Don't Care High (23 page)

Paul himself managed to unload three books of tickets in his apartment building, and Sheldon got rid of a like amount in and around his home and at a boarding pass soiree of his father's. The most successful seller by a wide margin was Feldstein at seventeen books. But even the most reluctant student made an effort to combine with a few friends on one or two books. When the selling binge reached its official close by three-thirty on Thursday, not a single unsold ticket was returned, and Mr. Morrison confirmed a total of $20,000.

Sheldon went in as student negotiator, and extorted enough money from the guidance counsellor for the party of everyone's dreams. Almost as an afterthought, he and Paul went and convinced Mike that his attendance Friday night was mandatory. Mike, who was already vaguely aware of the raffle and its possible relation to him, agreed to be there. It was, after all, in his honour, and was probably somehow connected to his immense popularity.

Paul returned home from school that afternoon emotionally exhausted from the excitement of the week, and somewhat disheartened by the news that Sheldon had arranged for tomorrow night's party to be catered by the pizza parlour that specialized in the tomato sauce patented under the name
Rocco
. Sheldon had planned the party with his usual sense of the dramatic, and had rented a sound system so powerful that Paul wasn't sure the decaying gymnasium building could stay standing around it.

When he got home, Paul was greeted by his mother with the news flash of the century. After years of negotiation, Auntie Nancy was getting her dishwasher. He tried to sound enthusiastic about it. He had never been a major fan of Auntie Nancy, and had been secretly pulling for a few more years of stand-off. Mrs. Abrams sensed this, so she waited for her husband, breaking the wonderful news to him as he stepped over the threshold.

But her husband was in a towering rage. “I can't believe it! I've never heard of anything so stupid in my life! I stopped by the License Bureau to book your driving test, Paul, and you'll never
believe
what they told me! No one under eighteen years old is allowed to drive in New York City!”

“You mean we've been breaking the law?” asked Paul.

“Everywhere else in the world has it one way!
Here
they have to be different! I've been chewing nails all afternoon!”

“I guess that means no more driving,” said Paul, who was just getting to like the idea of being a Manhattan motorist.

“Are you kidding?” his father howled. “They're not stopping me — and you, of course. We'll drive on Long Island! We'll drive in Yonkers! We'll drive in Jersey! We'll drive in Connecticut….”

As Mr. Abrams continued to list all the places where they would go to drive, Paul couldn't help laughing over this latest development in his personal relationship with the automobile. In Saskatoon, he'd been dying to drive; in New York, he'd lost interest. He'd been scared of it, and had triumphed over that. And now he liked it, but was no longer allowed to do it. There was a message in there somewhere.

* * *

The staff of Don't Care High was in extremely good spirits that week. Most of the teachers were quite happy at the thought of seeing the last of Mike Otis, and Paul, despite his dedication to the president, could not honestly blame them. Most had had nothing against the old Don't Care High, and were hoping to see a return to normalcy.

Mr. Gamble was all smiles, and had readily consented to the party in light of the lasting peace which would follow it. He thought of the magic moment when he'd first heard the news that Mike was leaving; he could still hear Mrs. Carling's “Son-of-a-gun,” which had brought him out to investigate.

Mr. Willis was particularly pleased because, in addition to Mike's departure, other things in his life were right back on the track. His ankle was healed, his print dryer was replaced by a nice modern new one, his office was rebuilt and his classes were starting to produce some pretty good work — even the last period group. He also knew that the honour would be his to preside over Mike's final class at Don Carey High School. He had prepared several juicy comments for the occasion. Mr. Willis would never see this final class, however. Friday would be the day that the many bags of uncollected garbage sitting outside in front of his house would spontaneously combust, threatening the whole block. He would spend the day dealing with the police and fire departments and the insurance company. So Mike's last scheduled class was never convened.

Sheldon and Paul both skipped dinner and stayed at school to help set up the equipment and decorations for the party. They watched as the three-pronged decorating committee, headed by the LaPazes, worked to transform the broken-down Don't Care gymnasium into an opulent banquet hall or, at the very least, a reasonable facsimile thereof. Sheldon personally supervised the installation of the massive twelve-by-fifteen-foot Mike Otis poster, which was an enlargement of the eight-by-ten glossy portrait. This he ordered placed behind the makeshift stage from which he intended to conduct the evening's brief ceremonies. Directly to the right of this was the DJ's station, from which the DJ could control the sound system and the many lights which were strategically placed around the gym.

By seven o'clock, the room was festooned with coloured streamers, balloons, and hundreds of handmade tinfoil safety pins. The enormous banner,
FAREWELL MIKE
, was hung over the stage by the WOW Connection, and Samuel pierced it with the five-foot safety pin, saying to Paul,

“How about you don't fall off this one, okay?”

Feldstein had scored a deal on three thousand rhinestone-studded safety pins, and these were delivered shortly after seven to be handed out at the door as souvenirs. All was in readiness when, a little past seven-thirty, the first of the students began to arrive.

Mr. Gamble was there, heading up a security force which consisted of Mr. Hennessey, Mr. Schmidt, Coach Murphy, and a few others. Mr. Morrison was supposed to be there, too, but, uncharacteristically, he was late.

Since Don Carey had never hosted an extracurricular activity in living memory, no one had anticipated the space problem. As eight o'clock came and went, the gym got more and more mobbed as well as hotter by degrees. And still students kept pouring in. Once again Don't Care High was humming, but this hum was more of a buzz, the sound of twenty-six hundred students supercharged with nervous anticipation.

At eight-fifteen, Feldstein made his entrance, and the locker baron was indeed a splendid sight. He had trimmed back down to his normal weight and wore studded black jeans and even blacker glossy boots. His black leather jacket was zipped down far enough to reveal a heavy sterling silver chain, from which hung a gleaming combination lock, his symbol of office, worn only on official occasions.

Five minutes later, Wayne-o breezed in, and his appearance was no less impressive. He was immaculate as a bridegroom in a three-piece charcoal grey business suit with silk tie and alligator shoes. His face was scrubbed and shining, and his hair was in perfect order, parted so crisply that it looked as though an axe had been used rather than a brush and comb.

The call went up in the gym: “Hey, check out Wayne-o!” but Paul only had eyes for Daphne Sylvester. She was wrapped in a silver minidress, and it looked as though the style of what she wore had been designed exclusively with her in mind. She had put her hair up, and a few charming curls framed her perfect face. She was a vision.

Wayne-o was the last of the invited student body, and the crowd, shoulder to shoulder in the packed gymnasium, awaited only one more addition — the guest of honour.

Finally, at twenty-five minutes to nine, the epitome of fashionable lateness, Mike appeared in the doorway, looking exactly as he always looked, adding only a loosely knotted, narrow, leopard-skin tie to his attire.

A roar of excitement went up in the gym, and Mike was forced to shake endless hands and receive numerous slaps on the back as Sheldon and Paul escorted him through the sea of well-wishers to the stage area. Slim Kroy fumbled with his tuba in the crush, and blared out the
Mike Otis Tuba Solo
as the student body president stood with Sheldon and Paul before the adoring crowd. The cheering and applause went on for a few more minutes, and then silence fell, for it was time for the ceremonies to begin.

Sheldon stepped up to the microphone. “Students of Don't Care High, we stand together on the threshold of great sadness, yet there is also great happiness in our gathering, because…”

It was a magnificent speech, Paul reflected, full of bittersweet emotion, and delivered in Sheldon's inimitable style. He spoke of feelings Mike had supposedly shared, and comments Mike had allegedly made. He spoke of Mike's deep sense of pride in the school's progress, and told how Mike expected them to carry on even in his absence. Paul marvelled at how Sheldon had the nerve to say these things with Mike standing right beside him. He looked from Mike's empty countenance to the twenty-six hundred shining, attentive faces in the audience, and finally to the disgust and suppressed hostility mirrored by Mr. Gamble.

“… and so it's true that we're losing a president, but we have gained as well, in terms of the better person I am, you are, we all are for having known Mike Otis!”

There was thunderous applause, and then Paul pushed Mike up in front of the microphone. Dead silence reigned as all waited with bated breath. Mike looked at Paul plaintively, but Paul responded with a confident nod and motioned for Mike to begin.

Mike opened his speech with an agonizingly long pause, which had everyone straining in intense concentration. Then he said, “There are a lot of things at this school I don't understand.”

The gym went wild in appreciation of this tension-breaking, witty comment.

“I didn't do anything,” Mike continued.

This was the president's famous modesty, and it met with great applause.

“Thanks for inviting me to the party. Bye.”

Sheldon ran up to Mike, raised his arms in the air in victory and shouted, “Bring on the food!
Let the music begin!
”

What followed was a wild blur of floor-shaking music, gyrating bodies and the tomato sauce patented under the name
Rocco
. No sooner had the music started than Daphne Sylvester grabbed Mike by the scruff of the neck and hauled him bodily out onto the dance floor. Hundreds of students followed suit, hundreds mobbed the pizza tables and still hundreds more formed into groups and discussed Mike's speech over the incredible din of the music.

Don't Care High got down. The students danced and celebrated furiously as all the pent-up frustration of Mike's departure found its release from them with the intensity of the firing of a retrorocket. For those students who had spent their whole high school careers at Don Carey, it was their first ever school dance, and for that one Friday night anyway, the Don't Care gymnasium was the hottest spot in the greatest city in the world. Everyone was dancing, and eating, and laughing, and shouting.

Daphne Sylvester still had hold of Mike, and it looked as though the entire WOW Connection was dancing with the LaPazes, but it was hard to tell on the spectacular strobe-lit dance floor. Sheldon was in the middle of it, too, dancing with everyone and no one at the same time, his arms flailing, his expression blissful. Feldstein was hanging out by the large poster. He would not dance, as he felt it was inconsistent with his dignity. Paul thought he saw Slim Kroy wrapping up extra pieces of pizza and hiding them in his tuba, but he couldn't be sure.

Even Peter Eversleigh danced for a couple of numbers, although he would have preferred to sit on the sidelines and assess the conceptuality of the situation. But Rosalie Gladstone seemed to have taken a permanent liking to him, which, Paul thought with a smile, was Rosalie's problem.

Songs changed, and partners changed, and the night raged on, but the enthusiasm just seemed to grow. Sheldon was covered with glory, Phil Gonzalez was covered in sweat and Wayne-o was covered in pizza, suit and all. At ten o'clock, Daphne was obliged to surrender Mike to the public, whereupon the entire female population of Don't Care High waited its turn to dance with the legend. Paul made desperate attempts to get near Daphne, but whenever he got up the nerve to ask her to dance, someone else was always there first. This went on for an hour and a half, after which Daphne reclaimed Mike, and the opportunity vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. In disgust, Paul tromped across the gym and sat down beside Peter Eversleigh, who was eating licorice and staring into the coloured lights.

“I'm thinking of taking up stick, Peter. Can you stake me some?”

“No, dude, don't do that. She's too tall for you, anyway.”

Paul jammed two complete sticks into his mouth and chewed violently. “I was hoping I'd grow.”

Suddenly, a voice bellowed over the music: “
Have no fear! King Arthur is here!
” Mr. Morrison burst onto the scene. His hair was wild, his expression was ecstatic, his normally conservative clothes were dishevelled, and his breath smelled suspiciously of beer.

Sheldon and Wayne-o rushed to his side. “Mr. Morrison, are you all right?”

“Sir Pryor! Sir Stitsky! Valiant warriors of Don't Care High — I mean, Don Carey — oh, what's the difference? Fear not, for all is well in the realm. Thanks to all you wonderful knights, I have slain the monster Lack of Interest and punched the villain in the nose!”