CHAPTER IX SOARING
Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, theempurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaininghalf through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girlswere sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followedtheir operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind;then, sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyesremained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lessonreached his ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing;and yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away fromthe painful land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy whichhe had just discovered.
Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, howcolourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closingdown between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almostsound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than issuspected.
The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearablelonging for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy'sfundamental desire is to do something astonishing himself, so as to bethe centre of all human interest and awe, it was natural that Penrodshould discover in fancy the delightful secret of self-levitation.He found, in this curious series of imaginings, during the lesson inarithmetic, that the atmosphere may be navigated as by a swimmer underwater, but with infinitely greater ease and with perfect comfort inbreathing. In his mind he extended his arms gracefully, at a level withhis shoulders, and delicately paddled the air with his hands, which atonce caused him to be drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to aposition about midway between the floor and the ceiling, where hecame to an equilibrium and floated; a sensation not the less exquisitebecause of the screams of his fellow pupils, appalled by the miracle.Miss Spence herself was amazed and frightened, but he only smiled downcarelessly upon her when she commanded him to return to earth; andthen, when she climbed upon a desk to pull him down, he quietly paddledhimself a little higher, leaving his toes just out of her reach. Next,he swam through a few slow somersaults to show his mastery of the newart, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars ringing inhis ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the window,immediately rising above the housetops, while people in the street belowhim shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in wonder.
With almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a stroke, tothe girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a pupil--MarjorieJones of the amber curls and the golden voice! Long before the "Pageantof the Table Round," she had offered Penrod a hundred proofs thatshe considered him wholly undesirable and ineligible. At the FridayAfternoon Dancing Class she consistently incited and led the laughter athim whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in mattersof feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him for hisslavish lack of memory in daring to offer her a greeting on the way toSunday-school. "Well! I expect you must forgot I told you never to speakto me again! If I was a boy, I'd be too proud to come hanging aroundpeople that don't speak to me, even if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!"So she flouted him. But now, as he floated in through the window of herclassroom and swam gently along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon,she fell upon her knees beside her little desk, and, lifting up her armstoward him, cried with love and admiration:
"Oh, PENrod!"
He negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, smilingcoldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps of the school,while Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant her one kind look.
In the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence anda brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook thevery ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the stepsand watched adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and,performing sinuous evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then hethrew the baton so high that it disappeared from sight; but he wentswiftly after it, a double delight, for he had not only the delicioussensation of rocketing safely up and up into the blue sky, but alsothat of standing in the crowd below, watching and admiring himself as hedwindled to a speck, disappeared and then, emerging from a cloud, camespeeding down, with the baton in his hand, to the level of the treetops,where he beat time for the band and the vast throng and Marjorie Jones,who all united in the "Star-spangled Banner" in honour of his aerialachievements. It was a great moment.
It was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. The faceof Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too vivid--unpleasantlyvivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, "Come down, Penrod Schofield!Penrod Schofield, come down here!"
He could hear her above the band and the singing of the multitude; sheseemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie Jones was weeping toshow how sorry she was that she had formerly slighted him, and throwingkisses to prove that she loved him; but Miss Spence kept jumping betweenhim and Marjorie, incessantly calling his name.
He grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most importantperson in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones andthe whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had theright to order him about as she did in the old days when he was anordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he was sure she wanted him to dosomething disagreeable. It seemed to him that she had screamed "PenrodSchofield!" thousands of times.
From the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own schoolroom, hehad not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one of the requirementsfor air floating is perfect silence on the part of the floater; but,finally, irritated beyond measure by Miss Spence's clamorous insistence,he was unable to restrain an indignant rebuke and immediately came toearth with a frightful bump.
Miss Spence--in the flesh--had directed toward the physical body of theabsent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of dividingseventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised anddispleased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledgeand belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her questioncrisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name withincreasing asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellowpupils turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from theplatform.
"Penrod Schofield!"
"Oh, my goodness!" he shouted suddenly. "Can't you keep still a MINUTE?"
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