Deviant (20 page)

“We are represented by Hart and McConnell. I will look forward to hearing from your attorney. Now, please go, Miss Benson, and do see Miss Bailey on the way out for your severance.”

“I'll see her, all right!” Miss Benson yelled.

The office door burst open and Miss Benson came out.

She looked at Danny, stopped short, and smiled. Her hair was dangling over her face in little nooses and her
eyes had swollen and her cheeks were red. It made her look younger, Danny thought, like she was yet another student Mr. Lebkuchen had to punish for their wayward antics.

“And please, Miss Benson, no shouting. Remember, we have a silence policy,” Mr. Lebkuchen said from inside his office.

Miss Benson waved at Danny to go back to class and then, in a brief but passionate and expletive-filled tirade, informed Mr. Lebkuchen what he could do with his silence policy and where he could put it—a place, Danny thought, that few people except perhaps Mr. Lebkuchen's mother had ever seen.

Danny ran back to class and took his seat about a minute before Mr. Lebkuchen came in and picked up the Direct Instruction manual and continued where James had left off. He didn't even need to ask a student where in the reading they were because along the side of the page it listed what must be read at what time and how long each exercise had to take.

Danny followed along in his book, but soon became aware that he was being stared at. He looked up into Charlie and Hector's grinning faces. Hector winked at him and Danny nodded.

“
Yes. I'm impressed,
” he mouthed, and all three of them returned to their books before Mr. Lebkuchen could catch them looking at each other.

When class was over, Mr. Lebkuchen thanked them for their attention, apologized for the disruption, and informed
them that from this afternoon and until two new teachers were hired they would be meeting in the old physics room and merging their class with 9A.

“I know what you're thinking,” Mr. Lebkuchen said.

I doubt that, Danny thought, staring at Tony's bra strap, which was showing through her shirt.

“You're thinking why can't we just have substitute teachers, like in other schools?” Mr. Lebkuchen said. “Well, this is a special school and it needs special teachers. On top of my other duties I will be teaching both classes. Fear not, children! Your learning will not suffer and with a little bit of luck we will have you back in your seats before the month is out. I will be giving you all a note to take home to your parents, explaining this situation. An unfortunate situation, with Open Night looming so closely. Now, off with you. Class is dismissed. Danny Brown, I'd like you to remain seated.”

When all the other kids had filed out—some, including Tony, giving him concerned looks—Mr. Lebkuchen summoned Danny to the seat directly in front of Miss Benson's desk.

When Danny sat, Mr. Lebkuchen smiled at him and shook his head.

“You have fallen in with a bad crowd, Danny. Could you turn out your pockets, please?”

Danny wondered if he could try Miss Benson's Constitutional or profanity-based arguments, but neither was quite his style. Still, for a second he tried to remember the lyrics to Jay-Z's “99 Problems,” which went something
like: “My glove compartment is closed, so you're going to need a warrant for that.”

“Don't you need a warrant or something?” he said.

Mr. Lebkuchen laughed. “No. Of course not. Now, let me see what you've got in there.”

Danny turned out his pockets, putting a pencil, coins, a five-dollar bill, a stick of Wrigley's and, finally, Tom's pager on the desk in front of him. Mr. Lebkuchen lifted the gum and the pager. He examined them for a brief moment and sighed.

“The gum is not permitted, and this is a device for sending text messages in contravention of the school rules, if I am not mistaken,” Mr. Lebkuchen said.

Danny nodded.

“Who gave you this?” Mr. Lebkuchen asked.

“I don't remember,” Danny said.

“Detention every day for the rest of the week will help you recall, perhaps,” he said.

“I doubt it,” Danny said.

“Morning and afternoon detention. And all of next week, too,” Mr. Lebkuchen said.

Danny said nothing, but an unfortunate sniffle escaped his nostrils and Mr. Lebkuchen bit his lip.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“Yes. I'm fine,” Danny replied.

Mr. Lebkuchen took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. He smiled at Danny and looked out the window. “It's snowing,” he said.

Danny nodded.

“I suppose you don't know Hokusai?” Mr. Lebkuchen asked.

Danny shook his head.

“Or Basho?”

“No.”

“One was an artist, the other a poet. Japanese. Both of them in their different media gave snow a lightness, an elegance, a crisp beauty, an almost magical quality that we don't really see in Western art. Yes, I know one immediately thinks of Robert Frost, but even Frost's snow was a harsh, heavy New England snow. Claustrophobic, dense, icy … and Colorado snow, as you've seen, can be even heavier.”

“Uh, yeah,” Danny said.

“You might find this interesting, Danny: The state religion of Japan is Shinto. Shinto is the worship of nature. Nature is imbued with what we would call the Holy Spirit, or what the Native Americans called the Great Spirit,” Mr. Lebkuchen said, giving him a significant look.

Danny saw the opening but didn't take the bait. He wasn't going to talk about his Indian background with this skeevy character. He nodded but said nothing.

“I suppose Okinawa doesn't have the fascination for you or many other people that it would obviously have for me. Do you know
Stairway to Heaven
?” Mr. Lebkuchen asked after a pause.

“The song?” Danny asked incredulously.

“There's a song? No. I'm talking about the film.”

“Don't know the film,” Danny said.

Mr. Lebkuchen blinked, as if remembering something. “Oh, all right. Um, do you like science fiction, then?”

“Sure,” Danny said.

“Did you ever see
The Incredible Shrinking Man
?”

Danny had seen that one, on a particularly dreary evening a couple of years ago. He hadn't thought much of it. It was in black-and-white.

“Yeah,” he said.

Mr. Lebkuchen smiled. “You see, that's what I'm trying to say. At the end of
The Incredible Shrinking Man
he realizes that as long as God can see him, it doesn't matter how small he is. God sees everything and shines through everything. Even snow.”

Mr. Lebkuchen frowned. “I suppose I shouldn't be talking about God in a public school. Well, I am. And I know about that Scripture club of theirs and frankly I wish it didn't have to be a secret, but that's not the law—at the moment.”

Mr. Lebkuchen's clear blue eyes were boring into him.

Danny wondered if Mr. Lebkuchen was probing his defenses or perhaps, more charitably, maybe he was just trying to connect? But Hokusai?
The Incredible Shrinking Man
? That was the best he could do to try to reach a fourteen-year-old kid?

“Oh, I agree with you,” Danny said, deciding to play along. “My mom does, too. ‘Without God, there can't really be any kind of meaningful education at all,' she says.
She's Catholic. Very devout. I'm not as serious as her, but I pray every day.”

Mr. Lebkuchen smiled. “Good. Good. I knew that. I had a feeling that you did. I'm a good judge of character. And I had a feeling about you.”

Danny sniffed and tried not to look guilty.

“You're young and life is short. That's why I'm tolerant of things in this school. The secret societies, the rule violations … But there are limits and limits are very important, don't you think?”

“Yes.”

“The history of Western civilization has been a struggle between liberalism and conservatism. Neither is right, of course. Sometimes we need more liberty, other times we need to pull back on the reins. Do you see what I'm saying? It's a balance.”

“I think so,” Danny said.

Mr. Lebkuchen smiled. The interview was terminated, but Danny saw a little opening: “Sir, that Japanese poet who wrote about the snow, you wouldn't have a copy of him, would you?”

Mr. Lebkuchen's smile widened. “I'll see what I can do,” he said.

Silence. Silence in the corridor. Silence in the classes. Silence so deep they could hear Canada geese honking in Bear Creek Park. Silence, Danny realized, had many layers and textures. Not all of them were unpleasant. If you grew up in Vegas you lived in a world that was 24/7, 365. If you wanted to go to the movies or go bowling at three in the morning, you could.

Here you were limited.

And as Principal Lebkuchen had tried to explain, sometimes it was good to have limits. Complete freedom was no freedom at all.

Danny thought about this over lunch.

He sat by himself.

He didn't want another dressing-down from Tom about another lost pager.

He ate and enjoyed the food and listened to the layers of nothingness.

To his own breath.

He closed his eyes and breathed.

The silence of a roomful of people was very different from the silence of a wood or a bedroom.

It was—

A sneeze was coming on.

He reached into his blazer pocket for a tissue.

There was something in the pocket. A note.

He sneezed and looked at the note. It had been printed in Times New Roman in italic on a flat piece of card. It said:

He looked around the canteen. Indrid Cold was obviously a pseudonym, but Danny guessed the person might be watching him right now. He nodded.

I assume you'll arrange for the physics classroom door to be unlocked, Mr. Cold? he thought to himself on his way over.

The door was unlocked. Danny turned the handle and went inside.

“Hello?” Danny said.

No answer.

“Hello?” he tried again.

Again no answer.

Danny sat in one of the chairs. The physics classroom was a large room with a hardwood floor, gas taps for Bunsen burners, wide windows, and a gigantic machine at the back of the room, covered in a gray tarpaulin sheet with interesting-looking wires protruding from the bottom. This, Danny assumed, was the famous Tesla coil.

He was keen to get a look at it, but this was probably not the best time.

“Hello?” Danny tried again.

He sat back in his chair.

He liked this room better than any other class in the school. It was not only bigger and airier but it had more light, an interesting smell, and a tremendous view of Pikes Peak and the whole of the Front Range.

Danny drummed his fingers on the desk and let five minutes go by.

He walked to the back of the classroom and looked under the tarp at the Tesla coil.

He froze when he heard footsteps outside, but it was just someone walking by.

He went to the window and watched the poor suckers stuck outside on this freezing January day.

“Hello? Is there anybody here?” he tried again.

He sat back down in one of the desk-chairs.

He yawned.

He watched the clouds advance north from New Mexico over the high desert.

He put his hands on the desk and rested his chin on them.

He yawned again.

He closed his eyes.

He thought about his mom. She worked hard. Too hard. He thought about Walt. Walt would be OK if he wasn't such a jerk about everything. Why couldn't he just leave things alone? He thought about Jeffrey. What a cat. The cat of cats. The king of the Tropicana Wash. Cats were good pets, he thought. You could bend the will of a dog, but a cat chose to be with you of its volition.

His thoughts became less focused.

He was drifting.

Falling.

Falling for a long time.

Into blackness.

Into the pit.

He landed with a thud.

He couldn't breathe.

The air was thick.

He was afraid.