The Complete Roderick (32 page)

‘Well yeah I thought Father Warren was taking care of this kid. Been meaning to have another little pow-wow with him myself, Sister, only you know how it’s been what with trying to squeeze in a couple more basketball games before our Centre eats himself sick at Christmas and gets all outa shape, and what with trying to schedule early training for the baseball team. You know if I didn’t
keep after these kids our whole sports programme would go right down the tubes …’

Sister Olaf twisted the rosary on her belt. ‘He seems to think he’s preparing for his First Communion right along with all the others, that’s the problem. Not even baptized, I wonder if he even understands what a sincere confession is, and anyway.’

‘Anyway?’

‘The poor little thing doesn’t even seem to have a mouth.’

‘He must eat somehow.’ Father O’Bride finished cleaning his rifle and squinted down the barrel at her.

‘Eat? I’m not so sure, Father. We never find him in the refectory at lunch hour, he’s always lurking around the playground by himself or just sitting reading the Bible – and once I caught him carrying out the garbage for Sister Mary Martha!’

‘Uh-oh, can’t have that. You put a stop to it?’

‘Of course, a child could hurt himself carrying those heavy cans. Besides, the Community agreed that since Sister Mary Martha is too old to teach, housework is her little duty. Her little cross. And she takes it up joyfully.’

Father O’Bride found such expressions embarrassing. He tugged at the neckband of his sweatshirt as though it were a tight white collar. ‘Little too joyfully, if you ask me. I mean, she keeps polishing that same spot in the hall out there, I darn near broke my neck on it this morning. None of my business, of course, up to Mother Sup – and of course we all think the Sisters are doing one heck of a great job here, batting a thous –’

‘Whether the poor little pagan eats or not, Father, he doesn’t seem ready to make his First. It’s hard to get through to him, he seems to get everything mixed up with fairy tales and robot stories and I don’t know what. When I started telling the class about the Flight into Egypt, he kept interrupting to ask about the Deadly Desert, and Dorothy and Toto – yes and wasn’t Bethlehem where the steel came from, the metallic conception he called it! The metallic conception!’

Father O’Bride hated dealing with out-of-bounds decisions like these. He looked up for inspiration, but saw only a poster advertising the sign of the cross. Superimposed on a boy was a baseball diamond. The legend said:
BE SURE TO TOUCH ON ALL
BASES.
‘Look, take him out of religion altogether for now, let Father Warren handle that department. Teamwork, right?’

‘All right, and –’

‘Who knows, kid might shape up by next season anyway. If not, well, we hold him in reserve, bench him but maybe let him work out once in a while with the A squad …’

Sister Olaf went back to her class, pausing to check on Sister Mary Martha. The old woman was once more polishing the same little spot of hall floor, already mirror-bright. Have to do something about her, poor old forgetful … sees her own face in it, her own lost … now as in a glass, darkly, but soon … slippery as glass … glass slipp – stop that! She shook herself out of it. nodded at the crouching figure, and passed on. Upstairs Father O’Bride kicked his office door shut, but not before she heard him say, ‘Call that a little thing do you Charlie? I’m trying to start spring training here and my boys gotta work out in uniforms with that on ’em?
Bell Caps,
you call that –?’

The door slammed and there was no sound but the children’s choir practice.

A disappointment. All that work on the Bible stories and the catechism for nothing, just because of some lousy regulation. And Sister O. wouldn’t even tell him what the lousy regulation was just that he wasn’t going to have religion with the other kids any more, and he probably wouldn’t be making his First in May.

He guessed what the regulation was, something to do with his not being a meat person. Meat people got to die and go to the Emerald City and be happy with God forever and ever, and what did he get? Next to nothing. No matter how good he was, all he could count on was lousy Limbo, with a bunch of yelling babies around and nobody to talk to.

It didn’t seem fair, not after he’d worked so hard. Extra work, even, like when they had that bit about the Word becoming Flesh and he got to school early one morning and worked it all out on the blackboard:

WORD

wood

mood

moot

moat

MEAT

As usual, that made Sister O. real mad and she told him to stand in the corner and ask forgiveness and never call people meat again.

Heck they called them meat in Oz, anyway it was no worse than calling somebody a bunch of letters. She didn’t even care that he used ‘moot’ – a word half the kids didn’t even know was in the dictionary – nor that he was showing the whole thing right there, words turning into words.

Holy cow. Sister O. even threatened to yank him out of the Christmas play, just because he got mixed up in rehearsal and forgot his line (‘Here’s the frankincense, Jesus’) and said:

‘Jesus! Here’s the Frankenstein!’

Holy cow.

And here it was the last day of school before Christmas, the last afternoon of the last day, all he had now was this
wrap session
with Father Warren …

Mrs Feeney, the old housekeeper, showed him into the study. She reminded Roderick a lot of Sister Mary Martha, except she moved faster and cleaned more stuff, and except she never smiled.

‘The Father will be here in a minute,’ she said. ‘Now you sit
right there and don’t touch a thing.’

‘The chair? I mean …’

‘Don’t give me no lip, neither.’ She went out, polishing doorknobs behind her. He sat for what seemed like a minute, then got up and went to see what was on the desk. A silver cigarette-box, candy dish and lighter – those would be Father Warren’s. A spring grip developer and an electronic thing for keeping golf scores – Father O’Bride’s. The other stuff could be anybody’s. A stack of blank magnetic cards, each one headed A.M.D.G., a desk-set in onyx plastic and a letter:

… His Grace notes your request for approval of the Holy Trinity School team name, ‘Hell Cats’, and asks me to write, strongly
urging you to reconsider. Any association of the name of the Holy
Trinity with Hell is to be avoided, being distasteful at least! Your
alternative suggestion ‘Hep Cats’ is not all together acceptable either.

In these troubled times, the Church must avoid giving
scandal even in small matters. World Communism is on the prowl, seeking whom it may devour,
preying on the weak and ignorant. We trust you will keep all this in mind and consider less contr
versial alternatives such as ‘Tornadoes’ or ‘Tigers’. Or why not a name inspired by some popular saint, e.g., Patrick: The ‘Sham Rocks’ …

Father Warren came in kneading his hands. ‘Well now, have you read that book I lent you?’

‘Yes Father, I mean I read all the words and looked them up and all, only I still couldn’t understand it.’

‘Ah. Might be a little hard for such a young –’

‘I mean on the very first page there’s these three laws of robots and they don’t make any sense.’

‘Ah! The famous Three Laws of Robotics? They make perfect sense. Believe me, this is airtight logic.’ He quoted from memory, counting fingers. ‘First, “A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” Seems plain enough. Second, “A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.” No nonsense there. And third, “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.” Now which of these gives you trouble?’

‘Well all of them. Look Father I’m a robot and I don’t –’

‘Still insisting on that, are we? Roderick, do me a favour. Take this pin.’ The priest plucked a pin from a desk drawer and held it out. ‘Go on take it. Now, stick me with it.’

‘What?’

‘Stick the pin in my hand there, go on. You’re supposed to be a robot, so I’m ordering you, go on.’

‘Yeah but – well okay.’ Roderick made a weak swipe with the pin, raising a tiny scratch on the back of the hand.

‘Ouch!’ Father Warren smiled. ‘You have just proved that you can’t possibly be a robot. You violated the First Law.’

Roderick watched a drop of blood form on the scratch. ‘I guess so. Only –’

‘No guessing about it. Logic says you can either be a robot or stick me with a pin, but not both.’

‘Yeah that’s logic all right, but only if you go along with these here three laws. But I mean they’re only in stories and this is real life. I mean like in the Oz stories they just got one law in Oz, “Behave yourself”. Only in real life people don’t, do they?’

‘No, Roderick, but listen –’

‘And like this here other story about the man going up on the mountain and getting these here pills with laws on them, heck even by the time he gets down the mountain everybody’s breaking the laws all over the place, worshipping a golden leg and –’