Dead Poets Society (15 page)

“Cameron!” he whispered loudly. Cameron looked at Knox. He hesitated, then walked down the hall and entered the trunk room. The rest of the group stared at him.

“What’s going on, guys?” Cameron asked innocently.

“You finked, didn’t you, Cameron?” Charlie said, grabbing his shirt collar.

Cameron pulled away. “To hell with you, dumbo, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You just told Nolan everything about the club is what I’m talking about,” Charlie shouted.

“In case you hadn’t heard, Dalton, there’s something called an honor code at this school. If a teacher asks you something, you tell the truth or you’re expelled.”

Charlie moved toward Cameron again. “Why you …”

Meeks and Knox pulled Charlie off. “Charlie …” Knox said.

“He’s a rat! He’s in it up to his eyes so he ratted to save himself!” Charlie shouted.

“Don’t touch him, Charlie,” Knox warned. “You do and you’re out.”

“I’m out anyway,” Charlie said, pushing back.

“He’s right, there. And if you’re smart, every one of you will do exactly what I did and cooperate. They’re not after us. We’re the victims. Us and Neil.”

“What does that mean?” Charlie asked. “Who are they after?”

“Why, Mr. Keating, of course. The ‘Captain’ himself. You didn’t really think he could avoid responsibility, did you?”

“Mr. Keating? Responsible for Neil? Is that what they’re saying?” Charlie pulled himself free of Meeks and Knox.

“Who else do you think, dumbo?” Cameron said. “The administration? Mr. Perry? Keating put us up to all this, didn’t he? If it wasn’t for him, Neil would be cozied up in his room right now, studying his chemistry and dreaming of being called doctor.”

“That’s not true!” Todd cried. “Mr. Keating didn’t tell Neil what to do. Neil loved acting.”

“Believe what you want,” Cameron shrugged. “But I say let Keating fry. Why ruin our lives?”

“You bastard!” Charlie bolted across the room and struck Cameron in the jaw. Cameron fell to the floor, and Charlie straddled him.

“Charlie!” Knox groaned.

Cameron looked up and grinned as he rubbed his cheek. “You just signed your expulsion papers, Nuwanda,” he laughed. He covered his bleeding nose. Charlie turned and walked out. The others followed him.

Cameron lay alone on the floor. He shouted after them, “If you guys are smart, you’ll do exactly what I did! They know everything anyway. You can’t save Keating, but you can save yourselves!”

In the room, Neil’s bed stood stripped and his desk empty. Todd sat at the window, looking across the campus at the administration building. As he watched, he saw Meeks escorted out of the building and toward the dorm by Dr. Hager.

Todd peeked out of the door of the room. Meeks and Hager entered the hallway, and Hager waited while Meeks walked silently back to his room.

He passed Todd without even looking at him, and Todd saw the tears streaming down his face. Meeks slammed his door shut behind him.

“Knox Overstreet,” Dr. Hager called, as he waited impatiently at the end of the hall.

Knox came out of his room and joined Hager. They walked out the door and back across the campus.

Todd waited a few minutes, then walked across the hall to Meeks’s room. He knocked. “Meeks, it’s Todd,” he called.

“Go away,” Meeks said, his voice hoarse and throaty. “I have to study.”

Todd paused, realizing what had happened. “What happened to Nuwanda?” Todd asked Meeks through the closed door.

“Expelled,” Meeks said flatly.

Todd stood stunned. “What did you tell them?” Todd asked, again through the door.

“Nothing they didn’t already know,” Meeks said.

Todd turned away. He returned to his window and watched as Knox was escorted back to the dorm. Again, Todd peered into the hall. Knox and Hager entered. Knox’s chin quivered, on the verge of breaking down, and he went into his room, quietly closing the door. Todd stepped back into his room and leaned against the wall. He was shaken as he realized that Knox had been broken. Then he heard his own name called.

“Todd Anderson.” It was Dr. Hager. He waited at the end of the hallway. Todd took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. He opened the door and walked slowly toward the teacher.

Dr. Hager shuffled across the campus, huffing and puffing from the obvious strain of all the running back and forth. He stopped outside the administration building, caught his breath, and walked in.

Todd followed Hager up the staircase leading to Mr. Nolan’s office, feeling like a man climbing to the gallows.

Nolan sat at his desk, and Todd was startled to see his parents seated nearby.

“Dad, Mom,” he said.

“Have a seat, Mr. Anderson,” Nolan ordered.

Todd sat in the empty chair that had been placed in front of Nolan’s desk. He looked at his parents, who sat steely-eyed and grim. A drop of perspiration fell from his brow and stained his shirt.

“Mr. Anderson, I think we’ve pretty well put together what’s happened here. You do admit to being a part of this Dead Poets Society?” Nolan asked.

Todd looked at his parents and at Nolan. He closed his eyes. Before he could nod “yes,” his father spoke.

“Answer him!” Mr. Anderson said angrily.

“Yes,” Todd said faintly.

“I can’t hear you, Todd,” Nolan said.

“Yes, sir,” Todd answered, not much louder than before.

Nolan looked at Todd and his parents. He held up a piece of paper. “I have here a detailed description of what went on at your meetings. It describes how your teacher, Mr. Keating, encouraged you boys to organize the club and use it as a source of inspiration for reckless, self-indulgent behavior. It describes how Mr. Keating, both in and out of the classroom, encouraged Neil Perry to follow this obsession of acting when he knew it went directly against the explicit orders of Neil’s parents. It is Mr. Keating’s blatant abuse of his position as a teacher that led directly to Neil Perry’s death.”

Nolan handed the paper to Todd. “Read this carefully, Todd,” Nolan added. “If you don’t have anything to add or amend, sign it.”

Todd took the paper and read it, spending a long time doing so. By the time he finished, his hands and the paper were shaking. He looked up. “What … what is going … to … happen … to Mr. Keating?” he asked Nolan.

His father stood up and shook his fist. “What does that have to do with you?”

“It’s all right, Mr. Anderson,” Nolan said. “Sit down please. I want him to know.” He turned to Todd. “We are not yet clear as to whether Mr. Keating has broken any laws. If he has, he will be prosecuted. What we can do—and yours and the other signatures will help to guarantee it—is see to it that Mr. Keating will never teach again.”

“Never … teach …?” Todd stammered.

His father stood again and moved toward Todd. “I’ve had enough,” he shouted. “Sign the paper, Todd.”

“Please, darling,” his mother said from her seat. “For our sakes.”

“But … teaching is his life! It means everything to him!” Todd cried.

“What do you care?” Mr. Anderson shouted.

“What do you care about me?” Todd shouted back. “He cares about me! You don’t!”

Todd’s father stood over him, white with rage, and picked up the pen. “Sign the paper, Todd,” he ordered.

Todd shook his head. “No. I won’t sign it.”

“Todd!” his mother cried out.

“It’s not true! I won’t sign it.”

Todd’s father grabbed the pen and tried to put it back in Todd’s hand. Nolan stood up.

“That’s all right. Let him suffer the consequences,” he said. He walked around his desk to stand in front of Todd. “You think you can save Mr. Keating?” Nolan asked. “You saw it, boy, we have the signatures of all the others. But, if you don’t sign, you’re on disciplinary probation for the rest of the year. You’ll do work duty every afternoon and every weekend. And, if you set foot off campus, you’ll be expelled.”

Todd’s parents and Mr. Nolan watched Todd, waiting for him to change his mind. Todd sat silent.

“I won’t sign,” he said softly but firmly.

“Then I’ll see you back here after classes,” Nolan said, turning his back. “Leave.”

Todd stood and walked out the door. Nolan looked at Todd’s parents. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nolan,” Mrs. Anderson said. “I can’t help but feel this is our fault.”

“We never should have sent him here,” Mr. Anderson said, looking down at the floor.

“Nonsense,” Nolan said. “Boys his age are highly impressionable. We’ll bring him around.”

The next day, Mr. McAllister led a group of Latin students across the snow-covered campus as they repeated verbs out loud. He stopped and looked up at the teachers’ residence floor where he noticed the lonely figure of Mr. Keating, watching out the window. Their eyes met briefly. McAllister turned away, took a deep breath, and resumed walking with the boys.

Keating moved from the window after seeing McAllister. He walked to his bookshelf and started to take down his beloved books of poetry—Byron, Whitman, Wordsworth. He sighed and put them back. Closing his suitcase, he walked to the door of the tiny room, took one last look, and left.

As Keating prepared to leave, his former students were in English class. Todd sat numbly, eyes cast downward, the way he had sat when school first began. Knox, Meeks, and Pitts looked humiliated as they squirmed in their seats. All of the former club members were too ashamed of themselves to even look at one another. Only Cameron appeared halfway normal, studying at his desk as though nothing had happened.

Conspicuously missing from the room were the desks that belonged to Neil and Charlie.

The door opened suddenly and Mr. Nolan walked in. The boys stood. Nolan sat at the teacher’s desk, and they all sat down. “I will be taking over this class through exams,” Nolan said as he looked around the room. “We will find a permanent English teacher during the break. Who will tell me where you are in the Pritchard textbook?”

Nolan looked around. There were no volunteers.

“Mr. Anderson?”

“The … Pritchard …” Todd repeated, barely audible. He looked through his books, fumbling nervously.

“I can’t hear you, Mr. Anderson,” Nolan said.

“I … think … we …” Todd said, still speaking softly.

“Mr. Cameron,” Nolan said, exasperated by Todd’s response, “kindly inform me.”

“We skipped around a lot, sir. We covered the romantics and some of the chapters on post-Civil War literature.”

“What about the realists?” Nolan asked

“I believe we skipped most of that,” Cameron said.

Nolan stared at Cameron and then looked around the class. “All right then, we’ll start over. What is poetry?” He waited for an answer. No one volunteered. Suddenly the door to the classroom opened, and Mr. Keating walked in.

“I came for my personals,” he said to Nolan. “Should I wait until after class?”

“Get your things, Mr. Keating,” Nolan said testily. He turned to the class. “Gentlemen, turn to page 21 of the introduction. Mr. Cameron, read aloud the excellent essay by Dr. Pritchard on understanding poetry.”

“Mr. Nolan, that page has been ripped out,” Cameron said.

“Then borrow somebody else’s book,” Nolan said, losing his patience.

“They’re all ripped out, sir,” Cameron reported.

Nolan stared at Keating. “What do you mean they’re all ripped out?”

“Sir, we …” Cameron started.

“Never mind, Cameron,” Nolan said. He handed his textbook to Cameron. “Read!” he ordered.

“‘Understanding Poetry’ by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, PhD. ‘To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech, then ask two questions: 1) how artfully has the objective … ’”

As Cameron continued reading, Keating stood at the closet in the corner of the room, looking at the students. He saw Todd, whose eyes were full of tears. He saw Knox, Meeks, Pitts … still too ashamed to look him in the eye, but nevertheless, full of emotion. He sighed. The irony of Nolan’s choosing the Pritchard essay just as he walked in the room was just too incredible. He finished packing and walked across the room toward the door. Just as Keating reached the door, Todd jumped up.

“Mr. Keating,” he cried out, interrupting Cameron’s reading.

“They made everybody sign it!”

Nolan stood up angrily. “Quiet, Mr. Anderson,” he ordered.

“Mr. Keating,” Todd continued, “it’s true. You have to believe me!”

“I believe you, Todd,” Keating said softly.

Nolan was enraged. “Leave, Mr. Keating!” he shouted.

“But it wasn’t his fault, Mr. Nolan!” Todd refused to stop.

Nolan rushed down the aisle and pushed Todd back into his seat. “Sit down, Mr. Anderson!” he shouted. “One more outburst from you …” He turned toward the rest of the class. “Or anyone else, and you are out of this school!” Nolan turned toward Keating, who had stepped back into the room toward Todd, as though to help. “Leave, Mr. Keating!” he shrieked. “Now!”