The Anything Box

by Зенна Гендерсон

  "Hit you?" Bennett jerked upright, the chair complaining loudly. "Hit you?"

  "I thought so," she nodded, twisting her hands. "And I'm afraid the otherchildren—"

  "What happened?"

  "Well, you remember, we just gave him that brand new desk last week, hopingthat it would give him a feeling of importance and foster some sort of pridein him to make him want to keep it clean and unmarred. I was frankly verydisappointed in his reaction—and almost scared. I didn't tell you when ithappened." The faint flush returned to her thin face. "I—I—the others think Irun to you too much and . . ." Her voice fluttered and died.

  "Not at all," he reassured her, taking up the pencil again and eying itintently as he rolled it between his fingers. "A good administrator must keepin close touch with his teachers. Go on."

  "Oh, yes. Well, when he walked in and saw his new desk, he ran over to itand groped down the side of it, then he said, 'Where is it?' and whirled on melike a wildcat. 'Where's my desk?'

  "I told him this was to be his desk now. That the old one was too messy. Heacted as if he didn't even hear me.

  " 'Where's all my stuff?' and he was actually shaking, with his eyesblazing at me. I told him we had put his books and things in the desk. Heyanked the drawer clear out onto the floor and pawed through the books. Thenhe must have found something because he relaxed all at once. He put whateverit was in his pocket and put the drawer back in the desk. I asked him how heliked it and he said 'Okay' with his face as empty…"

  Miss Amberly tucked her hair back again.

  "It didn't do any good—giving him a new desk, I mean. You should see itnow."

  "What's this about his trying to hit you this afternoon?"

  "He didn't really try to," said Miss Amberly. "But he did act like he wasgoing to. Anyway, he raised his fist and—well, the children thought he wasgoing to. They were shocked. So it must have been obvious.

  "He was putting the English work books on my desk, so I could grade today'sexercise. I was getting the art supplies from the cupboard just in back of hisdesk. It just made me sick to see how he's marked it all up with ink and stuckgum and stuff on it I noticed some of the ink was still wet, so I wiped it offwith a Kleenex. And the first thing I knew, he was standing over me—he's sotall!" She shivered. "And he had his fist lifted up. 'Leave it alone!' heshouted at me. 'You messed it up good once already. Leave it alone, can'tyou!"

  "I just looked at him and said, 'Keeley!' and he sat down, still muttering.

  "Mr. Bennett, he looked crazy when he came at me. And he's so big now. I'mafraid for the other children. If he ever hurt one of them—" She pressed aKleenex to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said brokenly. And two tears slidfurtively down from her closed eyes.

  "Now, now," muttered Bennett, terribly embarrassed, hoping no one would

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  come in, and quite irrelevantly, wondering how it would seem to lift MissAmberly's chin and wipe her tears away himself.

  "I'm afraid there isn't much we can do about Keeley," he said, looking outthe window at the ragged vine that swayed in the wind. "By law he has to be inschool until he is sixteen. Until he actually does something criminal ornearly so, the juvenile division can't take a hand.

  "You know his background, of course, living in a cardboard shack downbetween Tent Town and the dump, with that withered old—is it aunt orgrandmother?"

  "I don't know," Miss Amberly's voice was very crisp and decisive tocontradict her late emotion. "Keeley doesn't seem to know either. He calls herAunt sometimes, but I doubt if they're even related. People down there thinkshe's a witch. The time we tried to get some of them to testify that he was aneglected child and should become a ward of the court, not a one would say aword against her. She has them all terrified. After all, what would she do ifhe were taken away from her? She's past cotton picking age. Keeley can do thatmuch and he actually supports her along with his ADC check from the Welfare.We did manage to get that for him."

  "So—what can't be cured must be endured." Bennett felt a Friday yawn comingon and stood up briskly. "This desk business. Let's go see it. I'm curiousabout what makes him mark it all up. He hasn't done any carving on it, hashe?"

  "No," said Miss Amberly, leading the way out of the office. "No. All heseems to do is draw ink lines all over it, and stick blobs of stuff around. Itseems almost to be a fetish or a compulsion of some kind. It's only developedover the last two or three years. It isn't that he likes art. He doesn't likeanything."

  "Isn't there a subject he's responded to at all? If we could get a wedge inanywhere . . ." said Bennett as they rounded the deserted corner of thebuilding.

  "No. Well, at the beginning of school, he actually paid attention duringscience period when we were having the Solar System." Miss Amberly halfskipped, trying to match her steps with his strides. "The first day or so heleafed through that section a dozen times a day. Just looking, I guess,because apparently nothing sank in. On the test over the unit he filled in allthe blanks with baby and green cheese misspelled, of course."

  They paused at the closed door of the classroom. "Here, I’ll unlock it,"said Miss Amberly. She bent to the keyhole, put the key in, lifted hard on theknob and turned the key. 'There's a trick to it. This new foundation is stillsettling."

  They went into the classroom which seemed lonely and full of echoes with nostudents in it. Bennett nodded approval of the plants on the window sills andthe neatness of the library table.

  "I have him sitting clear in back, so he won't disrupt any more of thechildren than absolutely necessary.""Disrupt? Miss Amberly, just exactly what does he do? Poke, punch, talk,tear up papers?"

  Miss Amberly looked startled as she thought it over. "No. Between his wildsilent rages when he's practically impossible—you know those, he spends mostof them sitting in the corner of your office—he doesn't actually do anythingout of the way. At the very most he occasionally mutters to himself. He justsits there, either with his elbows on the desk and both hands over his ears,or he leans on one hand or the other and stares at nothing—apparently bored todeath. Yet any child who sits near him, gets restless and talkative and kindof— well, what-does-it-matter-ish. They won't work. They disturb others. Theycreate disturbances. They think that because Keeley gets along without doingany work, that they can too. Why didn't they pass him on a long time ago andget rid of him? He could stay in school a hundred years and never learnanything." Her voice was bitter.

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  Bennett looked at Keeley's desk. The whole table was spiderwebbed withlines drawn in a silvery ink that betrayed a sort of bas-relief to hisinquiring fingers. At irregular intervals, blobs of gum or wax or some suchstuff was stuck, mostly at junctions of lines. There were two circles on thedesk, about elbow-sized and spaced about right to accommodate two leaningelbows. Each circle was a network of lines. Bennett traced with his finger twofine coppery wires that were stuck to the side of the desk. Following themdown into the desk drawer, he rummaged through an unsightly mass of papers andfished out two little metallic disks, one on each wire.

  "Why those must be what he was looking for when he was so worked up lastweek," said Miss Amberly. "They look a little bit like a couple of bottle capsstuck together, don't they?"

  Bennett turned them over in his hands, then he ran his fingers over themarked-up desk, noting that the lines ran together at the edge of the desk andended at the metal table support

  Bennett laughed, "Looks like Keeley has been bitten by the radio bug. I'dguess these for earphones." He tossed the disks in his hand. "And all thesemysterious lines are probably his interpretation of a schematic diagram. Isuppose he gets so bored doing nothing that he dreamed this little game up forhimself. Where did he get this ink, though? It's not school ink." He ran hisfingers over the raised lines again.

  "I don't know. He brings it to school in a little pill bottle," said MissAmberly. "I tried to confis
cate it when he started marking things up again,but he seemed inclined to make an issue of it and it wasn't worth running therisk of another of his wild ones. The janitor says he can't wash the stuff offand the only time I've seen any rub off was when I wiped away the wet markstoday."

  Bennett examined the metal disks. "Let's try this out," he said, halfjoking. He slid into the desk and leaned his elbows in the circles. He pressedthe disks to his ears. A look of astonishment flicked across his face.

  "Hey! I hear something! Listen!"

  He gestured Miss Amberly down to him and pressed the earphones to her ears.She closed her eyes against his nearness and could hear nothing but thetumultuous roar of her heart in her ears. She shook her head.

  "I don't hear anything."

  "Why sure! Some odd sort of . . ." He listened again. "Well, no. I guessyou're right," he said ruefully.

  He put the earphones back in the desk.

  "Harmless enough, I suppose. Let him have his radio if it gives him anysatisfaction. He certainly isn't getting any out of his schoolwork. This mightbe a way to reach him though. Next week I’ll check with a friend of mine andsee if I can get any equipment for Keeley. It might be an answer to ourproblem."

  But next week Mr. Bennett had no time to do any checking with his friend.The school found itself suddenly in the middle of a virus epidemic.

  Monday he stared aghast at the attendance report. Tuesday he started grimlydown his substitute list. Wednesday he reached the bottom of it. Thursday hegroaned and taught a third grade himself. Friday he dragged himself to thephone and told his secretary to carry on as best she could and went shakingback to bed. He was cheered a little by the report that the third gradeteacher had returned, but he had a sick, sunken feeling inside occasioned bythe news that for the first time Miss Amberly was going to be absent.

  "But don't worry, Mr. Bennett," the secretary had said, "we have a goodsubstitute. A man substitute. He just got here from back east and he hasn'tfiled his certificate yet, but he came well recommended."

  So Mr. Bennett pulled the covers up to his chin and wondered, quiteirrelevantly, if Miss Amberly had a sunken feeling too, because he was absent.

  Miss Amberly's seventh grade buzzed and hummed when at eight-thirty Miss

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  Amberly was nowhere to be seen. When the nine o'clock bell pulled all thestudents in from the playfield, they tumbled into their seats, eyes wide, asthey surveyed the substitute. Glory May took one look at the broad shouldersand black hair and began to fish the bobby pins out of her curls that weresupposed to stay up until evening so they would be perfect for the datetonight—with a seventeen-year-old high school man. The other girls stared athim covertly from behind books or openly with slack-jawed wonder.

  The boys, with practiced eyes, looked him over and decided that even if oldlady Amberly was absent, they had better behave.

  And of course, at ten past nine, Keeley sauntered in, carrying hisarithmetic book by one corner, the pages fluttering and fanning as he came.The substitute took little notice of him beyond asking his name and waitingfor him to slump into his desk before going on with the opening exercises.

  Keeley arranged himself in his usual pose, the metal disks pressed to hisears, his elbows in the webbed circles. He sat for a minute blank-faced, andthen he began to frown. He pressed his hands tighter to his ears. He tracedthe lengths of the coppery wire with inquiring fingers. He checked the blobsand chunks of stuff stuck on the lines. He reamed his ears out with his little finger and listened again. Finally his squirming and wiggling called forth a"Please settle down, Keeley, you're disturbing the class," from thesubstitute.

  "Go soak your head," muttered Keeley, half audibly. He pushed the earphonesback into the drawer and slouched sullenly staring at the ceiling.

  By noon, Keeley, the blank-faced, no-doer, had become Keeley, thedisrupting Demon. He pulled hair and tore papers. He swaggered up the aisle tothe pencil sharpener, shoving books off every desk as he went. He shot paperclips with rubber bands and scraped his thumb nail down the blackboard, ahalf-dozen times. By some wild contortion, he got both his feet up on top ofhis desk, and when the impossible happened and he jackknifed under the deskwith his heels caught on the edge, it took the substitute and the two biggestboys to extract him.

  By the time he got out of the cafeteria, leaving behind him a trail ofbroken milk bottles, spilled plates and streaked clothes, Miss Ensign wasgasping in the teachers' room, "And last year I prayed he'd wake up and beginto function. Lor-dee! I hope he goes back to sleep again!"

  Keeley simmered down a little after lunch until he tried the earphonesagain and then he sat sullenly glowering at his desk, muttering threateningly,a continuous annoying stream of disturbance. Finally the substitute saidplacidly, "Keeley, you're disturbing the class again."

  "Aw shaddup! You meathead, you!" said Keeley.

  There was a stricken silence in the room as everyone stared aghast atKeeley.

  The substitute looked at him dispassionately. "Keeley, come here."

  "Come and get me if you think you can!" snarled Keeley.

  A horrified gasp swept the room and Angie began to sob in terror.

  The substitute spoke again, something nobody caught, but the result wasunmistakable. Keeley jerked as though he had been stabbed and his eyes widenedin blank astonishment. The substitute wet his lips and spoke again, "Comehere, Keeley."

  And Keeley came, stumbling blindly down the aisle, to spend the rest of theafternoon until Physical Ed hunched over his open book in the seat in thefront corner, face to wall.

  At PE period, he stumbled out and stood lankly by the basketball court,digging a hole in the ground with the flapping sole of one worn shoe. Thecoach, knowing Keeley in such moods, passed him by with a snort ofexasperation and turned to the clamoring wildness of the rest of the boys.

  When the three fifty-five bell rang, the seventh grade readied itself forhome by shoving everything into the drawers and slamming them resoundingly. Asusual, the worn one shot out the other side of the desk and it and itscontents had to be scrambled back into place before a wholly unnatural silence

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  fell over the room, a silence through which could be felt almost tangibly, the

  straining to be first out the door, first to the bus line, first in the

  bus—just to be first.

  The substitute stood quietly by his desk. "Keeley, you will stay after

  school."

  The announcement went almost unnoticed. Keeley had spent a good many half

  hours after school this year with Miss Amberly sweating out page after page in

  his tattered books.

  Keeley sat in his own desk, his hands pressed tightly together, his heart

  fluttering wildly in his throat as he listened to the receding clatter of

  hurried feet across the patio. Something inside him cried. "Wait! Wait for

  me!" as the sounds died away.

  The substitute came down the aisle and turned one of the desks so he could

  sit facing Keeley. He ran a calculating eye over Keeley's desk.

  "Not bad," he said. "You have done well with what materials you had. But

  why here at school where everyone could see?"

  Keeley gulped. "Have you seen where I live? Couldn't keep nothing there.

  Come a rain, wouldn't be no house left. Besides Aunt Mo's too dang nosey.

  She'd ask questions. She know I ain't as dumb as I look. Ever body at school

  thinks I'm a dope."

  "You certainly have been a stinker today," grinned the substitute. "Your

  usual behavior?"

  Keeley squirmed. "Naw. I kinda like old lady Amberly. I was mad because I

  couldn't get nothing on my radio. I thought it was busted. I didn't know you

  was here."

  "Well, I am. Ready to take you with m
e. Our preliminary training period

  shows you to be the kind of material we want."

  "Gee!" Keeley ran his tongue across his lips. "That's swell. Where's your

  ship?"

  "It's down by the county dump. Just beyond the hill in back of the tin can

  section. Think you can find it tonight?"

  "Sure. I know that dump like my hand, but…"

  "Good. We'll leave Earth tonight. Be there by dark." The substitute stood

  up. So did Keeley, slowly.

  "Leave Earth?"

  "Of course," impatiently. "You knew we weren't from Earth when we first

  made contact."

  "When will I get to come back?"

  "There's no reason for you to, ever. We have work geared to your

  capabilities to keep you busy and happy from here on out."

  "But," Keeley sat down slowly, "leave Earth forever?"

  "What has Earth done for you, that you should feel any ties to it?" The

  substitute sat down again.

  "I was born here."

  "To live like an animal in a cardboard hut that the next rain will melt

  away. To wear ragged clothes and live on beans and scrap vegetables except for

  free lunch at school."

  "I don't get no free lunch!" retorted Keeley, "I work ever morning in the

  Cafeteria for my lunch. I ain't no charity case."

  "But Keeley, you'll have whole clothes and good quarters and splendid food

  in our training center."

  "Food and clothes ain't all there is to living."

  "No, I grant you that," admitted the substitute. "But the world calls you

  stupid and useless. We can give you the opportunity to work to your full

  capacity, to develop your mind and abilities to the level you're capable of

  achieving instead of sitting day after day droning out kindergarten pap with a

  roomful of stupid …"

  "I won't have to do that all my life. When I get to high school. .."

  "With marks like yours? No one's going to ask you how smart you are.