by John Sladek
‘But this, this is just one of our standard texts for the sex education class.’
‘Exactly. Dirt education. For tender babes who never had a naughty thought in their innocent little noodles!’
‘But many of the parents have asked –’
‘For this corruption? I can’t believe it and I won’t believe it. You can call me an old-fashioned grumpy cross-patch if you like, but someone has to stand up and protect the little ones. Why, this book has pictures of unborn babies – right inside the you-know-what!’
One of the younger teachers giggled nervously. A mistake. Mrs Dorano raised her voice. ‘Oh, you may snigger! The world is full of sniggerers, wicked grown-ups who laugh at innocence, who want to pull it down and soil it.’
‘Mrs Dorano.’ The principal removed her glasses. ‘I’m sure you have a point there. Why don’t you take it up at the next PTA meeting and –’
‘Oh I will, don’t worry.’ Mrs Dorano gave them all a motherly smile. ‘The PTA, certainly. And also the Newer Decency Society.’
Miss Borden turned away quickly. ‘How’s it going on the playground, Captain?’
‘Not much action. Few kids kicking around some kind of toy tank there or something. If that’s school equipment, I can promise them they’ll be sorry.’
‘Toy – My God, that’s the new pupil, the Wood boy! Where’s Ogilvy, why isn’t he out there stopping it?’ She rushed out, her head filled with printing-presses, a blur of headlines:
CRIPPLED BOY BEATEN, GANG KILLS CRIPPLED BOY AT NEWER SCHOOL, PARENTS TO SUE …
Threading the maze of corridors, she found Ogilvy by the door. He was kneeling, making a few adjustments to his shin-guards.
‘Some security guard!’ she shouted. ‘They’re beating the life out of a crippled kid out there. Let’s go!’
‘Can’t be everywhere at once,’ he whined behind her. ‘I was just looking at the busted lock on the A-V room.’
She stopped, half way out of the door. ‘What? Not again?’
‘Yup. Ripped off the stereo, TV camera, vidrecorder – the works.’
This was serious, a bad blow to the budget. For a moment, Miss Borden almost forgot where she was going.
Roderick learned one thing right away: he was different-looking. Up to now. he’d never thought much about his appearance. Ma and Pa and the other grown-ups didn’t seem to mind. But as soon as he appeared on the playground bigger kids started shoving him.
‘Hello,’ he said, hoping the shoves were accidental.
‘Get that,’ said a tall, red-haired boy with missing front teeth. ‘He talks! Hey you, freaky, what’s your name?’
‘Roderick. What’s yours?’
‘Roderick, what kinda name is that? Hahahaha it sounds like prick!’
The others doubled over at that one. The conversation turned to names, as, shove by shove, they backed Roderick against a wall. The tall boy, whom the others addressed as Chauncey, favoured the name ‘Freaky-prick’; others suggested ‘Pricky-freak’ ‘Pricky-dick’, etc., etc.
‘Roderick, hahahahaha,’ said one of the smaller boys. ‘It sounds like poopy-pants!’ He and another kid started wrestling and moved out of sight.
‘Freaky,’ said Chauncey again, moving closer. ‘Why you wearing a iron suit, huh? Huh? Think you’re tough or some-ping?’
‘No, well I just –’
‘Shaddap. You ain’t so tough I bet without that iron suit. Why don’t you take it off, huh? Huh?’
‘I can’t.’
‘“I can’t”, he says. Spose I take it off you, huh? I could use a iron suit like that, spose I just take it?’
‘He might die, stupid,’ said a kid in a blue track-suit. ‘It’s like a iron lung, ain’t that right?’
‘Shaddap.’ Chauncey grabbed Roderick’s arm and twisted; it turned easily in his grasp. ‘Shit, you ain’t so tough. Bet I could, bet I could take you apart.’
‘Get him, Chaunce.’
‘Yeah, get him.’
Chauncey hit Roderick hard where his stomach might have been, and jumped back shaking his hand. ‘Owww, Chrise, he’s solid steel!’
‘My old man’s got a stainless steel plate in his head,’ someone was saying, but just then someone grabbed Roderick by the head and pulled him over, and feet were kicking at him from every side.
The robot saw no point in trying to get up; he simply lay there, rolling and spinning under the barrage of tennis-shoes. After a while the kicking stopped, and someone helped him to get up. It was Chauncey.
‘You wanna be friends?’
‘Okay, sure.’
‘Okay then Rick, you got, listen, you got any lunch money?’
‘No. What’s that, lunch money? You mean they pay you to eat lunch or –’
‘Don’t be a smart-ass with me, I’ll, I’ll ionize ya. Now you listen and listen good.’
All at once Roderick realized: Chauncey was a villain. Villains invariably told people to listen good. Or else.
‘Listen good, I’ll let you off this time, only tomorrow you bring a dollar. Or else.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else we kick your ass, smart-ass.’
A bell rang. Roderick dusted himself off and looked over the scratches in his new paint job. Pa had painted him especially for school; he wouldn’t like this.
Chauncey gave him a last kick that resounded through his innards and left a dent, then ran off after the other kids. They all seemed to be heading for the building, so Roderick tagged along.
Mrs Dorano had just finished calling the roll, checking each name against one of her magnetic cards, when the door opened and the security man came in trundling Roderick.
‘I caught this kid sneaking around the hall,’ he said. ‘Yours?’
She consulted a lone card. ‘This must be little, er, little Roger. The Wood boy.’
Someone piped, ‘Hahaha, looks like a steel boy to me.’
Unsmiling, she waited until the uproar settled. ‘Naughty. We don’t make fun of crippled people, do we, boys and girls?’
‘No, MRS DORANO.’
‘Do we, Billy?’
‘No, Mrs Dorano.’
‘All right then. Thank you, Mr Ogilvy.’
The guard shuffled out of the room, his shin-pads clacking together as he muttered, ‘… vandalizers … burglarizers …’
‘Now then Roger, you sit right here in front next to, that’s right, between Chauncey and Jill, now I see by your card here you haven’t been to school before – illness I guess and that means you may have just a teeny bit of trouble catching up, so you just follow along for now, watch Chaunc – watch Jill and just more or less do what she – anyway now we’re going to pledge allegiance. Everybody up, up, up.’
‘What’s pledge allegiancing?’
‘Hahahaha,’ Chauncey aimed a kick at him. ‘He don’t even know –’
‘That’s enough!’
‘Yeah but he don’t even –’
‘Chauncey be quiet. Roger, dear, haven’t you ever pledged allegiance to the pretty flag? No? Well just take your right hand –’
‘Hahahaha, he ain’t got no hand. He’s got –’
‘Put your hand, of course he’s got lovely artificial hands, put your hand over your heart –’
‘I haven’t got a heart either,’ Roderick said. Jill gasped.
‘And say –’
‘Missus Dorano, Missus Dorano!’ Jill jumped up and down, pointing to him. ‘He says he ain’t got a heart, how can he pledge allegiance without a heart I mean it’s illegal.’
‘Of course little Roger’s got a heart, dumpling. Everybody’s got a heart, Roger, I hope you’re not going to be a little fibber, don’t you want to be a good American? Roger?’
‘My name’s Roderick.’
‘More fibs, tch tch tch, Roger it says on your card and Roger you are – the computer never lies.’
‘I wanta go home now.’
Chauncey grinned slowly. ‘Yeah, let’s all go home, come o
n.’
‘CHAUNCEY, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. Roger you can’t go home, now stop fibbing and disrupting the class with your no hand and no heart and no name –’
‘My name is Roderick and I’m a robot, so I don’t have a heart –’
‘I’m very disappointed in you, Roger. Very, very disappointed. I’m giving you one more chance to pledge allegiance – oh, what’s the use? If you want to be a fibber and a fool and a bad – naughty American, all right. You sit down and the rest of us will pledge allegiance.’
By then, one or two kids in the back had been infected: robot imitations went the rounds; someone asked permission to take Roderick apart to see if he had a heart, someone else declared her own heart had been removed at the hospital …
*
Chauncey and his gang seemed friendlier at recess. They invited Roderick to play ‘Captain May I’.
The gaunt boy in the blue track-suit said, ‘Hey Rick are you really a robot? Boy you sure gave old Dorano a hard time, boy, are you really one?’
Chauncey, hanging back, said, ‘Don’t be stupid, Jimmy, there’s no such thing as robots they’re like ghosts. No such thing.’
Jimmy said, ‘There are so. Hey Rick, lemme feel your muscle, jeeze you sure are tough I busted my shoe kicking you, see? Hey, you wanna be captain?’
‘I’m captain,’ Chauncey said, ‘I’m always captain.’
‘Owww, leggo, okay let’s choose for it.’
‘Okay but I do the choosing.’
Chauncey counted around the ring (himself, Jimmy, Roderick, Larry, Eddie and Billy) eliminating them one by one:
Eeeny meeny miney moe
Catch a tiger by the toe.
‘We gotta try it again,’ he said, when only Roderick was left. He went through it all again, this time adding, ‘If he hollers, let him go,’ knocking out in turn Billy, Jimmy, himself, Eddie and Larry …
‘Okay, that was practice and this time counts. Only Billy’s out anyway because he’s too little.’ Once more it was Roderick.
‘Hey jeeze, Chauncey, why don’t we just let him –?’
‘Okay, just once more I think I got it right this time, Eeeny meeny miney moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers make him pay, fifty dollars every day, aw shit I’m out already …’
‘Look, are we gonna play or what, recess is almost over,’ said Larry.
‘This time I got it, Eeeny meeny …,’ Chauncey began, going on to ‘… dollars every day. O-U-T spells out goes he, with a dirty dishrag on his knee, Eddie’s out. Eeeny …’
‘Look, it’s gonna be me again,’ said Roderick. ‘If you wanta choose yourself all you gotta do is go back to the short rhyme now and –’
‘Listen smart-ass, I don’t need no help from you.’ He went on to the end choosing Roderick again, began again with the short rhyme as Eddie went off to find Billy on the other side of the playground. ‘… tiger by the aw jeeze it’s you again.’
Larry said, ‘I’m tired of this shit. Recess is practically over, jeeze, I quit.’
‘You sonofabitch you must of fixed it or something, Eeeny …’ Chauncey quickly eliminated Jimmy, then himself, leaving Roderick, who said:
‘Look I don’t care, you be captain, whatever that is, let’s just –’
The bell went and Jimmy ran off, but Chauncey gripped the robot’s arm. ‘Not so fast, we gotta settle this. This time whoever we finish up on is captain, see? Eeenymeenymineymoecatchatigerbythetoe Jesus Christ you got it fixed even with just two of us …’
Roderick went in from recess with another dent on his torso.
Mr Goun sat in one corner of Miss Borden’s office stroking his face as though surprised to find no beard. ‘Well sure I was prepared for kids being kids but –’ He looked up as Ogilvy came in and dumped a pile of books on the desk. ‘Vandalism, ma’am.’
‘What?’ Miss Borden took a last look at her computer terminal screen and sighed. ‘Always six things at once, just when I get down to budget day – what vandalism?’
‘Somebody’s been over these with a razor-blade, ma’am, they look like IBM cards or something.’
Goun, who was younger, wondered what an IBM card might be.
‘Okay thanks, I’ll look at them later, meanwhile why don’t you do something about Mr Goun here, real security problem for you, somebody burglarized his locker. This morning.’
The guard pushed back his cap in the tradition of baffled policemen and whistled. ‘What did they get?’
Goun looked pained. ‘Only every one of my manuals for the sex education course, that’s all.’
‘Yeah? Guess they couldn’t wait.’
‘Not to mention a valuable psychology book, The Dream World of the Adolescent Girl, took me a year to run down a copy.’
Ogilvy snickered. ‘“Rare” book, eh?’
‘It happens to be a serious study of the, the actualization of catalyzing factors in the, in interpersonal relations, you wouldn’t understand I guess. The kid who took it probably thinks it’s juicy stuff but I – but let me know, will you? A thin blue book, let me know if you see any kid reading it. In the can or –’
‘Right, chief.’ Ogilvy turned to go and bumped into Ms Beek, moving like a sleepwalker.
Miss Borden stood up. ‘Yes, Joan?’
‘I – I didn’t know –’
‘Your class, Joan. Who’s watching them?’
‘Oh – I –’ Ms Beek wandered out.
Goun said, ‘Not very articulate, is she? Since her nervous b – ah, trouble.’
‘Chemotherapy,’ Miss Borden explained. ‘She’ll soon snap out of it and get right back in the swim again. Now let’s see these books.’
Goun opened a book of nursery rhymes. ‘“Blank, blank gander,’” he read. ‘“Whither shall I wander/ Upstairs and downstairs and in blank blank blank.” Somebody’s hacked out whole words, what is this anyway, “put in his blank and pulled out a plum”, what’s going on?’
She put on her glasses. ‘And here’s A. A. Milne, I know some of these:
Where is Anne?
(Walking with her man)
Lost in a dream
(Lost among the buttercups)
Yes and down here where it says:
What has she got in that firm little fist of hers,
Somebody’s [thumb] and it feels like Christopher’s –
This is terrible, who would, somebody’s got a dirty imagination here, some nasty-minded little –’
‘Yeah, and they cut the last two chapters out of The Marvellous Land of Oz. I can’t make sense out of any of this. Some kid with an anxietal undedifferentiated –’
‘I know what you mean. Little savages, how can I in good conscience ask for a bigger book budget when – Oh before you go, do me a favour, will you? I’m way behind on these individual assessment forms, wonder if you’d mind keeping an eye on this Wood boy for me? The little paraplegic whatever he is, Mrs Dorano’s class, I ought to ask her really, but all she ever puts down is sweet, angelic, a darling innocent; try running that through the County Board computer, they’d have my job. So just, just look him over, will you? In an informal interview situ – you know the way to handle it, thanks.’
‘Sure. Sure I – sure.’ Before he could get out of the door it opened and Captain Fest came in with an armload of reports.
‘Just heard about your burglarization Goun, tough. Tough. Kids got no respect for any damn thing, think they’re king – you better put those trophies somewhere, ma’am, glass case in the hall like that is just an open invitation – well here’s the math skills reports, depressing reading for somebody, don’t give a damn myself any more.’ He followed Goun into the hall. ‘You know I stopped giving a damn when I had twelve-year-olds, one day I asked them how many sixths in a whole, brightest one in the class thought maybe seven, how’s that grab you?’
Moving with great energy he left Goun behind, staring at the trophy case and muttering, ‘Sixths in a hole? In a hole?’
IX
�
��Finish your nice tree drawings, everyone. Hurry up.’ Mrs Dorano clapped her hands. ‘Jennifer and I are going to pin up all the nicest ones for everyone to see. And, uh, Suzy dear, you pass out the new readers. QUIET! Anyone I see talking from now on is going to have his tree put in my waste-basket. Jennifer hurry up, dear. Billy, let her have the drawing, finished or not.’
‘Miss can I –?’
‘Miss, Miss, Billy drawed a boy’s pee-pee!’
‘– my pencil and I want it back!’
‘QUIET! Suzy they’re right there, the stack of blue books on my desk, just pass them – Margery, sit DOWN!’
‘But Miss, Billy drawed –’
‘Never mind what Billy draw drew, you shouldn’t even know what one of those looks like, just sit down and …’ She shuffled through the stack of drawings quickly, eliminating those that looked even remotely like body parts – Kids seemed to think of nothing but sex, sex, sex as it was. Too much of it in these promiscuity classes, that’s where it came from. Mr Goun, she’d seen him hovering in the hall, waiting to pounce on any passing child and pour corrupting filth into its little ear.
Most of the drawings looked as little like organs as they did trees, thank heaven. They looked variously like lollipops, fans, clouds, telegraph poles and green squiggles. Little Chauncey had turned out a nice effort, incorporating a rubbing of some ornament – and at the bottom he’d written DECIGEONS.
‘Very, very good, Chauncey. I think what you meant to write was deciduous – I’ll show you how to spell it but I think it’s wonderful that you even attempted such a grown-up word. I oh!’ She had come to little Roger Wood’s drawing.
‘Somebody’s a copycat here,’ she said. ‘But who?’
‘Not me, Mrs Dorano.’ Chauncey grinned.
‘Roger?’
‘What?’ He was peering into his new reader.
‘Did you copy your tree drawing? It looks like a copy.’
‘Well I guess all these decigeon tree drawings look the same, because heck –’
