The Complete Roderick (28 page)

‘Yes, well fine.’ Fest locked the cabinet and looked for a place to put the key. ‘But don’t just uh learn this stuff like a parrot, eh? It’s gotta come from the heart.’

‘I don’t have a heart.’

‘Don’t get cute with me, boy, I’m warning you. Crippled or not, I don’t have to stand for no, any
crud.
Now get upstairs to
your post and stand by for Francis Scott Key. On the double:
Move!
LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT
…’

The telephone receiver began making crackling noises as they left, and continued until Miss Borden, carrying a pile of green forms under one arm and a file in her hand, came to rescue it.

‘Yes sir, yes I have it here, Roderick Wood, hello? Why no one, Dr Froid, no one just one of the teachers looking up some training aids, teaching aids.’

‘–
kind of an office you run there, Miss Borden, sounded like a roomful of stormtroopers doing callisthenics. I’m not at all surprised if your
teachers
behave like –’

At recess Chauncey and the gang had a new one for him.

‘Okay now, no means yes and yes means no. You want me to hitcha with these brass knucks? Yes or no?’

‘No,’ said Roderick, and got hit. Nat, he noticed, was hiding away on the other side of the playground, pretending to watch some younger kids playing Frying Pan, as though it were the most fascinating game he’d ever seen.

‘You want me to hitcha again? Yes or no?’

‘Yes,’ said Roderick and got hit.

‘Hahaha, gotcha again, you want me to hitcha again? Yes or no?’

‘LOOK OUT!!!’
Roderick screamed and pointed at the sky just at the back of Chauncey’s head. The flinch gave him time to get away to a safe distance from which he could call ‘I meant, don’t look out.’

‘Hello,’ said Roderick, but suddenly Hank Thoro II had no time for small-talk. The screen flared up:

‘Fundamental Systems Key 42. A programme for storing, reading, altering, re-addressing or deleting data system DC/4633333808824. File call?’

It seemed to be a question. Roderick pressed
Y.
(means N?)

‘No file Y. File call?’

N
was no better, nor was any other single letter; after a while he tried typing words at random: ‘Indica’, ‘abacus’, ‘bishop’, ‘car chase’, ‘jispsy’, ‘robot’, ‘kale’, ‘sip’, ‘thud’. Finally he tried numbers, and when he happened to hit
42,
the screen reacted:

‘Incorrect call. For systems key use
FSKEY
42. Call?’

‘
FSKEY
42,’ he typed.

‘Fundamental Systems Key 42. A programme for storing, reading, altering, re-addressing or deleting data system DC/746 information using 333 and 338 subroutines and/or manual file call.

‘System security is maintained by use of
(
I
)
User passwords, (2) System level match codes
…’

By the end of the day, Roderick was able to call up more interesting stuff, like:

‘Wood, Roger Rick. Grade: 2. Med: No file. Assessmt: Schiz. tendencies. Teacher: Fest. Comment: Difficult adjustment, due to handicap. May need psy. couns. IQ:NR.’

He decided to change a few things.

On the way home from school, Chauncey beat him up. Nat went by on the other side of the street, pretending not to notice.

‘Look, a deal’s a deal, okay? I always help you, so –’

‘Yeah only we’ll be late to school. I mean sure I wanted to help you only I hadda get home early. My ma gets real mad –’

‘A deal’s a deal. Blood and oil and you never helped me once. Cripes some blood-oil brother you turned out to be. If you don’t look out I’ll delete you.’

‘Yeah? You’re not so tough – what’s delete?’

‘Like I take your name off the files, like the school don’t even know your name, how’d you like that?’

Nat picked up a twig and pretended to smoke it, blowing out steam in the cold air. ‘How come you can do that? You’re just kidding.’

‘No really, Mr Fest gave me this program, it’s supposed to be all about the guy who wrote the flag see, this Francis somebody –’

‘That’s a girl’s name! Anyway nobody writes flags, you’re just dumb.’

‘I don’t care, it’s what he said, and it’s not, it’s all about us it’s like files see, like it’s got your name and your picture and what grade you’re in, and like mine says I got the shits –’

‘Ha ha. Ricky’s got the shee-its, Ricky’s got –’

‘That’s all you know, I deleted that. I can delete stuff all over the place, I can do anything I want with anybody’s file. So you better come across on our deal, that’s all.’

‘Hey look, there’s Chaunce and Billy – and they got can-opners!’ Nat began to run. ‘I’m gonna be late, see you.’

The electric can-openers were nothing against the invincible strength of the
Steel Spider,
who managed to bloody Chauncey’s nose and send him fleeing for his life, then turned with a deep-throated snarl on the other bully:

‘You just wait till recess, boy. I’ll fix you.’

But at recess Chauncey and Billy had a couple of friends, one of whom was Nat. They followed him all over the school playground, telling everyone how he shit his pants, until the enraged man of steel turned on them and lashed out with:

‘Okay that’s it, you’ve had it, boy, I’m gonna fix your files.’

He hurried back to the janitor’s closet and flicked on the machine. ‘Bangfield, Chauncey,’ became ‘Bangfield, Piggy Dirty Bastard,’ and the accompanying picture, through the magic of a light pen, developed missing teeth, a bandit moustache and glasses. Under ‘Comments’ he listed every mean thing he could remember (or invent) and then went on to deal likewise with Nat, Billy, all his enemies … and what the heck, why not get old Pesty Festy while he was at it?

On Friday afternoon suddenly old Pesty ripped open the door. ‘Gotcha! Red-handed! And don’t try to bullshit me, son, that ain’t American history on that screen is it?
IS IT
?’ He grabbed Roderick’s neck and forced his face close to the screen which read: ‘Call allfile faculty allfile pupil delete …’

‘Well no it’s –’

‘Shut it off, just shut it off
NOW
!
MOVE
!’ But as Roderick moved, he said: ‘Wait, don’t touch it. Do it myself, I’m not gonna trust a little bastard like you to do any more dam –’

‘Yeah but if you … no if you push that
STOP
button it doesn’t stop it, not in this mode, it –’

‘Shuttup you. There.’

‘Yeah but it just means you finished the command, now it’s gonna delete all –’

‘Shut. Up. And come with me. Buddy, you’re up shit creek and I got the lawnmower – think you can fuck around with my pay check do you?’

‘Your pay –?’ For the first time, Roderick began to understand
that the ‘files’ were not just stuff in the machine. Fest was waving a blue piece of paper at him. He had forgotten the latest name until he saw it:

There were other teachers in Miss Borden’s office; they could hardly squeeze in the door. Fest hoisted him up and set him on the desk.

‘I wondered what in the world,’ said Ms Russo through her teeth. ‘When I went to call the roll, here were all these names, Pig Bottom and Horse Dork, but I mean they were printed right out on the magnetic cards so I – I just called them.’

Mrs Dorano said, ‘Well I certainly did not, and I’m keeping my cards as evidence! No child ever thought up all by himself such filth, such –’

Mr Goun shook his head hard, as though trying to straighten the drooping moustache. ‘Poor kid, he’s really twisted, I mean the isolationizing factor must’ve catalyzed something –’

Miss Borden took hold of Roderick’s claws and looked into his eyes. ‘How could you? How could you? The files, the files are – well I mean they’re
the files!’
She threw a magnetic card on the desk. ‘How could you do a thing like that?’

Roderick looked down at it. There was his picture, with a smile added to the face and big muscles to the arms.
‘The Steel Spider Wood,’
it read.
‘Grade: 8. Med: No file. Assessmt: A nice kid. Teacher: Pesty Festy. Comment: A reel nice kid. IQ: 1,000,000.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was just – I didn’t know – heck – it was gonna go in print and all – I’m sorry.’

‘We’ll have to expel the boy of course,’ she said.

‘Expel him? I’d like to break every –’

‘That will do, Captain. The main thing is, we’ve got to keep this quiet. Dr Froid and the county board are already breathing down our necks, and wouldn’t the papers just love something like this? So we can’t even call the expelling expelling, we’ll have to recommend a transfer on account of his handicap, something like that. As for the files –’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Roderick. ‘They’re all fixed up now.’

‘Fixed –?’

‘Just now. Everything’s deleted. All the files.’

Miss Borden looked around her office at the stacks of forms, pink, green, pale green, buff, blue, yellow, gold, white, lavender – at lavender she began to grind her teeth.

Louie Honk-Honk was pouting. ‘It’s not so cold.’

‘Louie it
is,
it’s too cold. How can I be a detective and give you reports in weather like this? Let’s go to my house.’

‘Nope! Your folks would just get mad.’

‘No they wouldn’t, they –’

‘They would so! They would so!’

‘Okay then, your house?’

‘My
folks would get mad. They told me never to talk to little kids. I told ’em I was only kidding about throwing some kid in Howdy Doody Lake, but they said –’

‘Yeah okay. But look, we’ll just have to call it off for the winter. When it’s warmer –’

Louie stamped his enormous foot. ‘But you – you didn’t even
start
telling me about that new book – what’s it called?’

Roderick held up the paperback.
‘Die Die Your Lordship.
I guess it’s all about this guy named Your Lordship who gets murdered – look it’s too cold to go detectiving now.’

‘Just some of it, huh Roddy? Some of it?’

‘Okay here’s the title, now what’s this word?’

‘Dee. Eye. Eee.
Die,
is it?’

‘Good, you got that easy.’

‘Hey the next is
die
again. “Die die you –” no “your” – am I right?’

Louie managed to sound out the hard word
lordship,
and they went on to the first paragraph. For some time, Roderick had been meeting him by the corner mailbox for these little detective sessions, and had so far taught him to detect the alphabet, numbers up to a hundred, addition, subtraction and quite a few words. This book was going to be too hard maybe, but Roderick planned to read it, tell Louie the story, and then stop every now and then to detect a sentence with him.

When they had finished the first paragraph (‘The body lay on the carpet. It was very very dead.’) Roderick gave him a secret detective handshake and went home.

It was only later that he discovered the book to be incomplete.

‘I’ve called you all together,’ said the wizened detective, ‘to get at the bottom of this. Let’s just recall the facts. We know that Lord Bayswater was brutally bludgeoned to death in this drawing-room. We know that on the evening in question, only four people could have been here alone with him. We know that each of the four dropped one clue, and that each had access to only one of the four weapons. You, Adam, his wastrel playboy nephew were the only one with access to a polo-stick. You, Lady Brett Bayswater, his so-called wife (in love with the doctor, aren’t you?) left clear fingerprints on the poker. You, Dr Coué, were seen entering this room at 8:00, leaving it at 8:15. And you, Mr Drumm, his so-called secretary (slyly playing on the affections of his daughter, I believe) entered at 8:14 and left at 8:30 – the last visitor, hmm?’

White-faced, Drumm stammered, ‘But-but the thread was left by the first person in the room. And no one knows who left the smudge of soot.’

‘We know it came from the poker. You do admit dropping a blood-soaked handkerchief on the floor, however? Drumm?’

The young man nodded guiltily. ‘But not the hair.’

‘Well,’ said the wizened sleuth, ‘we have begun to marshal our facts. Let us continue: the weapon may have been the statuette, eh? We know that if you, Dr Coué, picked up that statuette, it was at first to take from under it a folded message. We also know that if the weapon was not the billiard cue, then either Drumm was embezzling from his employer or Dr Coué was being blackmailed – or both. What is more, we know that if there was a message under the statuette, then young Adam here was, without doubt, the thief!’

‘The murderer!’ screamed Lady Brett.

‘Not necessarily, but the thief. We also know that if Drumm embezzled, it was because he had
compromised
your daughter. And if the bloodstained handkerchief was
not
used to wipe the statuette, then you, Lady Brett,
only pretended to be in your room reading all evening.
And we know that Coué could only have been blackmailed because he was supplying your butler Yes! Supplying him with morphia! For his addiction!’

‘Good God!
^’
said Adam. ‘The murdering –!’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. I did not mean that your butler
is
an addict – not necessarily – but let us press on: We know that if you, Lady Brett, left your room during the night, then Adam could not have been the thief at all! We have established that your daughter is not
compromised,
it is my happy duty to report. And finally we know that if Jenkins the butler is addicted to vile morphia, then the weapon can only be the billiard-cue.’

Lady Brett spoke sharply. ‘But what does it all mean?’

‘It means, your ladyship, that I can now name the murderer, the time and the weapon. I must therefore caution one of you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence. I hereby arrest
you,