by Andre Norton
There was a chorus of agreement to that. Then the second bell made a hall-shaking din, and Canfield released Chris, only the promise remained in his eyes. Chris swallowed twice as he settled into his seat.
Canfield meant every word of the threat he implied, even if he had not spelled it out. Either Chris did what was demanded, or there would be an “accident” in gym. And he would be given the rest of the morning to think about that, his imagination going to work on just what form Canfield's answer to his stubbornness might take. He was no superman hero, but—Chris's tongue swept over his lower lip—there was some part of him which would not allow him meekly to do as Canfield ordered. He would have to think. And with that threat hanging over him, thinking came hard.
In the end he used his first study period to visit the library. That was one place where he felt safe; Canfield would not get at him there. He built a barricade of three volumes of the encyclopedia and a dictionary. Behind that, he drew squiggles on a sheet of notebook paper and tried to think clearly.
But all he seemed able to remember was how he and Nan had crawled through the snow—in the dream. He had been able then to do what he was meant to do. But dreams were not real life—Suddenly somehow the pencil with which he had been doodling began to write out words. This was crazy, but it might work. Of course it would be only temporary, but perhaps if he managed to outwit Canfield and get him in enough difficulty, Chris could plan further ahead and stave off disaster entirely.
He had this advantage; the rest of that gang were not in the Batman's first class. They were in the second session because they were in the A lab group. And he was pretty sure that they never did more than the Batman squeezed out of them, either. In fact Canfield big-mouthed how he put it over on every teacher who tried to stuff anything into that solid head of his.
Chris's lips curved into a very faint smile. It would be worth it—it sure would! He'd have to fake something to give him an excuse from gym next week, but that'd be the part he could think of later. Now this was what he was going to do.
His ball-point put down a series of sentences. He read it over and crumpled the paper, stuffing it away in his book bag. He would not trust any school wastebasket with this one!
And he was ready for Canfield an hour later with his promise that he would certainly try his best to get the exam.
“You'd better.” Canfield flexed his hand, rounded it into a very visible fist. “You're pure prize chicken, Owl. We're not going to part with you.”
Chris hoped he was registering the right amount of fear. And he took several rib jabs hard enough to leave bruises, being tripped to fall with force on his face. These were the reminders Canfield and his crowd delivered.
It was three before he got back to the English Lit room. He knew that eyes had watched him go, and he made a business of talking to Mr. Battersley—bringing up the question of a term paper, one he had already decided upon. They must believe that he was laying the foundation for his intended raid.
Though they were nowhere in sight as he came out, Chris was sure all had been reported to Canfield. Now the next step depended upon some hard work with his own portable typewriter in as much secrecy as possible.
He was still laying his plans on his way home when a voice at his shoulder startled him. “Did everything go all right?”
Annoyed, he looked around at Nan. “What're you doing here?” he demanded. “And what do you mean about things being all right?”
She looked a little confused. “It was those boys—” she began hesitatingly. “I thought—”
“You don't have to think anything,” retorted Chris roughly.
If she was going to come hanging around, believing he could not handle his own life—that would be beyond the limit!
“No, I don't,” she fired back. Now she put on speed, marching ahead of him with her head in the air as if he no longer existed at all.
Which was just as he wanted, Chris told himself quickly.
7
Not Guilty
After supper Chris laid out his papers on the table in the kitchen, since his desk had gone to be refinished. He had his Lit book out, and he was concentrating harder than he ever had for real classwork. This must be good enough to pass Canfield's inspection. At least, by paying attention in class and with an excellent memory of the Batman's earlier exam this term, he had a pretty good idea of what might turn up as main questions. The idea was, of course, not to follow the previous exam too closely.
In the end he had an exam figured out. Now all he had to do was type it. Carefully he tore all his practice notes into small pieces, shaking them into the bag for the incinerator. He was so tired his head ached, but he surveyed what he had done with some pride.
Saturday morning he used his typewriter and had to make three copies to be sure that the end result was free of errors.
He was so intent on what he was doing that he paid very little attention to Aunt Elizabeth or Nan. Luckily they went shopping, while Clara did not bother him in his room where he installed the typewriter on a chair and sat on the bed to use it.
Carefully he again shredded his final copy. The important part was the carbon, the copy of the exam that Mr. Battersley might well keep in his desk. But how to get it to Canfield? That must be worked out with all the patience and care Chris could summon.
Nan shifted the bag of groceries as she walked across the lobby behind Aunt Elizabeth. She had had to fend off as well as she could two suggestions made by Aunt Elizabeth about entertaining Marve and her pals. That they now ignored her at school was fine as far as she was concerned, though she had been uneasily aware of whispering and the fact that she was again strictly on her own as far as they were concerned. How she longed to get away—away from everything which made up this new life!
“Mail.” Aunt Elizabeth set down her bag to use her key on the box in the lobby. There were a lot of letters, but Nan was indifferent until Aunt Elizabeth produced one from Grandma, which Nan had to keep herself from snatching. There was a postcard from Mother—one showing on the picture side a queer stone face—which Nan took with less excitement.
When they were back in the apartment, she carried Grandma's letter to her room and sat down before taking off her coat to tear open the envelope.
Grandma was much better; the warmth was good for her. There was a pleasant group of ladies who met on Monday mornings in the recreation hall to do handicrafts and Grandma's fingers were so much better she could sew again, so she was making Nan one of the new patchwork skirts. She had been asked out for supper twice by her neighbors—
Nan raced through to the end of the second sheet, then went back to the first and read it again. Nothing about wanting to be back home, to have Nan with her again. Only one thing—she read the paragraph slowly, word for word, her desolation mounting:
“I think, dear child, that I have been selfish all these years. Since I made a home for you, your mother missed much of the closeness which should have grown between you. Had I not taken you so completely, she would have seen better the need for this. Perhaps it is well that circumstances forced us into this new life. I am hoping and praying that now you will get to know each other as you should have years ago.”
Nan dropped the letter to the floor. The postcard still lay on the bed, that nasty stone face glaring up at her. She poked it with her finger until it flopped over. Mother always typed— well, she had sent about four lines this time.
Striving not to remember Grandma's letter, Nan mumbled half aloud: “Have finished the research. Jeff has two more weeks here; then we'll be seeing both of you. There is a surprise in the making. I think you'll be pleased.”
Nan's reaction to that was a sullen humph.
She kicked at Grandma's letter, then stooped to pick it up and refold it into its envelope. Grandma was having fun! And that piece about Nan getting closer to her mother, she could guess what that really meant—that Grandma was tired of having her around! Nan rubbed her eyes fiercely. She was not going to c
ry!
But she would wait a good long time before answering. Grandma could just go on having all her fun. Since she did not really care what was happening to Nan, Nan need not care what was happening to her either.
As for any surprise—She had had surprises enough. And all of them so far had turned out to be the kind one could do without. She shuffled Mother's card against Grandma's letter and stuffed them both in the top drawer of the chest.
Aunt Elizabeth, of course, asked questions. How was Grandma? And Nan reported dutifully that Grandma was much better, thank you, and enjoying her Florida home. And Mother had finished her research. But she said nothing about the surprise. Chris had a letter, too. He hardly glanced at it while he was eating lunch, and pushed it unopened into his pocket when he excused himself, hurriedly for Chris.
Nan heard the typewriter going in his room. Not fast the way Mother had used it when she came to visit in Elmsport, but slow as if he studied each letter before he pushed the key. It seemed awfully important, whatever it was that he was doing.
Aunt Elizabeth routed him out of his room a half hour later with the news that they were all going to the space exhibit at the Mall. She was determined, Nan thought, to be sure they were entertained—though her own interest in space was not that great.
But it was fun after all to see the pictures and the mock-up of the moon ship, to view the rocks which the astronauts had actually picked up and brought back. The pictures taken of the earth from space were strange. Nan stood before one, gazing at the queer lines which seemed so distorted from those appearing in her textbook. There had been a report a week ago—Gary Evans had given it—about how a very old, old map found in Europe someplace showed the same distortions—and even that Antarctica on it had been pictured free from ice and snow and formed as two islands, which people now knew to be true.
For one moment Nan had a queer, out-of-her-body feeling, as if she were floating up in space looking down at the earth. It was a sensation which she dimly realized was close to the feeling she had had in the first dream, when she was sure she could find the hiding place by touching the panels of the inn parlor. What would happen if she could touch one of the moon rocks—not the person she now was but the other Nan who had been able to do such a strange and frightening thing? Would she see—what—? There was not much to see on the moon except rocks standing in tall ridges or lying down.
She walked on. Chris was by the mock-up of the rocket ship. Nan joined him.
“I wonder what it feels like,” she said suddenly, “to be shut up in that and ‘way off in space.” She thought she would not like it at all.
“They travel in space,” Chris observed without taking his eyes from the ship. “But what if we could travel in time?”
Nan shivered. Travel in time—like the dreams about the inn?
“What are you going to do—with that?”
He made no pretense of not understanding her. “What should I do?”
“I told you. Get rid of it!”
Chris shook his head. “It hasn't hurt us any. Now has it?”
Nan blinked. She tried to answer yes, but she found that she could not. What if she had not had that memory of confounding Uncle Jasper when Pat pulled that trick on her? Perhaps she—No, she honestly did not know now what she might have done. It was that small feeling of triumph the other Nan had had when she outwitted the King's Men which had given her what Grandma would have called “backbone” enough to walk away from Marve and the others who had tried to trap her.
“My father—they're coming back,” Chris broke into her own thoughts.
“I know.”
Chris continued in his usual dogged fashion. “I always thought that Dad—Dad and I—” He was scowling as he added roughly, “I was a baby. You think of a lot of things when you're little that are never going to add up right, you know that? I wish the part—part about leading the dragoons past the trap had been real—at least that Chris did something!”
“It will work out.” Nan tried to make her voice sound confident. But she was afraid that she failed, for Chris only hunched a shoulder at her and she realized he had shut her out again.
They had dinner; then Aunt Elizabeth suggested a movie special on TV. This time Chris sat cross-legged on the floor to watch, too. The film was interesting. Nan lost all her doubts and troubles as she let herself be absorbed by the story.
Sunday was church again, and in the afternoon two friends of Aunt Elizabeth's came visiting. Nan excused herself to read in her room, and Chris disappeared even earlier. But she found herself getting out paper to write to Grandma. The most exciting parts of her life—the inn dreams and Marve's invitation—she could not tell. But she tried to make the rest sound as if she were having just as good a time as Grandma, with no regrets for vanished Elmsport. And she did not mention either the postcard from her mother or what Grandma had said about them being closer together.
Monday she walked to school with Chris again, and he was in a hurry, for once. Nor did he talk to her any. There was something wrong—Nan could feel it like a heavy cloud hanging right over the two of them. She looked into the yard of the Academy as Chris, not even saying so long, left her. At least those boys were not in sight.
She faced another day of being by herself. But before she left Miss Crabbit's room in the afternoon, she was called to the desk.
“Ordinarily"—Miss Crabbit always spoke abruptly as if she needed to keep any listeners in line and by now Nan was used to it—"I would not consider this at all. You are behind in three subjects, Nan. However, you have shown a desire to catch up. If you wish, you can obtain the necessary help to do so. Cathy Schmitz will help you—if you can stay an extra half hour in the library each afternoon. You will have to discuss this with your aunt and let me know as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Miss Crabbit,” Nan answered.
Cathy Schmitz? She was the big girl who sat in the last seat of the second row. At the moment Nan could recall nothing more about her than that. And she did not like the idea of anyone helping her—she had always been an honor student in Elmsport. But she knew that she was not keeping up with the class, and she remembered Martha's warning: if you could not keep up, you got put back a class. She was not going to have that happen if she could help it.
Nan thought about Cathy as she stood before her locker, pulling out her coat. Then she was bumped so hard she was nearly pushed into the half-open locker. She glanced around angrily to see Pat smiling her sly smile, Marve tossing her hair, Karen a little behind her leader.
“What did the old Crab want to tell you?” Marve asked.
“That I wasn't keeping up with the class,” Nan said bluntly.
“She'll put you back a grade then.” There was satisfaction in Pat's smile.
“What did you do—about that thing?” Karen shot her question as if she must have an answer, but she was not looking at Nan. Rather her eyes darted from side to side as if to make sure that no one else heard her.
Again Nan knew exactly what was meant. “I gave it back.” She saw no reason to explain how she had given it back.
“And they took it—without questions?” It was plain Pat did not believe her in the least.
But Marve had been watching her closely, and now she spoke before Nan could answer, “You did, didn't you? But you must have been clever about it—or we would have heard—”
“I didn't tell about you.” Nan pulled on her coat.
“It was some kind of a trick,” Pat protested.
Marve laughed. “If it was, she's nearly as good as you are, Pat. Maybe you're jealous. Listen here, Nan, we don't want any trouble. If you let us alone, we'll let you alone. We just thought you could take a joke—it's plain you can't.” Marve laughed again scornfully. “You're just so square we can count your corners. But if you try to make any trouble"—her eyes were not smiling even if her mouth was—"you'll learn what trouble can be!”
She swung around and walked away, Karen giving a little skip to mat
ch step with her, Pat a bit behind.
Nan's hands shook a little as she pulled tight her belt. There had been such menace in Marve's voice that she felt as if the other girl had slapped her in the face. And she still shook as she started the walk home.
It gave her a feeling of relief when she came in sight of the Academy gate and saw before her a hunch-shouldered figure, stalking along the pavement. She could recognize Chris anywhere, and he was alone. Nan hurried her pace to catch up with him.
Chris was only half aware that he was safely out on the street—alone. It had been so easy that he was suspicious. Usually things never worked for him without one hitch or another. But Canfield had taken the carbon, looked down the list of questions, and had accepted it as the real thing. Chris sniffled experimentally. He would have the flu, he decided; just enough to put him out of school for the rest of the week. There was no sense in going in tomorrow when Canfield and the others would discover just what he had done.
A lot could happen in a week, Chris thought wistfully. Perhaps even Dad would think about the letters he had sent saying how he hated the Academy and had decided he would prefer to change to the school where Nan went. It could not be any worse than halls haunted by people like Canfield.
Yes, he would play sick for at least a week. A lot of good steady sniffling and some coughs—He tried a couple now experimentally and thought they sounded quite promising.
“Chris!”
He half choked on another cough. Her again. But he stopped as she came running toward him.
“You're late,” he said.
‘The Crab kept me after.” She would say nothing about Marve and the threat. “I'm behind, coming in the middle of the term. She says I have to have special study.—I'm to tell Aunt Elizabeth.”
“Who's going to tutor you?” Chris asked suspiciously. He had no idea of being any part of a cram-Nan action.
