Night School (11 page)

“Hmmm,” said Sal. “Thirty-second time lag here. Maybe the topic really is Andrew, Tommy.”

Both Sal and Tommy smiled at her now, and there was an overlapping quality to their smiles. Then, equally overlapping, they walked off together.

They had walked places together before. Their stride matched. The way they tilted their heads toward each other matched.

They liked each other.

How normal they looked. Ordinary friends, not touching, simply enjoying each other’s presence. No overwhelming half-crazed crushes here. No secret lives.

Either I’ll have a normal friendly friendship with Andrew, thought Mariah, or I’ll skip it. No more secret lives. I want to be content and easy and popular like Tommy and Sal.

Andrew had meant to arrive early, and search for the camcorder and erase the tape. But somehow when he woke up, it didn’t have much importance and he didn’t rush and now was actually in danger of arriving late.

Nothing, Andrew reassured himself, had happened last night. He decided to be amused instead of worried. He pondered the correct verb for what had happened to their bodies. Had they shadowed themselves? Smoked themselves? Disembodied themselves?

He found himself smiling. They had merely happened upon a teacher who, nervous in the dark, had gone home.

And yet when he parked, Andrew could not help checking the teachers’ lot for Mr. Phillips’s car. Mr. Phillips drove a car quite similar to himself: a dull, mustard-yellow, twelve-year-old Dodge, which had not had character when it was built, and was not gathering character as it aged.

The Dodge was not in the parking lot.

Andrew did not know whether to be relieved. He did not want to deal with Mr. Phillips, and yet he wanted to know that Mr. Phillips was all right.

Of course he’s all right, thought Andrew irritably. Nothing happened to make him otherwise.

Andrew got into his first period class moments before the late bell, and there was the principal, taking attendance. Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Phillips did not show up,” said the principal, clearly furious. “He did not even have the courtesy to call. Really. Substitutes think they will get permanent jobs in the system, but when they behave irresponsibly, how could they possibly imagine they would be asked back? Andrew, help me run this class. What chapter are you on?”

Andrew helped run the class.

He said to himself, Nothing happened. If Mr. Phillips didn’t show up it isn’t because he was scared to death and had a heart attack, it’s because—because—

Nothing happened, Andrew told himself again. Certainly nothing that I did.

Bevin made a decision he had never made before.

He gave up.

Always, even at the worst of times, Bevin had hung on. He had pressed up against a wall or a desk or a corner and somehow the pressure against his back gave him the strength to keep going.

But not today.

Today absolutely nothing happened, and yet the eyes and the plans of the bullies of the school were all over him, gauging him, taking his measure, weakening him with their laughter, leaving him ready for his attackers.

He walked out of the school, and found he could walk the distance home quite easily. During the walk there was only nature, which had no interest in him, and passing traffic, which had less.

Inside the house, he did not even turn on the radio.

He had the sense that the station would no longer tune in for his ears; that he had lost his only lifeline.

He was down to only two choices now: death or disappearance.

“Oh, hi, Andrew,” said the principal.

Andrew had been hanging around hoping to run into Mariah. She was usually everywhere. Where had she gone this time? “Hi, sir,” he said to the principal, “how are you.” It wasn’t a question, because Andrew didn’t actually care how the principal was.

“I’m lousy. Listen, remember I told you Mr. Phillips didn’t show up and didn’t even bother to call? I need to retract that. It wasn’t fair of me. Poor guy was correcting papers here in the library and had some sort of mental breakdown on his way home. Police found him just sitting in his car by the side of the road at two o’clock this morning. He’s been hospitalized.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Andrew. Andrew was more than sorry. He was horrified. “What hospital?” said Andrew numbly. “I’d better visit him.”

“Andrew, what a great kid you are!” said the principal, sounding far too surprised, as if he’d had his doubts about Andrew.

When the school day ended, the morning scenes occurred in the reverse, like a daily film running backward. There were Mariah and Andrew standing by the bulletin board, noticing that the Night Class sheet was gone. There was Ned, wall-clinging, inching toward them.

And there were Tommy and Sal, still not touching, still very fond of each other, still walking purposefully. A definite, very enviable pair.

Autumn said quietly, “Neither of them would ever be an ETS.”

Mariah practically leaped out of her shoes.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” said Autumn. “I thought you saw me coming.”

Mariah shook her head. How dare Autumn mention the ETS? It brought Mariah’s nerves too close to the surface, as if the slightest sun or windburn would expose her fears.

“Sal and Tommy are strong,” said Autumn. “I felt it all the way down the hall. You don’t choose the strong one for your ETS, you choose the weak. It would be like a lion picking a lion or a leopard picking a leopard, to pick Sal or Tommy.”

“Autumn, are you going to do it?” whispered Mariah. “Are you really going to choose an ETS?”

“The teacher said there’s no dropping out, Mariah, I don’t want to face that teacher without my homework done.”

“I’m dropping out anyway,” said Mariah. “It’s okay for lions and leopards to choose victims, but it isn’t okay for us. We wouldn’t be doing it to survive. We’d be doing it to … to …”

“To scare them,” said Andrew.

“Are you going to do your homework, Andrew?” Mariah’s voice was below whisper. It was hardly even breath.

Andrew whispered, “There’s some old lady that lives down the road from us. She’s half gonzo. She doesn’t ever remember anyone’s name, she just waves and waves like her wrist is stuck. She lives alone.”

Mariah was horrified. A neighbor of his? Some peaceful old confused lady, and Andrew had chosen her for his ETS?

“Have you done your homework, Mariah?” breathed Andrew.

Mariah twitched.

“Well, well, well,” said Julie-Brooke-Danielle. “What homework are we talking about?”

Autumn flinched. The minute she was with her three dearest friends she felt like less of a person.

Julie said, “What did you and Autumn do in that class, anyway, Mariah?”

“Nothing,” said Mariah quickly. Much too quickly.

Julie’s sharp green eyes sharpened.

She’s creepy, thought Mariah. But who am I to call another person creepy? I who have secret crushes that last for years and years? I who go to Night Class and offer up Scare Choices?

“Autumn won’t talk about it,” said Julie. “I mean, she won’t even tell me the subject.”

“There is no subject,” said Mariah.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Julie. “It’s night school. Of course there’s a subject. You can’t just go there and sit around and pick on each other.”

The word “pick” penetrated minds as if it were itself a pick: an ice pick, an iron-ore pick.

Who would Mariah pick? Who would Andrew pick?

Who would pick Bevin?

Or had somebody already picked Bevin?

“What is that Night Class?” said Danielle. “What’s the subject anyhow? Photography? Filming?”

Andrew went white. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

“I can’t think of anything else I’d be willing to come back to school for at night,” said Danielle. “I want to go into film, of course. Not acting; actors are pathetic dweebs without lives. I want to be a producer. What was your film about, Andrew?”

“It was about fear,” said Andrew.

“Great topic!” said Julie. “Don’t you love scary, scary movies? By the way, here’s something really scary. Autumn is dating Ned.” Julie-Brooke-Danielle burst into hysterical laughter. “Ned!” they repeated.

Julie, now, would be fun to scare, Autumn realized. Unlike Mr. Phillips, Julie would deserve it. How many people had Julie scorned and loathed publicly over the years? How many people had Julie crushed under her foot, socially speaking? How many people had Julie laughed at?

Mariah quickly defended Autumn against the terrible charge of dating Ned. “It wasn’t a date. It was just class. We had pizza afterward. Everybody went. You couldn’t call it anything.”

Too late Mariah saw that Ned had joined them. Of course Ned had joined them, because Ned had thought it was something. Not a date, of course, but his own group.

Ned, white and hurt, stood very still, trying to be wallpaper, but Julie-Brooke-Danielle noticed him and threw back their heads laughing. “Hi, Neddie,” said Julie. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head, totally entertained. She hooked her finger in Ned’s shirt pocket and moved him forward by his fabric. She regarded his face with her best mixture of contempt and laughter. With her fingernail only, not even touching his skin with her skin, she adjusted the angle of his profile. “Cute choice, Autumn,” she said, meaning, Pathetic choice, Autumn.

Julie-Brooke-Danielle left laughing.

Ned was desperate to leave, to be anywhere but there, standing knee-deep in humiliation. He knew from experience not to walk off, because laughter would follow him. It was better just to stand still, until the tormentors abandoned him. He would be forgotten as soon as they faced the other direction and went on with their lives.

How he had hoped that he would actually have these three as friends! How many times would he fall for it—that soaring giddy hope which led to public pain? It was stupid to have hope.

The voices of Night Class whispered in the halls. Dark voices, which had stood in dark buildings and considered dark homework.

“We could film Julie,” said Autumn. “It would be a good film, and Julie would deserve it. She isn’t a nice person.” I’ve been hanging out with her for years, thought Autumn, and yet I never realized that
Julie isn’t nice.
But I have power now, I am in Night Class. I can do things I couldn’t do a day ago. And I can do some of them to Julie.

“She’d be a great Scare Choice,” said Mariah, very quietly.

“I agree,” said Andrew.

They were on Ned’s side. It had never happened before, that Ned had allies. And his new allies were not merely decorative, either. They were strong and popular and admirable.

And Julie—she might not be an ETS; but she was certainly an SC. And she would deserve it; nobody need feel guilty. In fact, it would be rather pleasurable to move in on Julie, alone in the dark.

And that means, thought Mariah, we won’t move in on Bevin, or that poor old lady.

Mariah smiled at Andrew, and he smiled back. Autumn smiled at Ned and he smiled back. They drew in close, like a pack of animals at a water hole, and they drank together.

A
NDREW ARRIVED AT THE HOSPITAL.

It had a vacant, abandoned look, like the minds of its patients.

There were weeds in untended gutters. There were patches of peeling paint. There were weather cracks in doors.

There were no gates, no fences, no grilles in the window. The hospital looked like a place where only the exhausted were kept; only the mental patients who had given up, and about whom nobody worried now.

Andrew swallowed. He went in by a door whose sign was so small, maybe it didn’t even count.
ENTRY,
it said sadly.

“Where is Mr. Phillips?” asked Andrew.

“He is no longer here,” said the clerk.

“Oh,” said Andrew, feeling better already. “Did he go home?”

“No,” said the clerk. The clerk’s eyes never met Andrew’s. The clerk’s eyes stood still, like glass or time. “He was removed.”

That made Mr. Phillips sound like a corpse, picked up by the mortuary. Andrew said nervously, “Removed by whom?”

“I couldn’t say,” said the clerk.

“Removed to where?” asked Andrew. I just want to get out of here, he thought. This place is creepy. What made me think of checking on Mr. Phillips, anyway? He’s a grown-up, he has to take care of his own problems, I’m busy, I’m very busy, I can’t get all involved with some sub’s emotional welfare.

The clerk pulled a pair of red-rimmed glasses from a shirt pocket and slowly put them on. They were half glasses and his flat eyes stared out from behind the squashed rims. The eyes never moved, and the clerk never once actually looked at, or saw, Andrew.

“And in what way,” said the clerk, “does this concern you? Are you family?”

“No,” said Andrew, “I’m one of his students.”

“You must have another Mr. Phillips in mind,” said the clerk. “This Mr. Phillips was not a teacher.”

And oh, how true that had been. Andrew said, “If you could just give me his home address …”

“This Mr. Phillips no longer has a home,” said the clerk.

“Everybody has a home,” cried Andrew.

“What an odd idea,” said the clerk.

Mariah, the future Class Daydreamer, was daydreaming. Mariah’s dreams were so real to her that sometimes her lips moved in pretend dialogue.

Julie had never poked fun at Mariah for this. She did not know why. There was something incredibly touching about how vulnerable Mariah was when lost in her daydream, as if the slightest stray syllable could knock Mariah down.

Does anybody in this school like me from afar, the way I like Mariah? wondered Julie.

But she did not have to wonder, she knew the answer, and the answer was no.

She felt a longing in her to be nice, the way some girls might long to be beautiful, or to be thin. But being nice seemed so distant, so unlikely. And she was so good at being mean. Could she really give up all that expertise, and turn nice, which was boring?

Bevin’s new life was acceptable.

He would go to school as usual, in the car with his sister and mother, and he would get out as usual, lost in the flurry of Mariah calling hello, and dropping things, and saying things, and waving. Somehow, as usual, his mother would never notice that he, Bevin, was not welcomed the way Mariah was. And Mariah, in the way of sisters, would quickly distance herself from her loser brother.