The Gray House

THE HOUSE

INTERLUDE

Grasshopper felt something as soon as he stepped inside the Tenth. A change not apparent to the eye. Ancient was hunched over the chess board cogitating, chin on knuckles.

Grasshopper crouched down on the floor.

Ancient never greeted him. He behaved as if Grasshopper didn’t leave and come back, as if their meetings were not separated by hours and days. Grasshopper had gotten used to that and had even come to like it.

He looked at the amulet box. Empty. Ajar, it lay on the mattress next to the board. There. That’s what’s changed. Why?

Ancient traced Grasshopper’s gaze and let the long fingers rummage inside the box. Then brought them closer to his eyes and shook off the dust.

“No more left. I’ve given it all away.”

Grasshopper craned his neck and peeked in.

“Really, all of it?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.”

Ancient clicked the top shut and put the empty box away.

“So there will be no more amulets?”

Dejectedly, Grasshopper waited for an explanation. A lock of hair fell over his eyes, but he was afraid to move to push it away.

“I’m leaving. Going home.”

Here, in Ancient’s room, these words sounded strange. Like he wasn’t the one who actually said them. How could he have a home? Ancient was where he was. He had been born here, he grew up here, and he became ancient here. That was obvious to anyone looking at him and talking to him.

Grasshopper shuffled his shoe over the dark wine-stain spots.

“Why?”

Ancient moved one of the pieces and flicked another off with the fingernail.

“I am nineteen,” he said. “It’s well past time.”

These words also shifted something. Just like his mention of a home. He couldn’t be any age. He was outside of age, outside of time itself—until he broke the spell by saying the number. And it still didn’t explain anything.

“Everyone else is staying until summer. Why aren’t you?”

“It smells bad here,” Ancient said. “It smells worse and worse. You know what I’m talking about. You should be able to sense it. It’s already pretty bad, but it’s going to get much worse at the end. I know. I’ve seen it before. I remember the last graduation, the one before ours. That’s why I want to leave earlier.”

“So you’re running away? From your own people?”

“I am,” Ancient agreed. “Legging it, you might say. Without the legs.”

“You mean you’re scared?” Grasshopper said doubtfully.

Ancient scratched his chin with the base of the queen.

“Yes,” he said. “I am scared. There will come a time, much later, when you’ll understand. Then you too are going to be scared. Graduation is a bad time. It’s a step into the void. Not many can simply take it. It is the year of fear, of the crazies and the suicides, of insanity and nervous breakdowns. All of that disgusting stuff that spews out of those who are afraid. There’s nothing worse than that. Better to leave before it starts. Which is what I’m doing. Because I happen to have that opportunity.”

“So you’re making the brave choice,” Grasshopper said.

Now it was Ancient’s turn to be surprised.

“I wouldn’t say that. More the opposite.”

Grasshopper wanted to ask about himself and his amulet, but didn’t. Ancient was preparing for the step into the void, for the brave choice that looked like the cowardly one. This was the moment to be silent and not interfere. So Grasshopper was silent.

“I am taking those two gluttons with me,” Ancient said, pointing in the direction of the fish tank. “Along with their room. They’re not going to even notice. They won’t know that they’ve been moved to the Outsides. Sometimes I wish I could trade places with them.”

Grasshopper looked at the fish.

He’s afraid . . .

He pitied Ancient, and he pitied himself. What’s going to become of this room? The Den of the Purple Ratter. Without Ancient in it, it would lose its identity. No longer the Den, just dorm number ten.

“No, I haven’t forgotten about you.” Ancient placed the queen on the black square. “It’s strange how often I’ve been thinking of you. Why is that, do you think?”

“Because of the amulet?”

“What’s the amulet got to do with it? You don’t need it. You don’t need the tasks either. You’re wide open. You just absorb it all.”

“I do need it.” Grasshopper swayed on his heels. “Very much. Ever since I got it, it’s all been . . . right.”

“I’m glad for it.” Ancient shook a cigarette out of the pack. “That it came out better than all the others. And also for you.”

Grasshopper suddenly grew agitated.

“What happened with the last graduation? What was it you saw back then that you don’t want to see again?”

Ancient fiddled with the cigarette, not lighting it.

“What’s the point in talking about it? You’ll see it all come summer. With your own eyes.”

“I need to know now. Tell me.”

Ancient glanced at him from under the half-closed lids.

“The last time was like a sinking ship,” he said. “This time is going to be worse. But don’t be afraid. Watch and remember. Then you can avoid the mistakes made by others. We are all given two graduations for a reason. One is to watch, so that you can know. The other is your own.”

“Why is it going to be worse?”

Ancient sighed.

“The House had one leader back then. Now there are two. It’s the House divided. That’s always bad. And in the year of graduation that’s the worst thing. No more questions now. It might be that I’m simply wrong, talking nonsense. It’s going to be either this way or that way or, more likely, something completely different will happen, something that neither I nor you nor anyone else can even imagine. Predictions are useless here.”

“All right,” Grasshopper said, nodding.

The look Ancient was giving him felt strange. A faraway look.

He’s saying his good-byes, Grasshopper realized. It’s still a long way till summer, but he’s saying good-bye now. There will be no more conversations like this one.

Ancient sighed and turned to the board.

“Come closer. I am going to teach you this game.”

His fingers rushed from square to square, setting the pieces.

“Your army shall be White. Mine is Black. These are pawns. They only move forward one square. Except their first move can be two squares at once.”

Ancient looked at Grasshopper again.

“Don’t think about bad things now,” he said. “Empty your head of everything I’ve just said. Now look here . . .”

He climbed out of the attic through the window and looked around. Most of all it resembled a desert. This gray, bare, parched desert, with aerials in place of cacti. Flat, except for the solitary hill of the other attic, looking tiny from up here. And the sky, all around him. Grasshopper clung to the window, afraid to venture away. Wolf winked at him and climbed out to the roof. The iron plates rattled.

He sat down, dangling his feet, and called to Grasshopper, “Come on. Put your foot on the box here.”

Grasshopper climbed up and cautiously lowered himself next to him. Once he got his breathing under control he could take in the view. They were at the very top of the House. Even higher than the roof. You could even see the Outsides from here, brightly striped, washed clean by the rains, ready for the summer. The dump surrounded by the fence, the round tops of the trees, the jagged remains of the crumbled walls—where, to their parents’ utter horror, the Outsides children liked to play. He could see the bright splotches of their raincoats among the ruins even now. A boy on a bicycle rolled down the street. Grasshopper looked in the opposite direction. The street was wider on that side, and in the distance he could glimpse the same bus stop from where he’d walked with his mother on the day he first entered the House.

“If they find out I dragged you here, they’re going to kill me,” Wolf said. “But this is a really good place. Do you like it here?”

“I don’t know,” Grasshopper said honestly. “I have to think about it.”

He looked down again.

“I guess it’s a good thinking place. Except I’m not sure if the thinking here is of good or bad things.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking about, then,” Wolf said. “I’ll tell you if it’s good or bad.”

Grasshopper watched a bus as it disappeared from view. Then he looked back at Wolf.

“Promise you’re not going to laugh. In the place where we used to live, I mean, Mom, Grandma, and I, there was this park near our house. On one side, and on the other side this huge store, and a little farther down, the playground. The store sold mirrors. And other things too. Our house was right in the middle of all this. On the same street as the park and the mirror store. You know what I mean?”

Wolf shook his head.

“No, not really.”

“When I remember our house, I also remember all of that. The way it stood on the street, and what was around it. You see?”

“I guess so,” Wolf said, rubbing his ear. “There is nothing like that here.”

“Yeah, nothing. Worse than nothing. It’s like all of this has been painted on,” Grasshopper said, nodding at the streets. “A picture.”

“And if you go out,” Wolf said thoughtfully, looking down, “you’d punch a hole in it. Tear the paper and leave a hole. What’s behind it?”

“I don’t know,” Grasshopper said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”

“Nobody knows,” Wolf said. “The only way to find out is to do it. I don’t want to think about this.”

“Then it’s not a good thinking place. When you don’t want to think about something, but it still thinks about itself. And how does it feel to you?”

“With me it’s different,” Wolf said, pulling his legs up and placing his elbows on his knees. “I like the roof. It’s the House and at the same time it isn’t. Like an island in the middle of the ocean. Or like a ship. Or the edge of the world. Like you could crash straight down into outer space from here—falling, falling, never reaching the bottom. I used to play here by myself. Imagining all that: the ocean, the sky . . .”

“And now?”

“And now I don’t anymore. Haven’t been here forever.”

The rectangle of the roof glistened with glass shards. They gleamed and sparkled like diamonds. In the other corner they saw yellowed newspapers, empty bottles, and chair seats, all color leached out of them.

“Who’s left all that here?” Grasshopper asked.

“Don’t know. Seniors, I guess. I’m not the only one who knows about this place. People come here all the time. I like it more when it’s windy and raining. It’s completely different from how it is now. A ship in a storm. I can run around in the rain and I know for sure that no one would gawk at me from the windows. The important thing is to be careful not to slide to the sloping part.”

Grasshopper imagined Wolf running around on the wet slippery roof and shuddered.

Wolf laughed.

“You just never tried. Look.”

He stood up, swayed, righted himself, threw back his head, and shouted into the vast blueness of the sky, “Aaa! Ooo! Yoo-hoo!”

The sky swallowed his scream. Grasshopper watched, his eyes wide in astonishment.

“Come on. Don’t be scared.”

Wolf helped him get up, and then they were shouting together. Grasshopper’s uncertain cry was gobbled up by the sky in a flash. He shouted louder, then louder still. Suddenly it came to him: How beautiful it was to be shouting at the sky. How there was nothing in the world more beautiful than that.

He screwed his eyes tightly shut and screamed until he was hoarse. He and Wolf flopped down on the warm metal and looked at each other with insane eyes. The wind breathed into their flushed faces. The black scissors of the swallows scythed overhead. It was so quiet that they felt a ringing in their ears.

It’s as if I’m empty, Grasshopper thought. Everything that was inside me flew away. This empty me is the only thing that’s left. And it feels good.

Wolf grabbed his sweater.

“Hey! Careful, or you’ll fall down. You look like you’re drunk.”

“I feel fine,” Grasshopper mumbled. “I feel good.”

The wind mussed their hair. The aerial wires crisscrossed the sky. The sparrows, no more than fluffy balls when seen from here, used them as swings. Wolf’s nose was on the verge of breaking out in freckles.

It’s the scent of summer, Grasshopper realized suddenly.

The summer was coming for real.

The dorm was busy poring over the box of photographs.

“Look!” Humpback shouted as they entered. “Look at what Max-’n’-Rexes hauled in.”

They moved in closer. The photographs were of the seniors. They hadn’t been made in the House. Siamese pointed at one of the photos.

“Remember this gate? How it jumped off the hinges because Sausage was swinging on it?”

“And here’s my head!” The other Siamese pointed at an indistinct blob in the corner. “You can see our window, right there!”

They crowded around, greedily searching for snippets of something familiar in the world populated by the seniors. And finding them. Behind the backs, over the shoulders, here and there, in bits and pieces. And then trying to connect those bits, weave them into a cloth.

Grasshopper went to sit on the bed. He didn’t like such discussions. He’d skipped the first summer trip, and the time when he did go, they got sent to a fancy spa where the staff was so intent on providing a quality experience that there was no possibility of any unregimented fun. It was very nice, but you can’t enjoy the swimming pools and the gyms and even real horseback riding when there’s a whole army of insistent helpers always tagging along. Everyone, or at least everyone whom Grasshopper heard rehashing it over and over again, agreed that in the entire history of the House they never had a summer break as lousy as that one. Actually, if not for them, Grasshopper might even have imagined that he’d had a great time. But the House people were, if anything, traditionalists. There were only two places that were acceptable to them outside the boundaries of the House: a disused ski area somewhere in the mountains, and the old resort on the shore. Nothing else even came close. The distinction “House” was extended to those places as well, they were its annexes, its feelers stretched an unfathomable distance. Grasshopper knew both of these Houses as if he himself had visited them many times. He even had a preference for the one by the sea. The oldest one. Creaking and wheezing, with its sagging beds and warped wardrobes, its water-stained walls and ceilings, its flapping floorboards, with one shower stall for each four dorms and constant queues to use the toilets.

“The ceiling dripped in our room!”

“Elephant sat on a chair and broke it, remember?”

“Sport banged on the wall to shut up the guys in the next room and punched a hole clean through.”

“Remember the centipedes in the bathroom?”

“Centipedes? How about silverfish and water beetles?”

The boys tossed the phrases like footballs, reveling in the flaws of the Other House, and Grasshopper was listening to them jealously. The Other House, the little brother of This House. There might even be some secret connection between them. Maybe they exchanged things. Rats, or ghosts, or something else interesting. You could see the ocean from the windows of the Other House. And at night you could hear it. There the counselors immediately fell in love with the tanned girls on the beach and forgot about their responsibilities, and when it rained the building leaked, so they all locked themselves in, like a tortoise retreating into its shell, cursed the weather, and played cards through the night—juniors, seniors, counselors, all. They played and listened to the jingle of the drops hitting the pans placed under the holes in the roof.

“Did you steal them from the seniors?” Grasshopper asked.

Siamese blinked at him.

“So? They’ve got loads of them, and we didn’t have any. At least now there’s this.”

“I didn’t mean that. I just asked. Where’s Stinker?”

“Got called to the principal,” Magician said. “Didn’t you notice how quiet it was?”

Stinker wheeled in, flashing the badges that covered him from the neck all the way down to his knees.

“Hear that?” he squeaked, gasping. “There are fourteen packages in the principal’s office, and loads of letters! But to hell with the letters. The important thing here is the packages. All of them mine!”

“Would those be the responses to your letters?” Humpback ventured.

“None other!” Stinker made a circle around the room, spokes glistening. “I ask you, have you ever heard anything this outrageous? They’re not letting me have them. Asking who sent them and why. How’s that their business? They were sent to me, which means they’re mine. So it follows they must hand them over.”

“So you turned around and left, just like that?” Wolf said.

“As if! I made a scene. Now I need some time to recuperate, and then I’ll go back and make another one. Except I need a poster. Mind drawing it for me?”

Grasshopper laughed.

“Nothing funny about it,” Stinker said indignantly. “This pile of useful stuff is rotting away in the principal’s office. Not funny at all! Come on, quick . . . Get to the drawing! And writing!”

He wheeled over to the nightstand and rustled some papers.

“Don’t we have a large poster board? I don’t get it. It’s like the most useful thing to have around.”

“We could use a bedsheet,” Magician piped in with enthusiasm. “We can cut it in half . . . We’ll need a couple of sticks for the handles.”

“One handle is enough,” Stinker said sharply. “I’m going to need my other hand to blow the trumpet.”

They sat on the floor in front of the remains of the sheet and nibbled on the brushes thoughtfully.

“Something along the lines of Don’t Tread on Me,” Stinker insisted. “Or Hands Off . . . something or other.”

“Or maybe Packages for the Owner?” Humpback suggested.

“We could do that too,” Stinker agreed reluctantly. “Even though it sounds trite.”

Beauty fondled the paint cans. Elephant drew a sun on the floor. Wolf got to writing Packages in blue paint.

“Careful. Keep it on the line,” Stinker fretted. “Make the letters bigger.”

“We could just pick the lock,” Siamese Rex said, “and carry everything away. At night. Then we wouldn’t need to write anything.”

“No way! Stealing something that’s rightfully mine? No, they must hand it over themselves,” Stinker said, smoothing out the sheet. “They’re bound to regret their decision. They’re going to beg me: ‘Come, oh, come and take them!’”

“Fourteen packages,” Magician sighed reverently.

“See what I mean? Totally worth the effort.”

Once the slogan Packages for the Owner was ready, Magician demanded they make another copy, for him. Wolf said that two identical banners was boring, and in the time it took the “Packages” one to dry they wrote Down with Dictatorship on the other half of the sheet, and also Hands Off Student Property on a poster board. Then they glued handles to the sheets.

“Faster! Faster!” Magician urged.

“Can we come too?” one of the Siamese asked.

“Later,” Stinker said sternly. “You’re the second line. For when we get exhausted. Then it will be your turn to shout ‘Shame!’ and rattle something.”

Beauty suddenly grew agitated, stuttering excitedly, “Four apples! Four! That’s a lot!”

“Beauty will provide juice,” Wolf translated. “And Siamese will bring it over. To revive your stamina. The juice of four apples.”

Beauty beamed. Stinker patted his arm.

“Thank you. Your valuable contribution to the just cause shall not be forgotten. I’ll give you a lemon to make the contribution even more valuable.”

Magician, Stinker, and Humpback took the slogans and left. Siamese went looking for something they could rattle. Beauty bustled around the juice maker. Elephant brought him one more apple. Wolf lay on the floor and closed his eyes.

Grasshopper sat on his bed. He was dying to find out what Stinker was going to do, but was self-conscious about it. It was going to be something noisy and shameful, and the entire House was going to come gawk at it. Siamese dug out the salad bowl, the bear trap, and the ladle, and then set to picking up the scraps of paper off the floor and closing the paint cans, gingerly stepping around Wolf.

“Fourteen packages,” they whispered to each other, licking their lips.

Beauty reverently operated the juice maker. Elephant held the pan under the spout, watching it fill up with the transparent yellowish juice.

Then they too headed off. Elephant carried the bottle of juice. Beauty carried nothing. Siamese carried the things they were going to rattle. Beauty fretted. He could only manage to make it through the door on the third try, and for that Siamese had to wedge him between themselves and march him out like a prisoner between two guards.

Wolf lay on the floor. Blind lay on his bed.

Blind can hear everything anyway, Grasshopper thought. He doesn’t need to go. He’s both here and there at the same time.

Grasshopper slid down from the bed and sat on the floor.

“Ancient’s leaving,” he said. “Forever. He’s not going to be in the House anymore. He’s afraid of something. Something that’s going to happen in the summer before the seniors have to leave.”

Wolf opened his eyes.

“How do you know? You mean you talked to him?”

Grasshopper nodded.

“He remembers the last graduation. He says there’s nothing worse than the last year.”

“That’s true,” Wolf said, propping himself up. “I’m only curious why he would talk to you about things like that. Or did you . . . overhear what he was saying?”

“No. He told me himself. Only me, no one else.”

Wolf lay back down.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered.

Blind stirred on his bed. When he rose, he had a dusty plastic bag in his hands. He traipsed over to Grasshopper, dropped the bag in his lap, and went back. Grasshopper stared at Blind’s present in surprise.

Wolf turned over, grabbed the bag, and peeked inside.

“I think this is what you wanted,” he said and shook out some cassette tapes on the floor. Old and battered, some without the inserts, flashing the scratched labels.

“That’s your Zeppelins,” Blind grumbled. “The ones making you go crazy in the head. He told me that these are it exactly. The one who gave them to me.”

“Thanks,” Grasshopper whispered. “Thanks, Blind. Where did you get them?”

“It was a gift,” Blind replied curtly. “From someone who couldn’t say no.”

It was obvious that this wasn’t Elk he was talking about.

“Doesn’t matter. Just enjoy.”

“One more blackmailer,” Wolf remarked thoughtfully. “Rather a lot of you guys for one dorm.”

It was Skull who gave it to him, Grasshopper thought. Blind is carrying his letters. So Skull is the one who couldn’t say no.

Blind lay there with his hands hidden under his armpits. His black hair shined, obscuring his face.

“Who was it that couldn’t refuse you, I wonder,” Wolf said probingly.

Blind didn’t answer.

Wolf turned to Grasshopper.

“He never answers. Almost never. Then he says something and goes silent again. Just once I’d like to hear the rest of the story, find out if it actually happened.”

Grasshopper shook his head.

“What is it you’d like to hear?”

“A complete sentence. So I could understand what he was saying. I don’t mean now in particular. I mean usually.”

Grasshopper looked at Blind.

“I can always understand what he’s saying. Even when he’s not saying anything at all.”

Wolf’s orange eyes glanced in the direction of Blind.

“You, maybe. But I don’t.”

“Well, I don’t understand anything when you’re silent,” Grasshopper admitted. “And sometimes even when you’re speaking.”

“How about enough?” Blind said. “Another round of this, and you’d both stop understanding anything.”

“What do you hear?” Grasshopper asked.

“Stuffagers are all there, and a lot of seniors. It’s Siamese’s turn now. They’re howling and banging.”

Grasshopper gingerly picked up the tapes and put them back in the bag. There were five, and only two had cases.

“But how am I supposed to listen to them?” he said sadly. “We don’t have anything for that.”

“There are fourteen packages being rescued as we speak,” Wolf reminded him. “If I know anything about Stinker, at least one of them is going to contain something that would play your Zeppelins.”

Grasshopper was suddenly restless.

“Should I maybe go and shout too?”

“There’s enough shouting as it is,” Blind said. “I’m surprised the principal is still holding.”

“We’ll go in half an hour,” Wolf said. “Fresh reinforcements. It would be more useful that way.”

Grasshopper peeked into the bag to count the tapes again. There were still five of them. No more, no less.

“Was there anything else Ancient told you?” Wolf said smoothly.

Grasshopper looked at him in surprise.

“That he was leaving. That it smells bad here. And it’s going to get worse. I mean, not in those exact words. About the seniors, in short.”

“Our dear morons,” Wolf said. “I see.”

Grasshopper frowned.

“Why are you calling them that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“Is Skull a moron too?” Grasshopper said indignantly.

“He more than others.”

“Then give me the rest of the sentence. Like you demanded from Blind. So that even I understand. Why are they morons? And then about Skull. Separately.”

“No problem,” Wolf said, looking at Blind. “There’s one House. It needs to have one master. One leader for all.”

That’s what Ancient said, Grasshopper thought. Or something like that.

“But that’s why the two of them fight. They want to be the one you’re talking about,” he said.

“They’ve been fighting for a long time. Too long. Might as well quit. It’s ridiculous,” Wolf said, shaking his head. “If in all that time they didn’t manage to prove they could rise above everyone else’s wants and not-wants, then neither of them is worth anything.”

“Skull could rise!”

Wolf smiled. He was still looking at Blind. Blind wasn’t stirring. He could be listening to Wolf, or to Stinker, far away.

“Strange thoughts you have,” Grasshopper said.

“They’re not strange. They’re obvious,” Wolf said. “Child’s play. You need to build up on them. Like floors in a building—one, two, three, ten . . . Then they might start looking wise and deep. But until that time, seniors are seniors. And all we can do is bask in their smoke and die from envy listening to their records. Like this one guy I know.”

“I wasn’t dying from envy,” Grasshopper protested.

“I was,” Wolf admitted.

“Still,” Grasshopper said stubbornly, “Skull is not a moron. And Ancient isn’t. You’re just jealous.”

“Can’t you hear it?” Blind said suddenly.

This time they did—the faraway voices and shouts. Grasshopper took another peek in the bag with the tapes and then looked at Wolf.

“All right, let’s go,” Wolf said, getting up. “Go and support Stinker’s possessive urges. Something tells me he’s going to get rechristened after today’s show.”

“Into Crocodile?” Grasshopper said.

“Nah. Won’t work. Crocodiles gobble up something and then lie there sleeping, like statues. He’s much too noisy for that. And I don’t think he ever sleeps. Or has enough to eat.”

Grasshopper stuffed the tapes into the nightstand so they’d be safe from Siamese.

Blind didn’t get up.

“Good luck,” he said lazily.

“Do you think we’ll have to shout?” Grasshopper said.

“We’ll see. We’ll play it by ear. Maybe we won’t have to.”

Wolf let him go out first.

The hallway was almost empty, but there was a throng of people at the other end, by the doors of the staff room. The garish shirts and jackets on the seniors’ backs shielded the proceedings from them better than any fence. They couldn’t see Stinker and the cohorts, but they could hear them fine. The clanking of metal on metal and the screams “Down with tyranny!” echoed through the building.

The closer Wolf and Grasshopper got, the louder it became. The seniors weren’t standing in one place. Some of them moved away, laughing, and their spots were immediately taken by others who had just arrived. When Ulysses the wheeler peeled off with a disgusted grimace on his face, Wolf and Grasshopper quickly squeezed in. Now they could finally see.

The posters swayed uncertainly in the feeble hands of Poxy Sissies. Magician, jaw firmly set and eyes bulging, held his above everybody else’s. Stinker, gone livid with the effort and bedecked in badges, brandished Packages for the Owner. The half sheet was draped around the handle limply, the writing wasn’t legible, so he simply waved it like a flag. Poker-faced Siamese furiously rattled the salad bowl and the bear trap. Elephant looked on, elated.

“Down with tyranny! Down with counselors’ despotism! Down . . .” Stinker droned.

“Down with it!” the choir picked up on the exhale.

Elephant whined softly in agreement. Beauty hid himself among the wheelers, keeping his head low so as not to stand out.

Stuffagers, all present, formed a semicircle and swayed to the beat.

The seniors just laughed. Grasshopper thought that there was significantly more shouting than would be expected, and then realized that, to his surprise, Stuffagers were screaming as well.

“Down with teachers!” Crybaby squealed. Whiner incongruously proclaimed, “World peace!” Crook, waving his crutch, demanded, “Living space for the cripples!”

But Stinker’s voice sailed clear above the din. His screams joined with the crashing of the salad bowl and the tooting of the tin trumpet to create one hellish, unbearable cacophony.

Seniors, still laughing, inserted fingers in their ears.

“Could it be that the principal has already jumped out the window?” Wolf shouted to Grasshopper.

Principal hadn’t jumped anywhere. Safe and sound, albeit distinctly greenish in color, he opened the doors of the staff room and waved his hands, trying to shout over the commotion. Short, with a pugnacious gray beard, he resembled a retired pirate, except he didn’t smoke a pipe, wasn’t covered in tattoos, and generally was closer in appearance to a gnome—if not for the shaggy head of an old sailor.

“Attention, squirts!” Boar the senior shouted, raising two fingers in the air.

The seniors guffawed. Stinker, red faced and majestic, waved his little paw, commanding the others to pause. Siamese ceased their racket. Principal’s voice finally broke through the general hubbub.

“At once . . . Outrageous . . . Ankle biters . . .”

“Quiet!” Stinker ordered.

The principal produced a handkerchief and wiped his face.

“If I may be allowed to speak,” he said and had to wait out an explosion of laughter. “I hoped to prevail upon this young gentleman to consider sharing his bounty with others. But I’m afraid that the way this is going I won’t live to see the day. We’ll continue the investigation into where these packages came from and why. In the meantime he can take them away. The sooner the better!”

Siamese whistled. Humpback applauded. Splint the counselor appeared behind the crestfallen principal’s back, pushing a cart. Black Ralph, hands in pockets, marched alongside him, while Elk was bringing up the rear carrying a box full of letters. The cart was piled with packages. A mound of boxes in bright wrappers.

“What’s that?” the seniors inquired.

“Packages for the owner,” Stinker said and nodded to Humpback and Magician. “Prepare to accept the goods.”

The cart was transferred from Splint to Humpback. Magician, in one practiced theatrical sweep, covered it with the Hands Off sheet, hiding the contents from the prying eyes. Sissies trooped in the direction of the Poxy room, pushing the cart in front of them. The Stuffage boys made way, flabbergasted. As the procession filed past the rows of seniors, they looked at Stinker approvingly and sneaked peeks under the cover.

“That’s one wicked squirt,” Lame said with a tinge of respect in his voice. “He’s going to crawl far.”

Stinker nodded left and right, graciously bestowing his toothy smile on the assembled admirers.

“Wait,” he said suddenly, stopping the escort. “Just one moment.”

He wheeled over to the cart, rummaged under the sheet, extracted the smallest package, in bubble wrap with stars plastered all over it, and tossed it to Whiner.

“There. This is yours, guys. Thanks for the support.”

The seniors applauded. Whiner ogled the package in disbelief.

“Drop that thing right now,” Sportsman hissed, shouldering his way through. “Wheelers’ handouts! Drop it, I said!”

“No, I won’t,” Whiner said, clutching the package tightly. “Why should I? Get your own things and drop them if you want.”

Sportsman slapped Whiner across the face. Wheelers rumbled indignantly.

As he was catching up with Sissies and the cart, Grasshopper looked over his shoulder. The principal was still standing at the entrance to the staff room. The counselors on both sides of him patted him on the shoulders soothingly. Principal’s vacant stare was fixed directly in front of him.

Could he really have gone crazy? Grasshopper thought. I mean, it’s possible . . .

“I want that cart back!” Splint the counselor shouted after them, his glasses glinting. “Miscreants!”