Don't Care High (20 page)

The LaPazes, with their triple action, combed the school, leaving no stone unturned in their search for students who had not yet heard of Friday's planned events. Feldstein, who was a great observer of the passing parade, reported that enthusiasm was running high, and that he'd yet to come across anyone who did not plan to attend. Sheldon and Paul did a great deal of mingling personally, just to make sure. Sheldon impressed upon the students that all their weeks of support would be for nothing if Friday did not go well.

This added an air of tension to the school. The students bore down as all the minute details of the rally were worked out. Car pools were arranged, and large groups of students formed wake-up call pacts, as no one wanted to oversleep and let Mike down. Peter Eversleigh arranged to cancel his dental appointment, and Phil Gonzalez stayed home while his parents went out of town because they insisted on leaving a day early. On Friday, the sum total of everyone's devotion and dedication to Mike Otis would be packed into an hour and a half, and there did not exist a reason good enough for missing it.

On Thursday, excitement was running high as plans moved into the home stretch. The three final briefing sessions were held during the three lunch hours to cover the entire student body, and Sheldon resumed his old position atop an end table. Sheldon was a natural leader, Paul reflected, as his friend stirred up the crowd over the importance of tomorrow. When Sheldon took over the organization of things, Paul would easily be swept up and would follow him blindly. And under such circumstances, there would always be a last-minute twist that Sheldon would throw into the pot without consulting anyone. Paul knew that it had happened again when Sheldon announced that tomorrow morning everyone would try to dress exactly like Mike.

“Like
Mike
?” Paul repeated as a hum of surprise went up from the third period lunch crowd.

Sheldon reached into a large art portfolio and pulled out a set of enormous flash cards.

“
One
,” he announced, holding up the first illustrated card. “The hair. Slick. Greased back.
Two
” — Sheldon moved on to the second card — “The raincoat. Big. Dirty beige preferably, but any dull colour will do.
Three
. The shirt. Bright colours. Pink and fluorescent green are best. Remember, Mike never wears patterns or plaids.
Four
…”

Paul watched as Sheldon continued through the long, turned-up jeans with the safety pins, and the black dress shoes. Then he began to run the group through it again and again, holding up the illustrated cards. By the end of the briefing, Sheldon merely had to shout out the number, and the students would give the appropriate response in one great unified voice.

“
Six
!”

“The shoes!” chanted the crowd. “Black! Dress! No high heels or alligator!”

“You've got it!” called Sheldon. “And tomorrow morning I want to see it!”

Sheldon did not even wait for Paul's protest before offering his explanation. “Dressing like Mike is something I thought up lying in bed last night. It'll give the rally a visual aspect for the TV cameras.”

“Have you called those guys yet?” asked Paul nervously.

“Not yet. We'll have to get together on what we're going to say. Later, though. Fourth period lunch is starting to come in for briefing.”

“Another episode of ‘How to Look like a Weird-o in Six Easy Steps,'” said Paul sarcastically.

Sheldon laughed. “Don't worry. Everything's going to be great.”

* * *

Morale among the teaching staff was approaching the breaking point. On Thursday after classes, a delegation of teachers, headed by the semi-ambulatory Mr. Willis, filed into Mr. Gamble's office to make its plea for sanity.

“Look, Henry,” said Mr. Willis reasonably, “we agree with you that this Mike Otis thing is a farce. But we're the ones who have to put up with it in the classrooms hour after hour, day after day. We've been taking it for a long time, but now you've got to give us a break. All this has to stop, and if that means making Otis president again, then so be it.”

Mr. Gamble leaned forward. “You know my opinion on the subject, and the answer is no.”

“But Henry!” wailed Miss Vlorque. “You don't have to sit through seven polite, reasonable speeches every day! You don't have to listen to seven rounds of applause! You don't have to watch the morning sun glint off thirty safety pins! It's like teaching tinsel! And then when the class is over and you can finally escape from your thirty safety pins, the halls are teeming with them! Safety pins! Everywhere! There's nowhere to hide! You can't escape them….” Her voice trailed off.

“As you can see,” said Mr. Hennessey, “it's affecting us all in different ways. Willis gets aggravated, Vlorque lets it push her toward a nervous breakdown, I just get mad. When they start giving me all that sincere garbage, I lose my patience. But the common denominator, Henry, is that it's driving us all nuts.”

“And did you hear the sounds coming from the cafeteria today?” added Mrs. Wolfe. “They're working up some kind of ritual chant!”

Miss Vlorque emitted a quick, nervous giggle. “They'll probably start doing it in class! I don't know if I can face it!”

“Just let them try it in
my
class!” thundered Mr. Hennessey. “I'll —”

“Calm down, everybody,” ordered the vice-principal sharply. “I hear you all, and I realize it's a problem. I figured this would all die out when we asked for new nominations. Maybe I was wrong.” He turned momentarily red. “I just can't stand the idea of some miserable upstart out there, who's responsible for the whole thing, laughing at us when we have to give in!”

“Look, Henry,” said Mr. Willis, “if it was the principle of the thing that concerned us, we'd be on your side one-hundred percent. But it's just not that important. The kids aren't breaking any rules, and we're fighting for our sanity. Now, we've talked to the boss, and he says he'll go along with whatever we decide, so long as he gets to make the announcement. So what do you say?”

Mr. Gamble slumped back in his chair. “All right, they can have Otis — they can have anything! I'll have it announced tomorrow.”

* * *

When he returned home from school that afternoon, Paul met his mother rushing through the lobby of the building.

“Oh, Paul — here you are! Thank goodness!”

“You're going to Auntie Nancy's house,” said Paul wearily.

“Oh, the most terrible thing has happened! Your Uncle Harry was coming home from work early because he had a cold, and just as he was driving under a bridge, a cement block fell right through his windshield!”

“Was he hurt?” asked Paul anxiously.

“No, thank heaven, but when the window shattered in front of him, he thought he'd been shot! And it was on the
highway
! You know that highway always upsets me! I've got to get over there right away! Poor Nancy!”

“Poor Nancy? She's all right! No one dropped anything on her!”

“Yes, but it's always the wife who has to cope with these things. Remember when Dad broke his nose? Oh, how I suffered! Anyway, there's no dinner. Perhaps you can get together with your friend Sheridan. If not, there's lots of cold meat for sandwiches. Oh, yes. There's a letter for you. Why are international car experts writing to you?”

“It's a long story, Mom,” muttered Paul. “Don't worry. I'll be all right.”

His mother rushed off, and Paul hurried into the elevator. He let himself into the apartment and snatched his letter off the hall table. It was postmarked Bern, Switzerland, from the International Automobile Collectors' Association. Intrigued, he opened it.

In an instant, the entire Mike Otis saga flashed before Paul's eyes: a bizarre figure at the end of the hallway; the nomination; the car; the confidential file; Finch, Oklahoma; the operator saying the number was disconnected; 106 Gordon Street; and the crowning glory — that wholesome family that raised more doubts than it answered.

Tomorrow twenty-six hundred people were going to get together at seven-thirty in the morning, dressed like complete idiots, to demonstrate on behalf of a man who no one understood beyond the fact that his only detectable desire was to be left alone. It was too much.

Suddenly Paul had his coat on and was out the door, down the elevator and threading his way through the garbage-laden streets like a man possessed. This was it. Showdown. Maybe Sheldon had no qualms about organizing great crusades on behalf of the mystery man, but Paul Abrams could bear it no longer. He refused to live one more hour without a solution to the puzzle that was Mike Otis. And there was only one way to get it.

His jaw squared with determination, he marched the fifteen blocks to Mike's apartment building, burst into the lobby and paused in front of the doorman. Yes, he had every right in the world to be there, he told himself. Swiss auto experts were interested in buying Mike's car, and he owed it to Mike to tell him about it. Then he would manoeuvre the conversation around to include Mike's ersatz hometown, address and phone number. It would all work in very naturally. When he left this place, by God, he would have it all!

“Otis, 7E,” he told the doorman confidently. “My name's Paul Abrams. I'm a friend of Mike's from school.”

The man phoned upstairs, and Paul was surprised at how quickly he was admitted. He hadn't been entirely sure how Mike would respond to a visitor at his home. When he got to the apartment, he found out why. It had been Mrs. Otis, not Mike, who had invited him up so readily.

“Michael's out on an errand now, but I expect him back any minute. Please come in and sit down.”

Paul allowed himself to be seated in front of a glass of milk and a few cookies while Mike's mother made small talk. His head was spinning. Perching on a fire escape watching the Otises was nothing compared to the jolt of actually speaking with a member of this incredibly normal family.

“Mr. Otis and I have often wondered about this Don Carey High School. It seems like such a… strange place. We've never received so much as a letter or a telephone call from them.”

True, thought Paul, but even if there were a notice, it would end up in the dead letter office via 106 Gordon Street. Aloud, he said, “Oh, it's not strange, Mrs. Otis. They just… uh… don't want to interfere with individual development.”

“Well, we were just afraid that Michael might be left out of things.”

“I can safely say,” said Paul devoutly, “that Mike is never left out of anything.” He looked up as the front door opened and Mike entered, carrying a bag of groceries.

Because of the positioning of the door frame, the first thing Mike saw was Paul, sitting at the kitchen table. In perplexity, he checked the number on the front door. Yes, this was his apartment, all right.

“Oh good, dear, you're back. Paul is here.”

Cautiously, Mike entered the kitchen and put his parcel down on the counter, but the beady eyes never left Paul.

“Hi, Mike.”

“Hi.” Mike looked at his mother plaintively, as if to say “How did this happen?”

Mrs. Otis refilled the cookie plate and poured a glass of water for her son. “Well, I must go and finish my ironing. I'll leave you two boys to chat.”

The conversation didn't start. Intimidated by the situation of facing Mike in his own home, Paul completely forgot about his Swiss car experts, and just sat, looking uncomfortably at the student body ex-president. Mike looked back, his system on a sort of bland red alert. This confrontation reeked of the things at school that he didn't understand — right here on his own turf.

Finally, Paul blurted, “There is no Finch, Oklahoma, is there, Mike?”

The beady eyes grew even more veiled than usual. After a pause, Mike said, “Probably not.”

“There's no such thing as apartment eleven twenty-five at one-oh-six Gordon Street, either, and the phone number in your file is disconnected, right?” Mike made no reply, so Paul continued. “Why does the school have all this phony information about you?”

Mike looked all around the kitchen and then paused before replying. “I had to put something on the registration forms.”

“So
you
gave them all that! On purpose!”

“Nobody said it had to be right.”

“But why?” Paul insisted. “Why can't people know where you come from and where you live and what your telephone number is?”

Paul could almost see the wheels turning in Mike's head. His answer, when it came, was, “I like it better this way.” Then he shrugged very slightly, but together with his words, it seemed to say everything about the man Sheldon had picked to be president.

Suddenly, Paul felt very foolish, trudging all over town, interrupting people's lives to solve the Mike Otis puzzle. There was no puzzle. It was just Mike's nature, the fact that Mike liked it better that way. The mysterious Mike Otis was just a guy — an offbeat, bizarre, crazy, weird guy, but just a guy nonetheless.