John Fitzgerald GB 04 Great Bra (13 page)

Rory knew he was beat as all the other eighth graders began nodding their heads. “All right,” he said. “You little seventh graders get your torture tunnel ready.”

Tom got the seventh graders lined up in the aisle with their legs apart and their geography books in their hands.

“Give it to them good and hard like they gave it to us,” he ordered

After the last eighth graders had crawled through the torture tunnel all the kids gathered around Tom. He explained how the Mental Marvel and his assistant worked with code words and then showed them the sheet of paper with the words he and Jerry had used.

Sweyn pointed at the sheet. “What if somebody held up an article you and Jerry didn’t have a code word for?” he asked

“I’d do the same thing the assistant did in the theater,” Tom said, “and just pass them up.”

Sweyn nodded. “You’re right,” he said- “I noticed how the assistant passed up a lot of people. Why, he even ignored Rory, who was right near him holding out his rosary.”

“That is because they didn’t have a code word for a

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rosary,” Tom said. “No more questions, please. To figure

this all out put a strain on my great brain and I want to give it a rest.”

Tom didn’t really want to give his great brain a rest.

All he wanted to do was count the money and find out how much he had won.

“Anybody could have figured it out,” Rorysaid. “Then why didn’t you figure it out and save yourself forty cents and a paddling?” Tom asked with a grin.

“You’ve got a smart mouth,” Rory said. “And one of these days I’m going to close it for you.”

Tom handed the paper bag to Jerry. “I’ll back up anything I say with my fists any time,” he said.

Sweyn stepped between them. “You start a fight in the dormitory and you’ll both be expelled,” he said.

Tom had believed from his first day at the academy that he would have to fight Rory sooner or later. His great brain had planned how to do it without being expelled.

“Who is going to know there has been a fight?” he asked. “Rory and I will go into the washroom, where no-body can see us. And after I give him a black eye and a

bloody nose he can tell Father Rodriguez he fell down the stairs.”

“He is bigger and older than you,” Sweyn said. “So what,” Tom said. “You know that with my cor-respondence course in boxing from John I.. Sullivan and all my experience fighting in Adenville, I’ve whipped kids a lot bigger and tougher than him.” Then he looked at Rory. “You’ve been digging at me since school started. Let’s go to the washroom and settle it right now,”

Now I’m not saying that Rory Flynn was a coward. But after hearing Tom confidently say he would black

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Rory’s eye and bloody his nose, and then nearing about that course in boxing from the former champion of the world and about Tom’s whipping kids bigger and tougher, for my money Rory would have been a fool to fight Tom.

“I’m not going to get expelled on account of you,” Rory said. He walked to his bunk and sat down.

Jerry patted Tom on the back. “You sure bluffed him,” he said.

“I wasn’t bluffing,” Tom said. “Rory is just a big bag of wind.”

But Tom was going to learn that a big bag of wind can blow a fellow right into a lot of trouble, as he told me in his next letter.

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PAPA HAD HIS ANNUAL physical checkup with Dr. LeRoy just two days before the November reports on Tom and Sweyn arrived from the academy. It was a good thing Dr. LcRoy pronounced Papa in excellent health. I say this because Papa would have had a nervous breakdown and apoplexy all at once after reading the report on Tom. The report informed us that Tom had received fifteen demerits for the month, just five short of being expelled. The news made Papa do something I’d never seen him do before. He always took a drink of brandy before supper but that was all he ever drank. But after reading the report he went into the pantry and poured himself a

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big glass of brandy. He drank it and then returned to the parlor, where he began pacing up and down like a caged animal.

“I knew it couldn’t last,” he cried out. “Mark my words, Tom will be expelled before Christmas.”

This was certainly a switch from the month before when he said he knew Tom just needed a little time to ad-just. But Papa was like that. He took credit when it was a credit to do so and neatly shifted the blame when it wasn’t.

That was one time I wanted to confess that Tom had been enclosing two letters in his envelopes. I wanted to tell Papa that it wasn’t Tom’s fault, because my brother had written me all about it. But I knew if I showed Papa that one letter he would insist on reading all the letters Tom had sent me. And that would have given him a nervous breakdown and apoplexy even if he was in perfect health.

It was all Rory Flynn’s fault that Tom had got fifteen demerits. It began one morning when Tom returned to the dormitory after breakfast and found a blue slip on his bunk. A blue slip meant an infraction of a rule and who-ever received one had to report to the superintendent’s office after classes. One of the rules of the academy was that all bunks had to be made up before the boys went to breakfast. Then, after saying Grace Before Meals, Father Rodriguez would go to the dormitory for an inspection while the fellows were eating. Tom knew darn well that he had made up his bunk. Now it was all mussed up. And he was pretty sure Rory had done it. But there wasn’t anything he could do but report to the superintendent’s of-fice. He was given five demerits.

Another rule was that all students had to have all

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their textbooks when reporting for class in the morning. The reason for this was that some of the students used to leave textbooks which they’d been using for homework in the dormitory. This meant Father O’Malley had to hold up the class until the students went and got their books.

Two days after Tom had received five demerits for not making up his bunk he couldn’t find his textbook on advanced arithmetic after breakfast. He was positive he had left it on his desk with the other textbooks. He looked all around but couldn’t find it-He knew he couldn’t bluff it in class so he told Father O’Malley he had lost his advanced arithmetic textbook. He was sent to the superintendent’s office and received another five demerits. Ken-neth Bradley, whose permanent work assignment was to sweep and dust the library after school, found Tom’s textbook lying on a table in the library. Tom knew he hadn’t been to the library the night before. And he was now positive that Rory Flynn was behind all this.

The following week Tom found another blue slip on his bunk for not making up his bed.

“This makes fifteen demerits this month,” Father Rodriguez said as he pronounced sentence in his office af-ter school that day. “Why have you suddenly become so careless and lazy?”

Tom knew he was neither careless nor lazy. He also

knew he couldn’t tell the superintendent what he believed

to he true without being a tattletale.

“It won’t happen again, Father,” he said. “It had better not,” the priest said. “You are excused.”

Tom joined his three friends under the tree in the yard.

“We all know Rory is doing this to get even with me

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for making him back down when I wanted to fight him,” Tom said. “I saw he was the last one in the dining room for breakfast this morning. He just waited until everybody was out of the dormitory and then mussed up my bunk like he did before.”

Jerry scratched his head. “How did he plant the textbook in the library?” he asked.

“He waited until everybody had left the dormitory that morning,” Tom said. “Then he took the textbook and hid it. And he probably sneaked it into the library during the noon hour. It I get five more demerits I can be expelled. We’ve got to stop Rory.”

“I’ve got it,” Jerry said. “Let’s wait until he goes to sleep tonight and then take all his clothes and soak them in water and tie them in knots. That will get him demerits for showing up late for breakfast.”

Tom shook his head. “He would only do the same to me while I’m asleep,” he said.

“How about putting rocks under his mattress?” Phil asked, picking up a rock.

“He would just put rocks under my mattress,” Tom said. “But you have given me an idea, Phil. I’ll put my great brain to work on it.”

Tom’s great brain had a plan all figured out by Saturday. He had to take the entire seventh grade into his confidence to make it work. This didn’t worry him because he knew none of the kids liked Rory and class spirit would make them cooperate. He marched down to the dimly lit chapel with his classmates for confession. They sat down on their side of the chapel and the eighth graders sat on the opposite side.

“Now remember,” Tom whispered, “you go first,

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Jerry, and make it the shortest confession on record. Then you go. Tony, and make it the longest confession on rec-ord. If I’m not back by the time you come out of the confessional Phil will go and make his confession a good long one.”

The tinkle of a bell in the seventh-grade confessional was heard. Jerry got up and walked toward it just as the tinkle of a bell was heard on the eighth-grade side. Tom watched an eighth grader start for the confessional and then dropped down on his hands and knees. He crawled along the aisle on the seventh-grade side to the rear of the (hapel and from there into the hallway.

Everything now depended upon split-second timing. Tom ran up to the third floor. He got the key from under the statue of Saint Francis and unlocked the storeroom door. Then he went to the dormitory and removed the bed clothing from Rory’s bunk. He carried Rory’s mattress into the storeroom, locked the door, and returned the wooden key to its hiding place. Then he went back to the dormitory and made up Rory’s bunk without a mattress. From there he crept down the stairway.

Jerry was in the hallway and motioned to him that the coast was clear. Tom ran to the chapel, crawled on his hands and knees down the seventh-grade side, and took his place beside Phil before Tony came out of the confessional.

Tom didn’t receive any heavy penance from Father O’Malley this time, because he could honestly say he hadn’t broken the fourth commandment and that he didn’t dislike Father Rodriguez anymore. He came out of the chapel with Larry Williams and told him he was going to the library.

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Tom and his three friends had been sitting in the library for about fifteen minutes when Willie Connors came running into the room.

“Somebody stole Rory’s mattress,” he said. “You had better get up to the dorm, Tom, before he takes yours.”

Tom and his three friends and half a dozen other kids ran up to the dormitory. They arrived just as Rory was pulling the covers from Tom’s bunk.

“Just what do you think you are doing?” Tom asked.

“I know you fellows took my mattress,” Rory said, “so I’m going to take yours until you give me mine back.”

“No you won’t,” said Tom.

“You bet you won’t,” Jerry said.

“Better not try it,” added Phil.

Sweyn had come from the chapel and was listening. “Why would anybody want your mattress when they’ve got one of their own?” he asked. “Are you sure it is gone, Rory?”

“Look for yourself,” Rory said.

Tom walked over to Rory’s bunk with Sweyn and his three friends.

“It is gone,” Tom said, looking as surprised as a dog who finds its buried bone is missing.

“It sure is,” Jerry said.

Phil shook his head as if bewildered. “Why would anybody want to take Rory’s mattress?” he asked.

“That is a good question,” Tom said, “because it gives us the answer. Nobody would want to take Rory’s mattress, which means he must have got rid of it himself.”

Sweyn stared at Tom with a dumb look on his face. “Why would he want to get rid of his own mattress?” he asked.

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“I don’t like to say what I think happened in front of all you fellows,” Tom said.

“Go ahead and say it!” Rory shouted.

“Well,” Tom said, “I think you wet the bed last night and didn’t want any of the fellows to see the stain. You were so ashamed, you knew you had to get rid of the mattress. And you remembered the old junkman who passes by every Saturday night. So you threw the mattress out the window, knowing the junkman would pick it up.”

Rory looked as if he were going to explode. “I didn’t wet the bed!” he shouted. “I haven’t wet the bed since I was a baby! And I didn’t throw my mattress out the win-dow!”

“All right,” Tom said with a straight face. “No sense in getting all riled up about it. Some of your eighth-grade friends are probably playing a joke on you. Did you look in the washroom?”

“That is the first place I looked,” Rory said.

“Did you look in the classrooms and washroom on the second floor?” Tom asked.

“I looked there too,” Rory said.

Tom shook his head. “I’m sure nobody would carry your mattress all the way down to the ground floor to hide it,” he said. “That leaves only one conclusion.”

“What conclusion?” Rory demanded.

“That I was right in the first place,” Tom said. “Maybe it isn’t too late.” He walked over and looked down into the street. “Too late,” he said. “The junkman has already picked it up.”

Rory doubled up his fists. “I didn’t wet the bed and I didn’t throw my mattress out the window!” he shouted. “I know you took it and I’m going to make you tell me where

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you put it. I would rather be expelled tor fighting than let the fellows think I wet the bed.”

Tom spread out his hands. “How do you like that, fellows?” he said. “Rory wants to fight me because he wet the bed. I sure as heck didn’t make him wet the bed.”

AH the kids began to laugh except Rory. Then Tom’s face became serious.

“I’ll fight you now or any time you want,” he said. “And you might as well get expelled for fighting because when Father Rodriguez finds out you wet the bed and threw your mattress out the window for the junkman he will expel you anyway.”