The Man in the Woods

by Rosemary Wells

  Across Helen’s desk the two girls shared a whispered confidence, both of them leaning in toward Helen. Helen listened, wide-eyed, as if the conversation were the most important she’d heard in her life.

  “Let’s go down to the Whaler office after school and pick up our booster tags,” said the blonde.

  “Great!” answered the other girl, who was dark and equally pretty and grownup-looking. Helen felt included. After all, they were both planting their elbows on her desk. She was about to ask what booster tags were and if she could come along with them when Miss Podell’s ruler smacked a book on the front desk like a gunshot.

  “This class will not be dismissed until I get sixty seconds of silence!” Miss Podell announced, looking daggers at Helen.

  The girls on either side of her melted back into their seats giggling. They looked at each other, not at Helen.

  She squeezed her eyes shut until the bell. She thought of Jenny Calhoun again. Houston was two thousand miles away. You’ll make new friends! said Aunt Stella in Helen’s mind. Start with a friendly smile, and in no time you’ll forget all your worries! Aunt Stella made new friends every time she went to the beauty parlor. She did not understand how hard it was. What right did Helen have to hope these two old friends would want her tagging along anyway? Luckily she hadn’t embarrassed herself by asking to be included. Besides, Helen told herself, she should have known better. One look had convinced her that these two girls would one day be cheerleaders or baton twirlers. They would have boyfriends soon, if they didn’t already.

  In the old days, a hundred years ago, she’d learned over and over in school, poor people waited hand and foot on rich people. They tipped their hats and licked the boots of the wealthy. Rich people with servants and mansions hardly gave the poor their table scraps, much less held conversations with them. That may have gone down the drain years ago, Helen thought, but it was certainly still true in high school. Cheerleader types simply didn’t associate with frizzy-haired new girls who looked two years too young, locked themselves out of their lockers, and drew political cartoons.

  Mercifully Miss Podell forgot about her sixty seconds of silence almost the moment she announced it. The bell rang, and the class surged out toward the early buses.

  Helen was sure, as she wended her way up to the history room, that the last catastrophe of the day lay waiting for her with Mr. Brzostoski. He was probably Polish, she decided. Most likely the Russians had tortured his family to death and he had escaped to America, where everything was beautiful and wonderful. He probably didn’t like criticism of anything modern or American and would hate her for her drawing. He would probably think she was a Communist.

  Helen stood in the history room doorway, patiently watching him eat another banana while he marked his attendance sheets. Suddenly he noticed her and smiled.

  “Your six pages were excellent!” he said. “Where did you learn so much history?”

  “From my father,” Helen answered, smiling too and looking at his banana hungrily.

  “Hungry?”

  “Oh, am I! I locked all my stuff in my locker this morning by mistake. My lunch too.”

  Mr. Bro handed her a banana. “Eat!” he said, and to it he added a Hershey bar. Helen was pleased to see that despite all the bananas he was not a health-food freak. He held her cartoon up. “This,” he said, “is the best drawing to pass my desk in years.”

  The pleasure that burst like a tiny firework inside Helen must have shown in her face, and Mr. Bro was evidently waiting for it. He smiled even more broadly. “Now we have work to do,” he announced.

  Helen had been sure that pleasure itself had ceased to exist the moment she’d left St. Theresa’s and come to New Bedford Regional. “Work?” she asked.

  “You know the Whaler downstairs? The school paper?”

  “I think so. Down in the basement of the other building?”

  “That’s it. Now listen. The editor of the Whaler, Jerry Rosen, is a big shot. He wants only one thing in his life.”

  “What’s that?” asked Helen.

  “He wants to go to Yale. But he needs a scholarship. He wants to win the ten thousand dollar grant that the City of New Bedford gives out every June. He knows he’ll win it hands down if he gets the prize for journalism that the state awards every year to the best high school newspaper. Jerry is a very good editor, don’t get me wrong, but he has a soft spot.”

  Mr. Bro coughed, twisted his ring, and looked Helen square in the eyes. “I usually don’t talk to students this way,” he said, “especially brand-new ones, but … somehow it’s hard to think of you as brand new.” He grinned. Then he began writing a note on a yellow legal pad.

  Helen felt also that Mr. Bro wasn’t brand new like her other teachers. She listened.

  “I want to help Jerry,” Mr. Bro went on. “He isn’t a wealthy boy. He’s a good editor and a fine student, and he deserves to go to Yale. His soft spot, unfortunately, is his girl friend, Beverly Boone.” He kept writing, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Beverly’s going to be the death of Jerry’s state journalism award. She does these awful, sappy editorial cartoons for the Whaler every week. Last year I was faculty advisor to the Whaler, and Jerry was managing editor. I couldn’t get him to stop printing these disgusting little caterpillar drawings she turns out. Now the time has come to get Jerry to print an editorial cartoon with some guts to it.”

  Helen nodded. “But,” she said, “if you couldn’t get him to change his mind last year when you were advisor, how can you get him to do it this year when you’re not?”

  Mr. Bro grinned again, this time mischievously. “Beverly’s gone into business,” he said smoothly. “Now she cuts her little smiley-faced caterpillars out of copper, enamels them in livid colors, bakes them in the school kiln, and sells them at drugstores. She makes a pretty penny at it using school materials! I haven’t told the principal, but if I do, he’ll stop her. She’s making a private profit off the school. She says it’s an art project, but it’s a business. If I stop Beverly using the school kiln, she’ll hit the roof. Jerry Rosen will do anything for Beverly. He’s in love. If I tell him to run your cartoon instead of Beverly’s caterpillars or else, he will. Believe me. It will help the Whaler. It will help Jerry win his state journalism award and get his scholarship. I’m doing him a favor. He must put some ideas and controversy into that paper, or he’ll fail. If I have to give him a little nudge in the right direction, he’ll do it, and since he won’t listen to reason, he’ll listen to Beverly.” Mr. Bro clipped his note on top of Helen’s drawing. “Another thing,” he said softly. He began straightening the papers on his desk. “You see, what you have in that drawing is an idea. It’s funny, and you are a very talented artist, but the important thing is, it’s full of heart and caring. It’s got thinking behind it. The caterpillars … I can’t tell you what a waste I think it is that such claptrap is printed, even in a school newspaper. Beverly has the heart of a Hostess Twinkie. Now … go down to the Whaler office. Give Jerry this cartoon and this note, and you’ll be in like Flynn!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brzostoski,” said Helen a little breathlessly.

  “Bro,” said Mr. Brzostoski. “Bro is much easier.”

  She turned around once more in the doorway, but he was already busily locking up his drawers. Then her feet were running down the empty hall toward the Whaler office. There, she knew, either acceptance as warm as a tropical sea or a still greater disaster to end this day of wretchedness awaited her.

  Chapter 2

  “YOU 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!” s
aid 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 adve
rtising, 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.”