats. Are there any cats out that way?" The guys in the room laughed uproariously.

"I wonder if they could be—" Danny said slowly, the smile leaving his face.

"What are you talking about?" Glen demanded.

"Do those guys stay on one frequency, or do they broadcast across the band, Glen?" he asked.

His companion shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know enough about radio to know," he said. "I just joined the club a month ago. Why? What's wrong?"

"When we flew here from Minneapolis, just before school started, we were almost wrecked in the mountains because someone was jamming the radio signal we were to come in on," he explained. "It was someone who was broadcasting a lot of silly stuff like that. It could have been Larry!"

"What's so bad about that?" Glen asked.

"It's a penitentiary offense," Danny said slowly. "And I...I promised Clarence Gray that I'd send him any information I uncovered."

“
Listen! Somebody's sending Morse code!”

A DIFFICULT PROMISE TO KEEP

"
D
O
you mean they could put them in jail just for broadcasting?" Glen asked.

Danny nodded. The sweat was standing out on his forehead, and his hands were trembling.

"But what's so bad about that?" Glen asked. "They aren't hurting anybody. It sounds sort of funny to hear that stuff on your radio and think that it's coming from some network."

"It's bad enough to interfere with regular stations," Danny explained, trying to talk to Glen and listen to the broadcasting at the same time, "but it's things like interfering with radio beams for airplanes, and ship signals, and even some train signals that make it so dangerous. They can cause all kinds of serious accidents."

"But they don't want to do anything like that," Danny's new friend protested. "They don't want to cause any real trouble."

"I know that," Danny told him, "but when they broadcast off their own assigned band, they don't know whom or what they are interfering with."

There was a loud burst of laughter on the other side of the partition.

"It was stuff just like that which almost caused our plane to crash into a mountain that night when we were coming here," the young woodsman went on. "If they hadn't gotten off the air when they did, we might have all been killed."

Glen started to speak again, but the door opened just then, and Larry stood there staring at him.

"What are you snooping around for?" his cousin demanded belligerently.

"You're broadcasting off your wavelength," Danny told him, trying to keep his voice even and calm in spite of the excitement that was churning within him.

"What's it to you?"

"You can wreck a plane or cause a lot of damage with broadcasts like that," Danny went on. "Besides, it's against the law."

"Do you want to give your sermon out here, or do you want to come in where all the guys can get in on it?" Larry asked sarcastically.

"It's really serious to broadcast that way, Larry," Danny persisted. "Clarence told me that they put a lot of guys in jail for it."

Larry stared at him, his face going white. By this time the other guys had quit broadcasting and had crowded about the door.

"It would be just about like you to go running to that friend of yours," Larry retorted. The color was coming back to his face now, and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides. "If you squeal on us, Danny Orlis," he gritted, "it'll be the last thing you ever do!"

He took a step or two toward Danny, his fist drawn back menacingly, but the young woodsman did not back away.

"Come on, guys," Larry said at last. "He's yellow. He won't dare to squeal on us."

"He'd better not!" two or three of the others threatened.

For a moment or two Danny and his newfound friend stood together in the basement.

"You won't dare to squeal on them, will you, Danny?" Glen asked at last.

"I don't know what to do," the young woodsman replied weakly. It wasn't that he was afraid of them. He had wrestled with his dad on the kitchen floor during long winter evenings until he knew how to take care of himself. "I don't want to squeal on them, but I promised Clarence that I'd help him. I don't know what to do," he said as he and Glen left for the drugstore.

The light was out in the radio room when he finally got back to the house. Clarence Gray's address and phone number were in the little notebook he carried in his pocket. How could he go back on his promise? But then again, how could he squeal on his cousin? Slowly, almost subconsciously, he reached for his Bible and began to leaf through its pages.

It would be so easy to make a deal with the guys, making them promise not to broadcast again. And yet he had promised Clarence to get him any information he learned as soon as possible. Anguish welled high in Danny's heart as he dropped to his knees and began to pray.

The young woodsman didn't sleep soundly that night. It was scarcely six o'clock and just getting daylight when he got up and started to dress. He was combing his hair when there was a knock at his door, and Larry came in.

"I'm sorry I got so mad last night," his cousin said.

"That's all right."

Larry sat down in the chair and took his handkerchief out of his pocket and began to toy with it. "Did you call your friend last night?" he asked.

Danny shook his head. He could feel the color draining from his cheeks.

"You...you aren't going to call him, are you, Danny?" Larry asked, his voice soft and pleading.

Danny sat down on the edge of the bed. "I don't know, Larry," he replied.

"It'll mean the reform school for me," Larry went on slowly. "I've been in trouble two or three times, and...and they put me on probation. It...it'll be reform school for sure."

Danny was biting his lower lip. "But I promised Clarence," he said miserably. "I gave him my word."

"You won't promise? Not even if it means the reform school for me?"

Danny shook his head.

"But...but you haven't called him yet; have you?"

"No," the young woodsman repeated, "I haven't called him yet."

At that moment Aunt Lydia came to the basement door. "There's a man up here to see you, Larry!"

The color fled from Larry's face. He looked quickly toward the door and back at Danny.

"You lied to me!" he snarled. "You told me you hadn't called him!"

Larry took a step toward Danny, his fist drawn back menacingly.

THE RUNAWAYS

D
ANNY
Orlis stared at his cousin, his heart pounding frantically. Clarence must be the one who was waiting upstairs! Who else would be wanting to talk to Larry?

"I didn't lie to you," the young woodsman protested. "I had decided that I'd have to keep my promise, but I haven't called Clarence."

Larry wasn't listening. His face had gone white, and the sweat was standing out on his forehead.