Back to the Future (2 page)

But the one known as Doc was obviously a cagey customer.

Refusing to yield more information, either to McFly or Strickland, he said simply: “Look, I’ll give you all the details at the appropriate time.”

“O.K.,” Marty replied.

“Oh, and Marty,” Doc continued. “Good luck on your gig this afternoon.”

“How did you know about that?” Marty asked.

But there was only a click and silence at the end of the wire.

Gig, Strickland repeated inwardly. He had heard the word used before, of course. It usually referred to something musical, but he had heard it used less definitely. Perhaps whatever Marty McFly was involved in was shady enough to be mentioned elliptically. But no matter. The gig, innocent or evil, would not be attended by McFly this afternoon.

With that, Gerald Strickland placed his receiver down and started out of the office. He reached Marty just as he was about to push through the swinging door separating the inner office from the waiting area.

“Just a minute,” Strickland said.

Marty stopped, looked at the older man with a blank expression.

“Are you finished with your emergency call?” Strickland asked, a slight smile playing at the ends of his thin lips.

“Yessir.”

“And is everyone in your family well?”

Marty nodded.

“Then may I ask what the emergency was?”

“It’s too complicated to explain,” Marty began, trying to dredge up some confidence.

“I have time,” Strickland replied curtly.

Marty swallowed and then plunged ahead. ‘There’s an aunt in Wisconsin,” he said. “And an uncle. They’re both crippled. They were in a car accident about ten years ago. Anyway, she’s going into the hospital tomorrow for another operation and they asked me—”

“Bull droppings,” Strickland interrupted.

“Sir?”

“I said, bull droppings. There’s no crippled aunt and uncle in Wisconsin. That was a personal call, McFly. You know students are to use the school phone only for emergencies.”

“Well, this was an emergency,” Marty shrugged. “Sort of.”

“I don’t think so, McFly.”

“Well, maybe not to me, but it was an emergency to the person who called me.”

“It’s all the same. It’s study hall for you.”

“But why?” Marty challenged. “How can I help it if somebody says it’s an emergency and it’s not? Maybe you should send them to study hall. Anyway, how do you know it wasn’t an emergency?”

“Because I was on the extension in my office and heard the entire conversation.”

Marty felt his ears starting to burn. “But that’s wiretapping,” he said angrily. “That’s against the law.”

“For your information, McFly,” Strickland returned. “It’s not wiretapping. It’s eavesdropping. But it wouldn’t matter. You’re in school, and here I’m the law. Whoever called you with a nonemergency call did you a great disservice. When you’ve come out of study hall, you can tell
Doc
he’s no friend.”

Marty stared. Inspired by the confrontation, Strickland had a sudden flash of intuition.

“That wouldn’t be Doc Brown, would it?” he asked. McFly’s silence told him he had successfully identified the caller—Doc Brown, the town eccentric, a man who in Strickland’s estimation was simply no good, a child who never grew up.

“Let me give you a nickel’s worth of free advice,” he said. “That Doc Brown is trouble. A real nut case. Perhaps even dangerous.”

“To you, maybe,” Marty replied loyally. “I don’t see it that way.”

“Then you’re not only dim-witted, McFly. You’ve got a severe attitude problem. You’re a slacker. You’ve got aptitude but you don’t apply yourself.” Realizing that he hadn’t quite gotten to the young man, Strickland then applied the crusher. “As a matter of fact,” he rasped, “in a lot of ways you remind me of your father. He was a slacker, too.”

Marty blanched, for Strickland had struck the one nerve he was unable to protect. He simply did not enjoy being compared to his father, especially when the person doing so put them in the same category. If Strickland had been a contemporary, Marty would have thrown back an angry retort. That, of course, was impossible under the present circumstances, so he merely looked away.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m late for class.”

He started to take a step toward the door, but Strickland’s hand shot out quickly.

“I didn’t excuse you, McFly,” he said sharply, grabbing Marty’s elbow.

The sudden motion caused Marty to lose control of his books, two of which started to slide down his leg. Raising his knee, Marty succeeded only in knocking the others loose. A split second later, everything hit the floor, including the hollowed-out book containing his Walkman stereo. As luck would have it, the illicit unit slid tantalizingly across the waxed tile in slow motion, coming to rest in the far corner of the waiting area.

Strickland regarded it with narrowed eyes. Too late, Marty started gathering up his books, quickly placing his body between Strickland and the Walkman.

“You know the rules,” the older man smiled. “No radios in school. That means detention for one week.”

Marty gulped. He started to protest, then accepted the inevitable. “Yessir,” he muttered.

“Starting today,” Strickland continued.

“Today?” Marty gasped. “But I can’t! Me and my band have an audition for the YMCA dance, Mr. Strickland. I have to be there at four o’clock.”

One might as well have tried begging a shark to seek food elsewhere. Through rheumy eyes spiked with malicious glee, Strickland stared unflinchingly at his victim. Then, with a curt wave of his hand, he began to turn away. “An audition, huh?” he said. “Well, McFly, it looks like you just blew it.”

The clock read 3:42.

Marty was beginning to wonder if he had somehow offended a local deity governing the fates of Hill Valley high school students. It was all too pat to be impersonal—the calculated eavesdropping of Mr. Strickland, bad luck in dropping the Walkman stereo, and now this. After careful consideration, he had decided to skip detention, pleading tomorrow that there had been a misunderstanding as to when the week’s punishment was to begin. That, however, was before he peeked into the classroom to see what teacher had charge of the detention session.

It was none other than Mr. Strickland himself.

“Damn!” Marty hissed.

There was no way of convincing
him
that a misunderstanding existed. He didn’t even have time to debate the pros and cons of simply splitting and taking the consequences. No sooner had he spotted Strickland than the piercing eyes honed in on him like enemy radar.

“Come in, McFly,” Strickland ordered.

Head down, Marty walked into the room. It was a typical classroom in the school which had been built at the end of the Great Depression. Green blackboards had replaced the old black types and the walls, desks and ceiling had been repainted. A new sprinkler system had been added, too, but the place still had a dreariness that Marty found almost terminally depressing. The expressions on the faces of the ten other students enduring punishment indicated that they regarded the place with equal misery. All stared glumly ahead or down at the desk top in front of them. One of the victims, a thin-faced kid named Weeze, had a skateboard tucked beneath his books, almost as if he expected Mr. Strickland to confiscate or destroy it.

His fear, if he harbored it, was not mere fancy. At the front of the room stood Strickland, ten Walkman units lined neatly on the desk next to him. Those who had been through it before knew what was about to happen next, a fact which did not make it much easier.

“Now…” Strickland smiled sadistically, “we are going to see how we deal with those who violate our ‘no Walkman’ rule.”

Gently, almost reverentially, he lifted one of the units and placed it in the jaws of a woodworking vise mounted on the corner of the desk. He then began tightening the jaws until the set broke in half, the sound approximating that of bones breaking. As bits of plastic and mangled parts trickled to the floor, one student winced as if the pain were being inflicted on his own body. Strickland, well aware of which unit belonged to each student, smiled wickedly at the horrified young man.

“Now then, Stevenson,” he said. “You may come up here and claim your stereo.”

Stevenson got up and knelt down to pick up the shattered remains of his set.

With gleeful deliberation, Strickland continued the crunching orgy. Marty’s set was fourth in line for execution but he was more concerned about the passing time than the fate of his Walkman. He could still make it to the audition if Strickland released them early.

Fat chance, he thought. Then, after a moment of black despair, he forced his mind to think. There must be a way out, a scheme clever enough to create panic or some legitimate emergency. His eyes scanned the room. Only a sprinkler system offered possibilities, but he couldn’t formulate a workable plan of attack.

“This is yours, isn’t it, McFly?” Strickland interrupted Marty’s thoughts. “Number three?”

“Four,” Marty said evenly. He was determined not to let the creep see how much he hated to lose his Walkman.

With a brisk smile, Strickland dispatched the next set and then reached for Marty’s stereo with something like renewed passion. The jaws of the vise pressed in, causing a low scraping sound; almost as if the set were crying out in pain. Then, with a particularly loud snap, the Walkman’s splintered remains shot out of the vise in all directions. Momentary panic crossed Strickland’s features as shards of plastic flew past his eyes and head.

“It’s all yours, McFly,” Strickland said, quickly regaining his composure.

Marty got up to collect the broken pieces of his set. As he did so, the hint of a smile played around his lips, for he had conceived a daring plan that was at least worth a shot. He switched the shattered bits of plastic to one hand, then made a detour on the way back to his seat. Passing by the Carousel slide projector on a side table, he paused long enough to reach out and surreptitiously slide the lens into his pocket. Busily involved in the execution of the next Walkman, Strickland did not notice Marty’s quick movement.

Returning to his seat, Marty reached into the pencil pouch of his loose-leaf binder, withdrawing a rubber band and book of matches. He then reached into his pocket, unwrapped a stick of gum and began to chew. His chewing, however, was not that of a person seeking pleasure; rather, it resembled a chore that had to be accomplished as quickly as possible.

A minute later, taking the gum from his mouth, he opened the matchbook cover and spread the soft sticky gum on the back side like a tiny pancake. Next he “loaded” the cover into the rubber band and waited. He had always been a deft shot with rubber band-launched objects but never had so much depended on his accuracy as the shot he planned now. Above him, perhaps a dozen feet away, was the smoke detector connected with the sprinkling system. It was small, hardly an inviting target, but Marty knew he had to try. If he was successful, phase one of his two-part plan would be accomplished. If he missed…well, at least he had made an effort. If Strickland saw him, he could probably expect to remain in detention until well past Easter vacation.

The heck with it, he thought. I’ve gotta gamble.

He waited patiently until Strickland put the screws to the tenth and final Walkman. Just as it shattered, Marty aimed at the valve, pulled the rubber band back as far as it would go, and let fly.

Like a rocket, the matchbook raced up to the ceiling and hung there, the gum making a tenuous connection.

A miracle, Marty thought.

Phase Two was rather less dramatic but nevertheless contained a great potential for being caught. Withdrawing the Carousel projector lens from his pocket, Marty adjusted it so that the bright slanting rays of the afternoon sun struck it and were refracted onto the matchbook stuck to the ceiling. Glancing upward even as he pretended to study from the book on his desk, he was amazed at how well the plan had worked so far. A sharp pin prick of white was focused on the matchbook. If only the sun would hurry up and do its thing!

The clock now read 3:52. He would be late for the audition but by only a few minutes. His hand was getting tired, holding the lens in an unmoving position, but he dared not rest even a second. Did he see a wisp of smoke? He squinted, decided it was his imagination.

Then he saw something that definitely was not imaginary. Getting up, Mr. Strickland strode to the back of the room and began pulling down the blinds.

“No!” Marty nearly shouted.

He twisted his head almost completely around, noting that the three rear rows of the room were now in semidarkness as a result of Strickland’s action. As he watched, the next three rows fell beneath the dark cloud.

But now there was definitely a wisp of smoke slinking downward from the matchbook.

“Come on, come on,” Marty whispered. “Burn, you sucker, burn.”

A couple boys near him had already discovered what was going on. They watched in awe and amusement as the smoke grew more violent, a half circle of red crawling up the edge of the matchbook cover toward the double row of matches.

With a snap, Strickland released the next-to-last set of blinds.

“Poof!”

Just as the last strip of bright sunlight disappeared from the classroom, a mini-explosion of flame from the matchbook started a chain reaction. Smoke curling around the ceiling detector immediately triggered the sirens and sprinkler system. Panic, or something very close to it, followed.

“Fire!” somebody yelled. “Let’s get outa here!”

“Stop! Wait!” Mr. Strickland’s voice shouted above the din. “We must file out in an orderly fashion!”

He raced toward the front of the classroom as fast as he could, arms raised above his head. But heavier shoulders and faster, more muscular bodies rushed past, sending him spinning sideways against the wall.

“Wait!” he shouted again, just as a sprinkler valve went into action directly above his head, dousing him with cold water. The rest of his words were indistinguishable.

Marty, more prepared for the confusion than anyone else, was halfway down the hall by that time. As soon as the alarm sounded and the rain began to fall, he leaped to his feet and grabbed the skateboard belonging to Weeze.