Edenville Owls

Chapter 8

When the bell rang, Miss Delaney said, “Bobby Murphy, could you stay a moment after class, please?”

“I think she’s hot for you,” Russell murmured as he stood up.

“Like hell,” Nick said. “It’s me she wants.”

When the classroom emptied, Miss Delaney came and sat down on the edge of my desk.

“I saw you yesterday,” she said. “Talking to the man in the gray Ford.”

I nodded. The way she was sitting pulled her dress tight over her thighs. I tried not to look. I imagined what she might look like with her clothes off. Then I felt sort of like I was bad to think about that.

“What did you say?”

“I said I liked his new car, wanted to get a closer look at it.”

“Why did you go talk to him?”

“He’s the guy you had an argument with,” I said.

“So?”

“So I wanted a better look at him,” I said.

“Because?”

“Because if you’re in trouble, I want to be able to help.”

Miss Delaney looked at me without speaking for a moment. I thought about her thighs. I wondered if it was a sin to think about her with her clothes off. I hoped it was only a venial sin. I mean, guys thought about stuff like that.

“You will get me in trouble,” Miss Delaney said, “unless you simply forget anything you may have seen.”

“He seems kind of scary to me,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure him out.”

Miss Delaney smiled. It didn’t seem like a happy smile to me.

“You think you can figure anything out,” she said,

“don’t you?”

“Sooner or later,” I said.

“That’s because you’re fourteen,” Miss Delaney said.

“No it’s not,” I said. “It’s because I’m smart.”

She smiled again, the same smile with no happiness in it.

“You’re both,” she said. “But please, as a favor to me, please stay out of this. You can’t help. I doubt that you could even understand it. All you can do is cause trouble for me.”

“I don’t want to cause you any trouble,” I said.

“Then promise me,” she said. “To tell no one about any of this, and to leave me and that man alone.”

“Maybe you should tell Mr. Welch about it,” I suggested.

He had, after all, given the bum’s rush to Anthony Pimentel.

“Oh my God, no,” Miss Delaney said.

“He threw Anthony Pimentel out of the school once,” I said.

“Promise me,” she said, “that you’ll stay out of this.”

I nodded.

“And that you won’t tell anyone,” she said, “including Mr. Welch.”

I nodded.

“I have your word?”

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “I trust you to keep your word.”

I nodded again. Nodding didn’t count. If you didn’t actually say the promise, I always figured you didn’t have to keep it. Miss Delaney put her hand on my shoulder for a moment as she looked at me. Then she stood and smoothed her skirt, and walked back toward her desk.

“That’s all, Bobby,” she said. “Thank you.”

I stood and walked out of the classroom. I felt a little funny, like my head was disconnected. The corridor was empty. At the end of the school day people didn’t hang around. It was worse than she said. I could still hear the sound of broken glass in that man’s voice. There was something going on here that I didn’t get. But I would. I was smart.

I could too figure it out.