The Man in the Woods (3 page)

“Y
OU MUST HAVE COME
about the booster tags!” chirped an optimistic voice when Helen stepped into the
Whaler
office. “I’m Penny Parker, assistant business manager,” the girl went on without waiting for a reply. She shook a full head of copper curls as merrily as she spoke. “It’s just super of you to come and help us. How many tags do you think you can sell this week? Fifty? A hundred?”

“I ... um, what exactly are they?” asked Helen.

“My goodness!” said Penny. She hauled a carton to where Helen was standing and ripped the tape and flaps off the top of it. Then she plunged her hand into a mass of little white cardboard triangles, each with a string attached and each with a picture of a football player and the message “BEAT FALL RIVER!” in red ink. “Aren’t they great?” asked Penny. “What you do is, you sell them to all your friends, and they get everyone else to sign ’em. You hang ’em on your notebook ring or on your pocketbook. You sell ’em for fifty cents apiece and bring us the money at the end of the week. You should do real well this week ’cause Fall River’s our big rival!”

“I really came,” said Helen, “with a note for Jerry—the editor?” She edged the note and drawing, upside down, into Penny’s view. Penny was counting out tags. She stopped and blinked at Helen.

“You mean you won’t help us out?” asked Penny. “Gee, when you’re a freshman, it’s a great way to meet all the kids!”

Helen was terrified of annoying this pert and important girl, but she could not imagine having fifty friends to sell tags to, and worst of all she knew she would never have the heart to sell anything with such a bad drawing on it. “Of course I’ll help!” she said, only hoping Penny would begin to smile again. Penny giggled. “I’ll take that right in to Jerry,” she said. “You just stay here and count out your tags. Be right back!”

Around Helen typewriters clattered. A telephone rang again and again. People, all older than she, laughed and catcalled at one another. She turned a booster tag over in her hand. She warned herself not to say anything. Not to volunteer to do the football player drawing over and ask to have them reprinted.
Listen, Helen
, she told herself sharply,
don’t make any mistakes. If they print this cartoon of yours, maybe they’ll print another and then another, and then you’ll never have to envy the cheerleaders again. You’ll never have to worry about being asked to join things because you will already be a part of something on your own. Don’t mess it up!
she added.
Keep your big mouth shut!

“Well, he wants to see you,” said Penny with a shrug. She startled Helen, who dropped several tags on the floor.

The editor’s office was in a metal cubicle the color of a Band-Aid. Three people stared at her as if she had just played a cruel joke on them. She felt like an ant.

She guessed that Jerry Rosen was the one in the middle chair, behind the enormous oak desk. The desk was much more impressive than any of the teachers’ metal ones upstairs. Jerry dressed like a movie-version editor. He actually wore a vest. It was unbuttoned. His sleeves were rolled up just so at the elbows, and his tie was loosened slightly at his unbuttoned collar. “Sit down, sit down,” he said, indicating a folding chair. Helen guessed the legs had been sawn off an inch or two because her head just came up to the level of the desk when she sat in it. A pallid, bland-looking young man sat on Jerry’s left, and a dreamy blond girl who was trying to conceal a piece of gum behind a back tooth lounged at his right. Helen could not keep her eyes off Jerry’s jittery hands or his dark, wavy hair.

“Well, well, well,” Jerry began. He swiveled around in his executive chair and plopped his Top-siders on the desk. “Seems as if you have some drawing potential, Helen.”

“Thank you,” said Helen. She knew she was dead in the water. “Potential” was not much of a compliment after what Mr. Bro had said.

“You certainly seem to have some strong ideas about the President of the United States and the governor of Massachusetts, not to mention nuclear power plants.”

“Well, yes,” Helen said miserably.

“Just explain this to me,” said Jerry, squinting at the drawing as if he needed glasses. “The President? The governor? It says here ‘drinking heavy water and eating yellow cake’? Is that it?”

“Heavy water,” Helen said, trying to keep her voice from cracking, “is contaminated cooling water used in nuclear power plants. Yellow cake is the stuff that spills out of the trucks that carry the waste. If one of the waste-carrying trucks got in an accident and spilled the yellow cake all over the highway, thousands, millions of people could get killed. They come right through New Bedford, those trucks, on their way from the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant in Plymouth. They should be stopped!”

The young man at Jerry’s side clucked his tongue but did not look up from a sheaf of papers.

“First of all,” said Jerry, “a high school newspaper simply doesn’t run cartoons showing the President and the governor in very unflattering poses. Secondly, what you say is nonsense. The trucks are perfectly safe.”

“They’re not,” said Helen. “What would happen if that Punk Rock Thrower, the one who’s been throwing rocks at cars ... supposing he hit a nuclear-waste truck. It could wipe out half of New England!”

“Barry?” said Jerry. He looked over to his left. “Barry, what would Mr. Perry say if he saw a cartoon like this in the
Whaler
?” Jerry turned to Helen for a second and added, “Barry works part time for Perry and Crowe downtown.”

“Oh,” answered Barry, shaking his head, “Mr. Perry’d be very upset by a cartoon like that. Why, he’d probably take all his advertising out of the
Whaler
.”

“I think every businessman in New Bedford would do the same, don’t you, Barry?” Jerry asked.

“The businessmen support the Pilgrim plant,” said Barry. “They certainly wouldn’t like a lot of left-wing controversy in a school newspaper with their advertisements. They might lose money. They’d all take their ads out of the
Whaler
, and then the
Whaler
would go broke. I’m sure you’d have a lot of trouble if you ran that cartoon.”

“You see, Helen,” said Jerry, smiling, “we can’t afford to lose our advertising money. We’d be out of business in a week. You don’t want to ruin the
Whaler
, do you, Helen?”

“Well, of course I don’t,” said Helen, “but—”

“And you wouldn’t want the
Whaler
to lose out on a chance of winning the state journalism prize because of your cartoon, would you, Helen?”

“Oh, no,” said Helen, “but—”

“The choice is up to you,” said Jerry. “If you tell us just to forget the cartoon, we’ll give it back to you, and everything will be okay.”

“Choice? Up to me?” Helen asked.

“I realize you’re kind of disappointed,” Jerry added so unctuously Helen’s toes curled. “Tell you what I’ll do. If freshmen want to work for the
Whaler
, they have to sell booster tags. Sophomores get to carry equipment and collect ad money from the local merchants. Only when you get to be a junior do you get to join the
Whaler
staff for real. Now, I think a girl with your brains and potential would be bored selling booster tags or collecting ad money. How would you like to come right on the
Whaler
staff? Right now! Beverly here is the staff artist. Maybe she’ll let you help her with a little of the paste-up. How about it, Bev?”

“Sure,” said Beverly languidly. Beverly’s blond hair was, if anything, more glowing and perfect than the girl’s in the pink frosted sweater. Helen coughed. She wondered what paste-up was.

Jerry opened his drawer. He took out a little red and white button with the school crest and the words
Whaler Press Pass
on it and flipped it to the edge of the desk, just within Helen’s reach. “This will be your press pass,” he said. “Gets you into all football and basketball games free. You get to miss one class a day, study hall or gym, as a staff member. This very week, Helen, if you say yes, your own paste-up will appear printed in the
Whaler
’s first issue.”

Helen was stunned. She did not answer. Jerry apparently took this for hesitation. “Tell you what else I’ll do,” he said. “Barry here has brought in the ad for Perry and Crowe’s fall sale. How would you like to do the drawing for the Perry and Crowe ad and see it printed right there in the
Whaler
?”

Barry gave Jerry a sour look. “Bev’s supposed to do it, Jerry,” he said. “I don’t see why this freshman—”

“Let’s give her a chance, Barry. Okay?” said Jerry. “What do you say, Helen? Are you going to make us lose out on the state award and give up all our advertising, or do you want to start off your high school career as the
Whaler
’s staff art assistant?”

Helen’s hand closed over the little red and white button. Everyone in the room relaxed. Beverly started chewing her gum again, lazily. Helen knew that none of them would care if a nuclear truck rolled over and blew up so long as it didn’t bother them. “Show her what you want, Barry,” said Jerry, folding Helen’s drawing into a square the size of a postage stamp.

Barry took a box gently from between his knees and placed it on the desk. “I’m Barry de Wolf,” he said, and Helen felt she ought to salute. “Don’t break this. It’s a fifty-dollar music box.” Helen watched as he removed the tissue from around a Hummel figurine. This one was a statuette of a little German boy in lederhosen. He was carrying a staff, and skipping behind him was either a lamb or a goat. Helen couldn’t tell. Hummel figurines were among her Aunt Stella’s favorite collectibles. She owned four. Helen hated them. She hated their pink cheeks, cupid bow smiles, and the frantic little tunes they played. “Oh, he’s just beautiful,” she said as Barry unwrapped him.

“Mr. Perry,” said Barry, “wants him drawn just the way he is, except leave out the goat and the staff and make his arm bend up as if he’s saying ‘Come on in!’ Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can make him really cute? Mr. Perry wants him really cute.”

“Oh, I think so,” said Helen. She hoped this would lead to better things.

With shaking hands Helen placed the figurine in its tissue and its box and then slipped it into her pocketbook.

“You’re not going to swing that pocketbook around, are you?” Barry asked.

“Oh, no,” said Helen. “I was just ... She fumbled and took the box out again. She held it with both hands.

“Take the stairway on the right,” said Jerry. “Go down to the pressroom. Pinky Levy is printing hall passes down there. Ask him to show you how to do paste-up. If you need help, call on Bev.”

Beverly waved three fingers. She did not look helpful.

Helen turned to go. “Do you suppose,” she asked shyly, telling herself sternly to shut up, “if I gave you some drawings of football players and you liked them, maybe we could print up a new set of booster tags?”

A silence answered this. Beverly raised an eyebrow. Jerry finally said, “Sure. Sure.” Barry watched the box in Helen’s hands as if it were about to explode of its own accord.

Helen recognized the cowlick on the back of Pinky’s head immediately.

“Get your locker open yet?” he asked when he turned around. Pinky was on his knees tinkering with an old printing press in the lowest basement room of the building. There were no windows. A flickering fluorescent light hung above a grimy drawing board.

“No,” said Helen. She hoped that it wouldn’t be “her” drawing board.

“When I’m finished here, I’ll open it for you,” said Pinky. “Couldn’t do it this morning. Too many people around for me to hear the works in the lock.”

Helen waited a decent interval. The press began to creak and shudder into action. Huge sheets of pink paper floated to the floor one after another. “Those’ll get dirty,” said Helen. “Let me pick them up.”

Pinky squeegeed three gobs of printer’s ink onto one of the rollers. “Don’t go near the press,” he said. “You’ll get hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt,” said Helen.

“Girls don’t know anything about the power of machinery,” said Pinky. “My sister nearly lost her hand in the toaster because she doesn’t understand how it works. Sit over there, why don’t you? How come you came down here?”

“I’m on the
Whaler
staff,” said Helen proudly. “Jerry said you’d be able to show me how to do paste-up?”

Pinky laughed. “So they finally found someone sucker enough to do Beverly’s dirty work!” he said.

“But it’s an honor!” Helen protested. “I don’t have to sell tags or collect ad money. My work gets printed!”

“The thrill will wear off after five minutes,” said Pinky.

Helen wished she could leave this awful room and this bossy boy. She did not want to go home without her books, however, and there was a chance he might open her locker, so she sat down with a stack of old
Whalers
and waited.

The first thing she looked for was Beverly’s caterpillar cartoons. Helen could see Mr. Bro’s point. One caterpillar was called Moonbeam. He said things like “Gee, there must be more to life than drinking nectar. I bet there’s a butterfly inside each and every one of us.”

One issue contained a story that had won a prize, a gold medal, in fact, for the story of the year. Barry de Wolf had written it, and it was entitled “Non-migratory Birds of New Bedford, an In-depth Study.” Helen’s eyes closed. She yawned. Suddenly she said, “Oh, dear ... there’s a spelling mistake on the hall passes you’re printing.”

“What?” asked Pinky. He stopped the press. It came to a slow, dying halt, clanking all the while.

“Right here,” said Helen. “The word
message
is spelled m-a-s-s-a-g-e. That’s a back rub, a massage.”

Pinky swore under his breath. “It
isn’t
wrong,” he said.

“It is,” said Helen.

Pinky swore again. “You better be right about this,” he said. “This means I’ll have to send out for a new plate, and Jerry’ll kill me because of the expense.”

“I’m sorry,” said Helen. “I didn’t mean to make trouble for you.”

“Well, you have.”

“But it isn’t my fault. It isn’t your fault either. You just printed it.”

“It
is
my fault,” said Pinky. “I did the paste-up on it, and I should have caught it. Beverly was too lazy, bless her snaky little heart. Boy, I bet Bev’s laughing in her beer ’cause she shoved the paste-up job off on some dumb freshman!”