The Grounding of Group 6

by Julian F. Thompson

  “Wait,” said Sara. “I hate to keep bringing up anything important, like the rest of our lives, but seriously…it seems to me our biggest problem, almost, is where to look for it. The evidence, I mean, or whatever you want to call it.” She turned to Nat. “All the school that any of us saw was just two rooms and a bathroom, basically. The dining hall, and that place where we slept. Do you know where the offices are, and stuff like that?”

  “I think I do.” Nat nodded. “Yeah. I was in a room with a lot of filing cabinets and a couple of secretaries. That’s one real possible place. Then, Doctor has his study, with another little office outside it. Of course, there’s Doctor’s house, as well. It might just be he’d keep the sort of stuff we want away from all the—you know—school stuff. That’s the thing, like Sara said. They’ve got a regular school going down there. I mean, most of the teachers and all of the kids are absolutely out of it—the Group Six garbage, you know. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just Doctor Simms and this Mrs. Ripple, and a guy named Lemaster, who’s sort of the Dean of the school, and that other man we saw with Mrs. Ripple yesterday. Oh, yeah—plus that guy who was up at North Egg Mountain. I don’t think he was a teacher, though; he sounded awful country.”

  “Do you think you could make a map of the campus?” Sara asked. She ate some more spaghetti. “This is so good, Lu,” she said.

  Nat nodded. “Um, yeah. I think so.”

  “You know what I think we ought to do?” said Sully. “I think we ought to start… I don’t know, you might say spying on the campus, right away. Have people there from sunrise to sunset, and keep track of who goes where and when. Like, when Doctor Simms leaves his house in the morning, and who goes in there during the day. You know, to clean and everything. And the same with all the offices. Stuff like that. We probably ought to find out when they have their lunch down there—and all the other meals, I guess. And do those secretaries you talked about eat in the dining hall, or do they bring their own, or what? We ought to get that stuff all down on paper, so’s we’d know what times’d be the best for us to look. Even if we pretend we’re people from another school, like Sara said, we still have to search for the evidence.”

  “Sully!” said Marigold. “You’re a regular Mickey Spillane. Ace detective.”

  ‘Defective,” Coke simply had to say.

  Sara said, “I think you’ve got a really good idea.” She nodded, and sort of squinted through her eyes at Sully. Sully nodded back at her, wrinkling his mouth and brow, in the manner of a real idea man. “How about we start that right away? Tomorrow morning?” she asked Nat. “If you could make up maps tonight, we could split up into groups of two, and take three shifts. From up the tree where we were yesterday—that’d be a good place, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t mind being on the dawn patrol. Would you, Sully?”

  Sully almost shook his head off saying no, he wouldn’t mind. And Nat agreed that he would make the maps at once.

  They made a schedule. Sully and Sara would be in the tree by six A.M., which meant leaving the Robinsons’ before four. Marigold and Coke would relieve them at ten-thirty—so they could sleep till eight. They smiled at one another. And even more so when they heard what Nat and Ludi planned to do. They decided they’d get up when Sul and Sara did and go on up to Spring Lake Lodge, and spend all morning working on a root cellar (“A Ruth cellar?” asked Marigold, incredulously). Then they would head down to the school, relieving Coke and Marigold at three-thirty.

  It looked as if there’d be a big day all around.

  Arn-the-Barn Emfatico enjoyed the Valivu Motel in Boynton Falls. The owners, Nick and Flora Vali, reminded him of his aunt and uncle on his mother’s side—the side his uncle with the orders didn’t come from. Nick and Flora were nice folks. He took care of the business end, and maintenance, and that, but she put in the special little touches. Like, all the beds had ruffles on the bottom that matched the covers on the easy chair. Stuff like that. Flora ran them up on her Kenmore, she told Arn; it wasn’t a lot of trouble, she maintained. And in every room there was a painting that she’d done herself. She painted bird pictures on black velvet. In Arn’s room there was a Yellow-Shafter Flick-ereds, just to give one example. How about that for a bird’s name? Nights, Arn had gotten to sitting around in Nick and Flora’s place—they had this apartment, real nice, right back of the office—and having a few Schaefers and maybe watching a little television. The ball game came in pretty good, so they watched that a lot. Nick had played a little in the Class-D Pony League. “Which stood for Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York,” he’d told Arnold, “and not that we was all a bunch of little horse’s asses.”

  “Even if they maybe was,” said Flora, laughing.

  They all preferred the ball game to the TV movies they had on, movies that always seemed to show a woman looking like she was just about to pass out from fright, while a guy’s feet and trouser legs come walking down the hall outside her room.

  Arn also liked the drive from Boynton Falls to Coldbrook every morning. He’d eat his breakfast first: Falls Diner, he’d have it in a booth, toward the back, so’s not to make the regulars self-conscious. They’d put him up a lunch there, too: two ham and cheese with mayo on the ham side, mustard on the cheese, two cans of Pepsi regular, and two Milky Ways. Then he’d pile in his Trans-Am, and slip some music in the tape deck, wheel on down in style. He liked Emmylou Harris (his “blue Kentucky girl” is the way he thought of her) driving on those country roads like that, with a .38 under his arm and not a worry in the world, except how to keep from using it and still survive himself.

  Mary-Jean Emfatico had not brought up her boy to be a killer, and he wasn’t. From time to time he’d—sure—helped out his uncle on the side, but never more than what he called a “maybe-you-should-oughta” sort of job. What that was was just to pass along a message, looking mean. Communicate, his uncle used to say. But never any killing, even any breaking bones, or merchandise. If someone swung on him, he’d cuff him once, to just remind him of his manners, but Arnold, like his mother, Mary-Jean, was not what you would call a violent man. He enjoyed a little action on a horse, or basketball, or certain games that you can play with decks of cards, but he also liked to be a worker for the state, in clean, intelligent surroundings, and a pension up the road. He had a girlfriend, Ginnie, who worked downtown, New England Telephone, and it was pretty much set that they’d be getting married, a year from June, when he’d be twenty-eight and she’d be twenty-five, and both of them would absolutely know their minds.

  Aside from not wanting to kill Nat for reasons of personal style, Arnold also kind of liked the guy. Not that he knew Nat that well, but they had played some cards together, three, four times, and Nat had shown him you could be a student and from out of state and not an all-wool asshole. In fact, Nat seemed like a pretty regular nice guy, just a little strange with the haircut, not stupid, but not so smart you had to watch him all the time.

  What Arnold figured, as he drove along toward Coldbrook once again, was that maybe Nat had got cold feet and jumped not just the job, but even state and country altogether. Extreme, but possibly the best, for everyone concerned. So far, Arnold hadn’t had an indication otherwise. He’d got a map, way up to Suddington, and he was going hill by hill, around the school, and then a wider circle, and like that. He hadn’t seen a sign of anybody yet, except for this one wet spot with some tracks along the edge of it. The ground was pretty gloppy so you couldn’t be real sure of what sizes went in it, but one footprint seemed pretty small, no bigger than a kid would make. Arnold thought he’d search another week or so, and if he still was shooting blanks, he’d tell his uncle he’d found out that Nat had skipped. What the hell, the money wasn’t all that much; his uncle’d have to bite a little pride and swallow, this one time. Arnold couldn’t blame Nat all that much himself. Hell, he would never kill a kid like that; he and Ginnie planned to have a couple of their own.

  He nosed the Trans-Am off the road beside a pasture. It was a gorgeou
s mid-September day, another one. He’d get a good sweat going on a day like this. Arnold liked to sweat: clean out all them pores. He checked his map and cut across the pasture; soon he found a deer trail, going up, following the line of least resistance. He took it, walking easily and quietly, a huge man in a canvas jacket, wearing tan Bermuda shorts and high-topped sneakers, black. He was having a nice vacation, even if “on furlough” meant no pay. He’d have to work on Mr. Darling, somehow, next.

  Homer Cone conducted classes all that morning. At nine o’clock, he’d had “No More Mr. X; or, Getting to Know the Unknowns by Their First Names” (formerly Algebra); at ten, it was “Plane Without Pain: The Study of Some Great Figures” (a.k.a. Geometry). Finally, at eleven, there’d been “Math for the Mathes, or What Comes After Sixteen?,” to which question, Mr. Cone always told his class in basic mathematics, the answer was “Seventeen,” not “legal sex,” as everyone at Coldbrook seemed to think.

  With those chores out of the way, Mr. Cone went directly to his apartment, where he changed to old shoes and traded cashmere sports coat for a cardigan; then he picked his tweed cap off a hook and plucked a paper bag from out of the fridge. The cap soon had his head in it, while the bag contained a box of Famous Ginger Snaps and a thermos of banana daiquiris. He’d put his rifle in the trunk of his car the night before, rolled up in a map of “Europe at the Outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.” He’d found the map in study hall the previous day; it didn’t look like anybody used it, ever.

  It was a beautiful afternoon, and Mr. Cone drove down the gravel road with a carefree heart. He saw the white car pulled just off the road, about two miles from school, and scowled at it—“Oh, look, a TransEyetalian,” he’d said to Mrs. Ripple once—but he really didn’t think he’d see the owner. The driveway that he had in mind was still a mile or two ahead, and cut a long way through the woods.

  It was after twelve, about a quarter past, when Mr. Cone pulled up and parked at the Robinsons’.

  Sully made the four of them his famous whole wheat raisin bread French toast (with cinnamon) for breakfast, which, as Nat said, was great with maple syrup on it, and thereby proved that anything was great with maple syrup. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad, even eaten in the dark (outside) at thirty minutes after three, A.M. Everyone looked forward to the day that soon would break, even Marigold and Coke, who still were quite unconscious in their beds.

  Sara and Sully left a little before four, taking a clipboard with Nat’s map of the school and paper for the notes they’d make, plus the field glasses and Sully’s adopted bow and arrows, which had become pretty much a part of his outfit. They were most enthusiastic about their mission. It was definitely something new and a step in the right direction, not being a defensive move, evasive action for survival; this was starting…well, real life again. More the way their lives were meant to be: getting out and taking charge. Sara didn’t put it into just those words inside her head, but still she knew she felt a lot more natural doing things this way. More like herself. She hadn’t been brought up to run and hide.

  The greater part of Sully’s happiness had to do with getting to spend so much of the day alone with Sara for the first time. One thing he knew he’d like was not having Coke around. Not that he didn’t like Coke; Coke was all right. But it’d be nice not to have that little smile and laugh of his, just waiting to make fun of something that you’d maybe say, or do. He knew he’d feel a lot more relaxed around Sara if Coke wasn’t there.

  Nat felt differently than Sully, but not completely differently. He looked forward to a day with Ludi; he thought she was amazing. She was the first person he’d ever met who didn’t ever seem to be a jerk. It seemed to him that she naturally (could it possibly be naturally?) avoided saying and doing stupid jerky things.

  Nat had had a sort of a test, a game, he’d played with himself the last two years or so. It was definitely kind of childish (the way most of his games seemed to him to be), but it did have one good side to it: it had made him awful careful about birth control. What he did was, whenever he’d get tight with some new girl, he’d ask himself: “What would it feel like to wake up in the morning and find out that you and she were married?”

  Well, whenever he’d put the question to himself, he’d always gotten the exact same answer—even with a smart, good-looking, sexy, funny girl like Jen Maloney. And the answer was: “Oh, no!” accompanied by this seminauseated feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t anything against Jen, or any of the others—hell, chances were they felt the same about him, except twenty times more violently. It was just that he couldn’t see himself and someone else getting along that well, that long. He was just too much of a jerk, and so was everyone else.

  Now he hadn’t actually asked himself that question about Ludi, because Ludi was just a kid, but what he realized was, there was a type of person (maybe you could say) who he could actually imagine loving to be around…forever. And Ludi was that type of person, the first one that he’d ever met. Pretty amazing, Nat thought. Encouraging, too. Yes, he looked forward to spending most of a day just with Ludi, but it made him feel funny, too. It was not the sort of thing that he should get excited about (he told himself), for Christ’s sake.

  They left the Robinsons’a little after four, both of them in sweat pants and a flannel shirt.

  “What’re you going to wear?” she’d called to him.

  He’d said that it was chilly out, but later on they’d roast. When he stepped out of the boys’ room, she was waiting in the hall, wearing just what he had on, except her shirt was tan and his was green. They’d laughed, and both of them had said, “His ‘n’ hers,” together, so they’d linked their little fingers up and made a wish. Nat had learned to do that from his mother, and he’d never known anyone else who did it, before.

  (Coke woke up when he heard the door slam behind them, or that’s what he told Marigold, anyway, twenty seconds later.)

  “You lead,” Nat said to Ludi. “And zigzag, if you can, a little. I know it’s hard when it’s so dark, but circle any soft spots, if you see them.” They used their flashlights for a while, just now and then, but pretty soon they didn’t have to. Ludi walked on deer tracks some, but going on and off them, and always on the side where there were leaves, careful not to step on top of hoof marks. As they got higher, and the woods thinned out a little, they left the tracks and walked on side by side, a tree or two apart. Once, she stopped and turned around, with her hand on a smooth striped maple shoot. She frowned and shook her head.

  “What?” said Nat.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “Whatever, it’s been happening for days. Sara and all the others seem to be getting so much more relaxed. I guess it’s because we haven’t had a clue that anybody cares we’re up here. Hunting us, I mean. Except for those two people down by the school yesterday. And they looked—I don’t know—so harmless.”

  “So what are you saying?” Nat asked.

  “I’m sure we’re being hunted,” Ludi said. “That’s the only thing it could be. I keep getting this sort of paranoid feeling that doesn’t seem to have to do with the Group of us at all, so I figure it’s got to be coming from outside. It makes me feel”—she shook her head—“all wary, like an animal, almost. And it’s always there”—she made a little snort of laughter—“even at five in the morning. Am I making any sense at all?”

  Nat nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I used to watch my dog when he’d just lie there, smelling stuff or hearing sounds I couldn’t get. Feelings even.” He held up a palm. “Not that you’re anything like my dog, of course. He had much longer ears.”

  Ludi almost didn’t seem to hear. “I keep thinking everybody has them,” she said, “had them once, when they were little. All those sixth senses that you hear about. What happens is they just get overwhelmed by all the so-called facts that people teach us, and all the things we have to do, that everyone says are so important.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway. The feeling I have now, it comes and goes
at different times, but mostly it keeps getting stronger.” She laughed and was suddenly, entirely, in the world of here-and-now again. “You know how old people are meant to say ‘I feel it in me bones’? Well, that’s almost it. It really makes my skin crawl.” She pushed up a tan, chamois-cloth sleeve. “I wish you could see what I’m talking about.” Her arm was smooth, with soft brown hairs.

  Nat said, “We really oughtn’t relax. You’re right, we have been doing that. Me, too. We ought to talk about it some tonight. It’d be so ridiculous to forget why we’re up here in the first place.”

  Ludi turned and started up the slope. “I know,” she said. “The trouble is, we’d really like to. Forget the whole incredible scenario. Or all the grungy stuff, at least.” She giggled, and went bouncing up the hillside, agile as a little doe, Nat thought.

  They got to Spring Lake Lodge just after six. The sky was clear, and sunrise not too far away. When they saw the little clearing, with its dark, still mirror of a pond, and then the cabin, squatting safely there, untouched and solid, they looked at one another and they smiled. Hideout of the year, beyond a doubt, Nat thought; how nice that they could leave the kids at Granny’s.

  This root cellar project hadn’t been an instant smash, when Nat first mentioned it. Most people weren’t exactly, or even at all, sure what a root cellar was, so that was part of it. But even when he’d given them a breathless, graphic, illustrated lecture on the subject (“Food Storage Practices in Colonial America,” yawn), there wasn’t any rush of volunteers. Of course there was hard work involved, but that didn’t seem to be the problem, the way Nat looked at it. The problem lay with all that was implied by the digging of a root cellar. Storing food? Terrific. Great idea. A few days’ or a week’s worth, here and there; ten pounds of rice and five of beans, a dozen jumbo jars of sauce. But storing food for the winter? Forget it. Who planned to be here in the winter? That was months away. Nat talked about how early winter came, sometimes, up north. But still, it seemed absurd. Even when they didn’t have a Plan, they didn’t think they’d be here that long.