400 Boys and 50 More (24 page)

“Speak up, Dean.”

“Er, it is
Macbeth
, Jack, and it’s on the reading list this year.”

Magnusson drew himself up, spreading his halfback shoulders, running a hand through his thinning steel-wool hair. “That curriculum’s always been trouble,” he said, “but there’s no use asking for more. What with the swear-word in
Catcher in the Rye
and the dead horse in
Red Sky at Morning
and the A.V. Department showing
Corpse Grinders
on Back-to-School Night, we’re going to start losing constituents to other districts that don’t have these problems.”

Dean looked ready to cry into the pages of
Macbeth
. Nora Sherman grabbed the book from him and held it dangling by the spine.

She said, “Tirades aside, Jack, you’d better let the kids do Shakespeare this year or there’ll be a rebellion. Birnham Wood will move at recess, with Neal Bay heading the insurrection. There’s a lot of talent going to waste around here and the kids damn well know it.”

Dean stared at her, dazed. “Well said, Nora.”

“You stay out of this,” she said.

“What do you want from me?” Magnusson asked her. “I can’t approve this.”

“Perhaps not as it is, but what if it were toned down?”

Magnusson reared back. “Cut out the blood? There’d be nothing left.”

“No editing,” she said. “We won’t use the Shakespeare. We’ll write our own version. Improvise. I’ve seen grade school kids do it with
The Wind in the Willows
. Once we get rid of the poetry, we’re not stuck to the plot, and that gives the students considerable freedom. We can change the setting and period.”

Magnusson got the book back. “Take it out of Scotland, you mean?”

“I’ve seen it done.
Romeo and Juliet
transplanted into the Stone Age, or onto Monster Beach.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
is the usual organ donor. Can you imagine it set in German-occupied France? Or in Boston during the Revolutionary War? One was set in Transylvania, but it wasn’t exactly bloodless . . .” She trailed off, one metallic blue fingernail tracing the green line of an artery on the back of her hand.

“You could set it in Siberia or the outback,” said Mr. Dean. He sat up and reached for the book, but Magnusson ignored him and held the captive copy spread masklike before his face. Dean dropped back into his seat and gazed into the paperweight.

“Or the Old West,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Too messy, Dean,” said Mrs. Sherman. “What I suggest is we give our actor-warriors weapons that won’t be as sloppy as bullets and swords. Give them, say, ray-guns and send them off to . . . I don’t know, Mars. Sure. Tie it in with the study groups reading
The Martian Chronicles
.”

“Mars,” said Magnusson, as if the planet were a jawbreaker that refused to dissolve on his tongue.

“With real Martian music,” said Mr. Dean.

Mrs. Sherman caught and held his eyes. “I didn’t say anything about that.”

“No, I did,” said Mr. Dean.

“We have to use the band this year,” said Magnusson.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because he promised,” said Mr. Dean. “We haven’t had a musical in the last three years.
The Crucible
,
Man in the Moon Marigolds
,
Snake House
. . . The things these kids choose, I swear. They have the sense of humor of morticians. This year we’re doing something lighter, a musical ‘revue.’ I think our own Sheri DuBose could come up with something appropriate in the way of music and songs for Macbeth.”

“Oh my God,” said Nora, sinking.

Magnusson hardly looked at her, though he was smiling with one side of his mouth. “That should keep the kids tame, yes.”

“For that you’d need wild-animal tamers,” said Mr. Dean. “At least it will keep them happy.”

Mrs. Sherman seemed to come out of a coma. “Forget I ever mentioned Macbeth. Don’t do it to that play. Not that silly girl’s music . . .”

“Nora,” said Mr. Magnusson, shaking his head at her and smiling as if he knew something she didn’t. “So pale. Are you well?”

“Seen Banquo’s ghost?” said Dean, with a chuckle.

“You’re not being a very good sport,” said Magnusson. “We’ve all got what we wanted.”

She tightened her metallic-blue mouth, looked at both of them, then put out a hand and touched the copy of
Macbeth
as if to swear upon it. When she was perfectly still, she whispered, “If you get Sheri DuBose, I get Ricardo Rivera.” Mr. Dean jumped as if he had been grabbed; but before he could form a word or stop her, her hand shot out and touched the black paperweight in the center of the table.

“Ha!” she said. “Motion passed.”

Dean slumped back in his chair.

“All right,” said Magnusson. “Let’s move on to athletics.”

* * *

Lunch bag in hand, Ricardo Rivera hurried across the quadrangle toward the crowd of twelve- and thirteen-year-old students that had gathered at the back of the auditorium by the stage door.

He was a small boy, green-eyed, with dark curly hair, fine-cut features, and a grin that some might call elfin. The grin was partly imaginary because at that moment he thought he was to be the next Macbeth.

At the edge of the group he asked Sheri DuBose if the cast list for
Macbeth’s Martian Revue
had been posted, though it obviously hadn’t.

“Not yet, Ricardo,” she said. “Mr. Dean wants me to write the songs, though.” She smiled. “I have it on good authority.”

“Good authority,’” mimicked Bruce Vicks, pigging his nose at her with a finger. “Sheri DuPug,” he said.

Sheri snorted and turned away, forgetting about Ricardo. “‘If it were done when ’tis done,’” Ricardo said, “then ’tis best it were done when it’s best it were . . . now wait a minute.” His audition piece was already sliding from memory.

“Here come de prez,” somebody said.

Ricardo jumped to look over the heads of the others and saw a tall boy with longish sun-bleached hair, a sure and smiling freckled face, and the lopsided walk of a skateboarder.

Ricardo waved at him. “Hey, Neal, over here!”

Neal Bay joined the crowd, smiling at everyone.

“Good job, Neal,” said Randy Keane, shaking Neal’s hand. “You better remember your campaign promise for lots of movies.”

“Won’t forget,” said Neal. “I’ve already got
The Red Balloon
on order.”

Keane groaned and laughed. “That stinker?”

Ricardo pushed his way to Neal’s side. “The list’s not up yet.”

“Duh,” said Neal. “My brilliant campaign manager. I can see the list isn’t up yet, dipstick. I don’t know how I won with you on my side.”

Ricardo ignored the insult and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I hear Cory gave you trouble yesterday.”

“Trouble? Who told you that?”

“At student council.”

“No trouble, except maybe for you. I just asked Cory about a few of the things you told me.”

Ricardo stepped back. “I told you? Like what?”

“Oh, like how you said that Lisa Freuhoff told you Cory was fixing the elections.”

“That’s what Lisa said,” said Ricardo, backing away but pointing at Neal. “I didn’t say it was true.”

“Yeah? And how she swore I’d be sorry if I won. She’d get even, you said. I never asked where you heard that one.”

“Lisa said it,” Ricardo said.

Neal crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, and smirked. “Yeah? Well, Cory and I are a team now.”

“But she was your-your enemy!”

“We were never enemies. We always knew one of us would win, and the other would be vice-president. You just wanted us to be enemies.”

Ricardo fell silent, trying to imagine what Neal meant. “We’ve been good friends, Neal,” he said. “You shouldn’t just treat me like this now that you’ve won. You’ll still see me around. Maybe you’ll even get the part of Banquo. You did a great audition.”

“Banquo?” Neal laughed. “I’m going to be Mister Macbeth, Junior.”

“No way,” said Ricardo. The idea was laughable, and he laughed. Then he turned his tongue back to the more important issue. “Cory was always nasty to you. Remember that time in the cafeteria?”

“You shut up,” Neal said, taking a step to hook his forefinger into the soft flesh and glands under Ricardo’s jaw. The bigger boy grinned, and it was not the kind of smile that makes one comfortable.

Ricardo moaned until Neal let him slip free. There were tears in his eyes, and his voice didn’t carry.

“Bet you don’t even get Malcolm’s part,” he said. “Bet you don’t even get to be a Murderer.”

Neal started forward.

“It’s a fight!”

A cry from the direction of the door interrupted them. Mr. Dean stepped outside, wincing at the sunlight and the students. He waved a sheet of ditto paper as if it were a pennant. Everyone cheered. He tacked it to the door and slipped back in before he could be trapped by the kids.

As Ricardo struggled forward, he dropped his lunch bag. He bent down, but before he could grab it a Hush Puppy squashed the sack, spilling the guts of a peanut butter and banana sandwich onto the asphalt. Rising, suddenly hungry, he heard someone say, “Awright! Macbeth for President!”

“No,” Ricardo said in disbelief. “Oh, no.”

President Bay appeared above him, looking down his long, straight nose. “Sorry, buddy, you’re Banquo. Sorry for both of us, I mean. I’d just as soon not see you on that stage.”

Ricardo felt his face scrunch up with anger. “Banquo,” he said. “Banquo gets killed halfway through, then he’s just a- a-a ghost. I wanted—”

“Don’t be a wussy,” Neal said.

“A wussy?” Ricardo said. His anger passed and he felt weak. “Neal, see if I was second choice.”

“You dummy, you’re not even my understudy. Be glad you got anything.”

“But you can’t do it, Neal, you don’t have the time. You’re already president, isn’t that enough?”

“President no thanks to you, when all you did was tell me lies about Cory Fordyce, which is pretty screwed considering how you’ve got the hots for her.”

Around them, kids were staring and starting to laugh. Some even looked frightened in a tentative, eager way. “The hots,” someone repeated.

Ricardo tripped on an ankle out of nowhere, and falling backward grabbed the nearest object: Neal’s chest. He heard a rip as he continued to fall, and when he landed he had a handful of torn, threadbare cotton with
Primo Beer
written across it.

He looked slowly up at a bare-chested, raging Neal, and something happened to freeze them in time. Something kept his words in his mouth and Neal’s fists in the air. Everything stopped and Ricardo sat suspended outside of the world.

Until Cory Fordyce looked in.

Long blond hair, Miss Clairol curls, rosy cheeks and lips, pale blue eyes. All he could see of her was her face; the crowd hid the rest. She was peering around Neal, while Neal turned slowly to look at her.

“Hello, Cory,” Neal said, smiling as his fingers uncurled.

She scowled past him and looked down at Ricardo. “What did you tell him about me, Ricardo?”

“I didn’t say a thing!” Ricardo shouted. “Lisa said! Ask Lisa!”

Neal stepped forward with a shout, swinging his arm as if he were bowling. Ricardo’s face went numb with pain; he wasn’t sure why. He lay back on the asphalt, smelling a cloud of tarry, rusty, bloody smoke rising around him. Neal’s fist floated above in slow motion, a white planet spattered in blood. Ricardo’s awareness roamed into the dark.

* * *

“Ricardo?” A woman’s voice. “This is Mrs. Ensign, the nurse. We’ve called your mother. I’m afraid she’ll have to take you to the hospital. Your nose is quite broken. Breathe through your mouth and you won’t have so much trouble.”

His face felt like a pane of safety glass, shattered but clinging together. She wiped his eyes with a wet cloth as the sounds of typewriters and telephones filled his ears.

Jars rattled and a fluorescent light appeared. Mrs. Ensign stood above, shaking a thermometer. Then she shook her head.

“If I did that you wouldn’t be able to breathe,” she said. “Poor boy.”

“Bisses Edsid, could I see a cast list for
Bacbeth’s Bartiad Revue
?"

“A catalyst for who?”

“Cast list, cast list. I cad’t talk right.”

“Can you read right? Stay put, I’ll get you the list.”

When she returned, she had a ditto so fresh it fumed. She held it before his face so that he could read:

MACBETH’S MARTIAN REVUE

Macbeth . . . . . . Neal Bay

Banquo . . . . . . Ricardo Rivera

Lady Macbeth . . . . . Cory Fordyce

“That’s all,” he said.

She left him alone with his pain.

Why me? he thought. Why me?

That was an old thought, worn thin over the years of his childhood. It hardly captured his present frustration, which felt like the undertow at high tide.

Why Neal? he thought. Better.

Why Neal, the sun-tanned surfer, instead of me, the brainy twerp? I’m not such a bad bodysurfer.

And why Neal, with the perfect dumb joke that makes all the girls laugh (except Cory usually, but probably now she’ll laugh), instead of me, s-s-stuttering R-R-Ricardo?

Yeah? Why does Neal get to be President Bloody Macbeth of the Blackstone Intermediate Bloody Spaceways and the Planet of Bloody Blood; when I get to be Good Ol’ Banquo the Friendly Ghost?

Why does Neal get Cory while I get . . . I get . . .

Cory. Thinking of her was like swallowing a Superball. He had never gotten over the bruises she’d given him the previous year, when he had let himself have a crush on her even while knowing that she hated him, even while knowing for certain that his affection would make her crueler.

In moments of pain, her image always brightened to torment him. He had never known as much pain as he felt now, and her face had never been so bright.

* * *

That night he cried out in his sleep. His mother found him sitting half-awake in his bed, describing in a senseless rush the events of some nightmare on another world: a planet of blood where starships of rusted metal crashed into the ruins of red cities; where a bloody sun and moon chased each other round and round while the stars howled in a hungry chorus, and seas of blood drenched everything in red. He fell back asleep without truly waking, leaving her clinging to his seemingly empty body, leaving her afraid.