Not As Crazy As I Seem (12 page)

Ben's shortcut means going down a driveway next to a house with a dog barking inside. Then we have to crawl through a hole in a fence.

Night is falling fast, and he starts talking about Nazi teachers again. I'm beginning to think it's a bad idea hanging around a kid who has Nazis on his mind all the time. We walk up a little hill to the tracks, and he drops down and lays on his back between the ties. His head falls over the rail so that his neck is sticking up as if on a guillotine.

I look back and forth into the tunnels of darkness stretching away from me. The train tracks start off parallel, then merge in the distance—the perspective they always teach you in art class. I know we'd hear a train coming in plenty of time, but it still scares me to see him lying on the track. I can see the headline in the paper tomorrow—"Boy Run Over by Train, Friend Stands by and Watches."

"Come on, Ben, let's go."

"In a minute."

"Which way does the next train come from?"

He lifts one finger and points toward Boston. "The five forty-five comes from that way. I think I can feel the vibration."

I look toward the city and see a round white light in the middle of the tracks. "Okay, it's coming."

He doesn't move. The light's getting bigger. I tap him with my foot. "Ben, let's go."

"You really care if I get run over?"

Sure, I care. I wouldn't want to see even a rat get run over by a train. "Yeah, I care, okay? Now get up."

"Nobody's cared before. I don't know a single kid at
Baker who'd lift a finger to stop me from getting run over."

"Well, I'll give you a whole hand. How's that?" I stick out my right hand.

He laughs and grabs it to get to his feet. He brushes a little snow off his jacket, then waves me toward an open spot in the bushes. He pulls back a loose part of the fence, and we slip through to the other side. In a few seconds the train rumbles past, sending a rush of wind over us.

We run down a small hill and start across the icy field toward the gym. Ben is walking stiff-legged, like he's in the army. "This is how I come to school every day. Then I don't have to face the jerks on the front steps."

"How come the kids bother you so much?"

He leans his head back and spits his gum straight up into the air, then ducks out of the way." 'Cause they know I hate them, that's why."

"Then why don't you stop hating them so much, and maybe they'd leave you alone?"

"They hate me, I hate them. It's a primal thing."

When we get to the gym door, he whispers to be quiet as we go inside. I can hear the showers running on the other side of the locker room wall. Then there's the sound of footsteps on the walk outside—someone else coming in behind us. Ben pulls my sleeve, and we sneak across the equipment room and out a side door into the main building.

It's spooky with the lights dim and the hallway empty. It doesn't feel like a school without any kids here. Ben leads the way past the library and trophy case to the janitor's door. He turns the knob, and it opens. We go down the metal stairs under the school again, and then he stops.

"You left something down here?"

"Not really." He opens his jacket. In his inside pocket is a large can.

"What's that?"

He tosses it to me—"Rust-Oleum Spray Enamel, 16 ounces, Black."

"You going to paint something?"

"
Nazi
—I'm going to tag everywhere somebody's tried to push me around. And I took some squeeze bottles from art to make little swastikas." He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a handful of different colors.

I've never tagged anything myself, though I've always thought it was an interesting way to express yourself. But
Nazi
? "Are you Jewish?"

He shakes his head as he pulls on a pair of black gloves. It's like he's going to rob a bank or something. "I'm nothing ... I mean, that's what I believe—nothing."

I'm not sure what I believe, but I know it's a lot more than nothing. If you don't believe in anything, what keeps you from doing just anything you want in the world?

I toss him back the spray paint, and he checks his watch. "We wait a half-hour, till everyone's gone, then we strike."

"We"? What does he mean by that?

"
NAZI!
"

Everywhere you look in the school, it's scrawled and scratched and spray-painted. It's on flags and walls and doors. It's on lockers and chalkboards and clocks.

I can't believe it. I saw Ben spray the trophy case, and that's it. How could he tag the rest of the school just in the time I went to advanced biology to straighten the poster? To tell the truth, I couldn't help fixing a few more things while I was in Mr. Torricelli's room, like the rows of desks that were out of line and the clock that's always three minutes slow. I had to climb up on a chair to reach it, then pry off the cover and move the minute hand. It wasn't easy. None of this stuff should matter to me. I'm not even in that class anymore. Still, just knowing those things were out of whack was bothering me. I took care of everything.

"Can you believe it?"

I turn around, and one of the guys on the basketball team is talking to me. I think he's a senior. "What kind of freak would do this to the school?"

I shrug that I don't know, and he shakes his head. "Must be really messed up." Then he walks away.

I start to go off, too, but I see two girls sitting in front of their lockers crying. I figure some kid must have died, like in a car crash, and I wonder who it was. Then one of the girls moves and I see "Nazi" sprayed across her locker. It amazes me that a word can make everybody so upset.

The gym is overflowing. It feels like a pep rally before a game, except the only sound is the squeaking of sneakers on the basketball court as kids take their seats. I sit on the bottom row of the bleachers, trying to hold on to my space as guys squeeze in the middle.

Headmaster Marion comes in with three assistants following him like bodyguards. He taps the microphone set up on the court and clears his throat.

"This is a sad morning for The Baker Academy. Our school—your school—has a long and proud tradition as a place of learning, free from intolerance and fear and intimidation. In one night of vandalism, that tradition has been scarred."

He pauses here and looks across the rows of students as if considering each one individually. I wonder where Ben's sitting, and does he look guilty?

"For the first time in my twelve years as headmaster, I am embarrassed for this school. I'm ashamed to think that any of you may have done this deed. I assure you, we will
not allow this insult to our educational tradition to go unpunished. We will get to the bottom of this."

The way he says this makes me scared. I didn't actually tag anything myself. All I did was go along with someone who did. I wasn't even with him most of the time. But still.

Okay, my alibi is this:
I went in the school with a friend—no, just a kid I know—to get a drink of water. I didn't know what he was going to do. I didn't know he had spray paint. He didn't tell me anything. I didn't spray anything, personally. I was in the advanced biology room straightening the amphibians poster and—no, that sounds lame. What I was actually doing was going to the bathroom. That's the reason I went into the school in the first place ... and to get a drink of water.

That's a pretty good defense, I think. But I don't want to have to explain myself, because even though I didn't do anything they could still punish me for just being there. I remember that from civics last year: a person who helps with a crime or even hangs around when a crime is being committed can be considered as guilty as the person who did it.

I don't think that's fair. Whoever wrote that law didn't remember being a kid.

In English, Ms. Hite spends the entire period discussing the rise of the National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany. She explains the subjugation of the Germans after World War I and the nationalism that emerged from their humiliation. She talks of Jews as scapegoats. She describes the horrors of the concentration camps.

It's pretty impressive how she can talk so long on history, which isn't even her subject. Still, I don't like her jumping to a conclusion about the tagging and making it seem worse than it is. So when she asks for anyone's thoughts on the subject, I raise my hand.

"Yes, Mr. Brown?"

"Ms. Hite, how do you know the person who did this stuff is
for
the Nazis? Maybe he's calling
other
people Nazis."

"Is that your theory?"

"No—I mean, I don't have a theory. I was just wondering."

"Of course we can't know what's in the mind of the perpetrator until he steps forward and owns up to his deed, or we catch him."

"Could be a 'her.'" Everybody turns toward Tanya. "Why does everybody assume a guy did this? It's prejudice, that's what I think."

"Yes, Tanya, thank you for reminding us that girls can be hurtful as well as boys."

Ben shows up late for art class. Why would he call attention to himself on this of all days? He's always spouting off about "Nazi this" and "Nazi that"—won't somebody remember and tell on him?

"Should I go for a late slip, Mrs. Co-hen?"

She nods, and he turns on his heels and clicks them. That's something else he should stop doing.

She snaps her fingers. "Wait..." I think maybe she's figured it out, she's going to say, "You, Ben Cavendish, you did this, didn't you?" But she doesn't say that. "Just take your seat,
Benjamin. Lateness doesn't seem important to me today."

She sets out the bowl of still deads again, lining it up exactly as it was last week. She's pretty precise about these things, which I like.

Everyone takes out their sketchpad and pens. Nobody says anything. I'm staring at the fruit, hoping this time to see some life in it—and then I do see something. The banana looks odd. From my seat at the far left of the classroom I see a dark black mark on the side. Is the banana rotting? I stand up for a better view.

"What do you see, Devon?"

"I don't know, something black." As I move toward the bowl, Mrs. Cohen comes up behind me. At the desk I squat down so that I'm eye level with the banana. She bends down behind me. We see it at the same time—a finely drawn black swastika.

She makes some weird noise in my ear and falls backwards, knocking over an easel. Ben's the first one to her. He pulls her to her feet. "Are you all right?" He asks her this with such sincerity that I can only marvel at him.

"Quiet, here's the report." Mom turns up the volume on the television. I look up from my English journal assignment—"The Use of Fear to Impose Rule." Dad lowers the newspaper from his face.

"At The Baker Academy, one of the area's most exclusive private schools, administrators and students are today dealing with a disturbing act of vandalism that struck the school overnight. On the scene is Channel 7's Mark Myers. Mark?"

"Well, Kelly,
disturbing
is certainly the right word today as this affluent, liberal school does some soul-searching to explain this..."

Mom lets out a gasp as the camera moves inside the school and shows "Nazi" and swastikas scrawled on lockers and flags and walls and doors.

"In all, the vandal or vandals defaced at least twenty-seven spots in the school, from the trophy case in the entranceway to the cafeteria and locker rooms."

Dad folds his newspaper on his lap. "Who was targeted?"

"Mrs. Cohen's door was tagged, and..."

"Tagged?"

"Yeah—written on, like with graffiti."

"Is she Jewish?"

"I guess so."

The television reporter moves on to another story, and Mom mutes the sound. "It's horrible. To go to school to teach children and find that one of them put that symbol of hate on your door. Maybe kids today don't understand all the suffering the swastika represents to older people, especially the Jews."

"It wasn't all against Jews, Mom. It was written on lots of kids' lockers who aren't Jewish."

"Then I don't understand it, Devon."

Dad shakes his head. "I don't, either."

And I can't begin to explain it to them.

During the next two days, more "Nazis" and swastikas keep turning up in strange places. The news spreads through the halls. When Mr. Harvey pulls down the world map in his American History to 1945 class, there's the word in big block letters over America. When Coach Duffy empties the bag of basketballs in gym, a swastika is on each one. The lunchroom aides find "Nazi" drawn on the napkins, like a monogram.

Teachers are starting to act afraid. Each time they open a drawer or turn a page, they peek first to make sure "Nazi" doesn't leap out at them. Some kids clap each time it shows up, the kind of kids who cheer anything that bugs their teachers.

I'm scared to go near Ben. He keeps looking at me like he wants to talk, but I turn away every time. I figure they'll catch him soon or later, and I don't want anybody remembering seeing me with him. I even take the upstairs hallway now to get to classes so I won't run into him.

But I have to tell someone. I've never been part of something this wrong before, and I can't keep it to myself. There's only one person I trust.

Tanya's sitting on the steps when I come out for lunch. She's already licked her ice cream below the cone.

"You're late."

"Yeah, I went the long way." I take out the different parts of my lunch and set them on my legs. I decide to start with the carrots today. "You don't get in trouble much, do you, Tanya?"

"Not me. Trouble is trouble." She dips her tongue inside the cone to dig out the ice cream. "Why're you asking?"

"I don't like trouble, either, but I think I'm in it."

"What kind of trouble could you get into?"

I lean over the railing to make sure no little kid is sitting under the stairs. "I was there when the school was tagged."

Tanya laughs out loud, the first time I've seen her do that. "You're kidding."

"No, I really was there. I didn't do anything myself, but I didn't stop the kid who did."