by Otto Penzler
If she meant to cater for the adults, Jack has seen off their portions, either gobbling them or mauling them on his plate. He dumps it on the pillaged table as his mother elevates the cake and his father touches a lighter to the candles. Once all the pale flames are standing up to the July sun, Mr. Holt sets about “Happy birthday to you” as if it’s one of the hymns we no longer sing in school. Everybody joins in, with varying degrees of conviction; one boy is so out of tune that he might be poking fun at the song. At least it isn’t Tom; his mouth is wide open, whereas the voice sounds muffled, almost hidden. The song ends more or less in unison before I can locate the mocking singer, and Jack plods to blow out the candles. As he takes a loud moist breath they flutter and expire. “Sorry,” says his father and relights them.
Jack performs another inhalation as a prelude to lurching at the cake so furiously that for an instant I think his movement has blown out the candles. “Who’s doing that?” he shouts.
He glares behind him at the schoolyard wall and then at his young guests. His gaze lingers on Tom, who responds, “Looks like someone doesn’t want you to have a birthday.”
Jack’s stare hardens further. “Well, they’d better play their tricks on someone else or my dad’ll make them wish they had.”
“I’m sure it’s just these candles,” Mrs. Holt says with a reproachful blink at her husband and holds out the cake for him to apply the lighter. “Have another try, Jack. Big puff.”
The boy looks enraged by her choice of words. He ducks to the candles the moment they’re lit and extinguishes them, spraying the cake with saliva. I won’t pretend I’m disappointed that the adults aren’t offered a slice. I can tell that Tom accepts one out of politeness, because he dabs the icing surreptitiously with a paper napkin. Mrs. Holt watches so closely to see all the cake is consumed that it’s clear she would take anything less as an insult to her or her son. “That’s the idea. Build up your vim,” she says and blinks across the yard. “Those birds must have been quick. I didn’t see them come or go, did you?”
Mr. Holt hardly bothers to shake his head at the deserted field. “All right, boys, no arguments this time. Let’s work off some of that energy.”
I suspect that’s a euphemism for reducing Jack’s weight, unless Mr. Holt and his wife are determined to be unaware of it. I’m wondering what I may have let Tom in for when Mr. Holt says “Who’s for a race around the field?”
“I don’t mind,” says Tom.
“Go on then. We’ll watch,” Jack says, and the rest of the boys laugh.
“How about a tug of war?” the magistrate suggests as if she’s commuting a sentence.
“I don’t think that would be fair, would it?” the councillor says. “There’d be too many on one side.”
Jack’s entourage all stare at Tom until the accountant says, “How do you come up with that? Twelve altogether, that was twice six when I went to school.”
“I mustn’t have counted the last chap. I hope it won’t lose me your vote,” the councillor says to me and perhaps more facetiously to Tom, and blames her drink with a comical grimace.
“I don’t care. It’s supposed to be my party for me. It’s like she said, if we have games it isn’t fair unless I win,” Jack complains, and I can’t avoid remembering any longer. Far too much about him reminds me of Jasper.
I didn’t want to go to Jasper’s party either. I only accepted the invitation because he made me feel I was the nearest to a friend he had at his new school. I mustn’t have been alone in taking pity on him, because all his guests turned out to be our classmates; there was nobody from his old school. His mother had remarried, and his stepfather had insisted on moving him to a state school, where he could mix with ordinary boys like us. I expected him to behave himself in front of his family, but whenever he saw the opportunity he acted even worse than usual, accusing the timidest boy of taking more than his share of the party food, and well-nigh wailing when someone else was offered whichever slices of the cake Jasper had decided were his, and arguing with his parents over who’d won the various games they organised unless he was the winner, and refusing to accept that he hadn’t caught us moving whenever he swung around while we were trying to creep up on him unnoticed. Now I remember we played that game among ourselves when the adults went to search for him. As if I’ve communicated my thoughts Tom says, “How about hide and seek?”
I could almost imagine that someone has whispered the suggestion in his ear. He looks less than certain of his inspiration even before Jack mimics him. “How about it?”
“Give it a try,” Mrs. Holt urges. “It’ll be fun. I’m sure Mr. Francis must have played it when he was your age. I know I did.”
Why did she single me out? It brings memories closer and a grumble from Jack. As his allies echo him, his father intervenes. “Come on, chaps, give your new friend a chance. He’s made an effort on your behalf.”
I wonder whether Mr. Holt has any sense of how much. Perhaps Jack takes the comment as an insult; he seems still more resentful. I can’t help hoping he’s about to say something to Tom that will provide us with an excuse to leave. Despite his scowl he says only, “You’ve got to be It, then.”
“You see, you did know how to play,” his mother informs him.
This aggravates his scowl, but it stays trained on Tom. “Go over by the wall,” he orders, “and count to a hundred so we can hear you. Like this. One. And. Two. And. Three, and don’t dare look.”
Tom stands where he’s directed—overlooking the sports field—and rests his closed eyes on his folded arms on top of the bare wall. As soon as Tom begins to count, Jack waddles unexpectedly fast and with a stealth I suspect is only too typical of him out of the yard, beckoning his cronies to follow. There must be a breeze across the field; Tom’s hair is standing up, and he seems restless, though I can’t feel the wind or see evidence of it elsewhere. I’m distracted by Mr. Holt’s shout. “Boys, don’t go—”
Either it’s too late or it fails to reach them, unless they’re pretending not to hear. All of them vanish into the school. Mrs. Holt puts a finger to her lips and nods at Tom, who’s counting in a loud yet muffled voice that sounds as if somebody is muttering in unison with him—it must be rebounding from the wall. I take Mrs. Holt not to want the game to be spoiled. “They won’t come to any harm in there, will they?” she murmurs.
Jasper didn’t, I’m forced to recall: he was on the roof until he fell off. Mr. Holt tilts his head as though his raised eyebrow has altered the balance. “I’m sure they know not to get into any mischief.”
Tom shouts a triumphant hundred as he straightens up. He seems glad to retreat from the wall. Without glancing at anyone, even at me, he runs out of the yard. Either he overheard the Holts or his ears are sharper than mine, since he heads directly for the school. Someone peers out to watch his approach and dodges back in. I don’t hear the door then, nor as Tom disappears into the school. It’s as if the building has joined in the general stealth.
I remember the silence that met all the shouts of Jasper’s name. For years I would wonder why he was so determined not to be found: because he didn’t want to be It, or on the basis that we couldn’t play any games without him? In that case he was wrong about us. As the calls shrank into and around the school, we played at creeping up on one another while he wasn’t there to ruin it for us. It was my turn to catch the others out when I heard his mother cry “Jasper” in the distance—nothing else, not so much as a thud. The desperation in her voice made me turn to see what my friends made of it. Could I really have expected to find Jasper at my back, grinning at the trick he’d worked on us and on his parents, or was that only a dream that troubled my sleep for weeks?
He must have resolved not to be discovered even by his parents; perhaps he didn’t want them to know he’d been on the roof. I assume he tried to scramble out of sight. We didn’t abandon our game until we heard the ambulance, and by the time we reached the front of the school, Jasper was covered up on a stret
cher and his parents were doing their best to suppress their emotions until they were behind closed doors. As the ambulance pulled away it emitted a wail that I didn’t immediately realise belonged to Jasper’s mother. The headmaster had emerged from his office, where no doubt he’d hoped to be only nominally in charge of events, and put us to work at clearing away the debris of the party and storing Jasper’s presents in his office; we never knew what became of them. Then he sent us home without quite accusing us of anything, and on Monday told the school how it had lost a valued pupil and warned everyone against playing dangerous games. I couldn’t help taking that as at least a hint of an accusation. If we hadn’t carried on with our game, might we have spotted Jasper on the roof or caught him as he fell?
It seems unlikely, and I don’t want to brood about it now. I attempt to occupy my mind by helping Mrs. Holt clear up. This time she doesn’t leave any food on the wall for whatever stole away with it, but drops the remains in the bin. From thanking me she graduates to saying, “You’re so kind” and “He’s a treasure,” none of which helps me stay alert. It’s the magistrate who enquires, “What do we think they’re up to?”
“Who?”
She answers Mr. Holt’s tone with an equally sharp glance before saying “Shouldn’t some of them have tried to get back to base by now?”
At once I’m sure that Jack has organised his friends in some way against Tom. I’m trying to decide if I should investigate when Mr. Holt says “They should be in the fresh air where it’s healthier. Come with me, Paul, and we’ll flush them out.”
“Shall we tag along?” says the accountant.
“Two members of staff should be adequate, thank you,” Mr. Holt tells her and trots to catch me up. We’re halfway along the flagstoned path to the back entrance when he says, “You go this way and I’ll deal with the front, then nobody can say they didn’t know the game was over.”
As he rounds the corner of the building at a stately pace I make for the entrance through which all the boys vanished. I grasp the metal doorknob and experience a twinge of guilt: suppose we call a halt to the game just as Tom is about to win? He should certainly be able to outrun Jack. This isn’t the thought that seems to let the unexpected chill of the doorknob spread up my arm and shiver through me. I’m imagining Tom as he finds someone who’s been hiding—someone who turns to show him a face my son should never see.
It’s absurd, of course. Just the sunlight should render it ridiculous. If any of the boys deserves such an encounter it’s Jack, not my son. I can’t help opening my mouth to say as much, since nobody will hear, but then I’m shocked by what I was about to do, however ineffectual it would be. Jack’s just a boy, for heaven’s sake—a product of his upbringing, like Jasper. He’s had no more chance to mature than Jasper ever will have, whereas I’ve had decades and should behave like it. Indeed, it’s mostly because I’m too old to believe in such things that I murmur “Leave Tom alone and the rest of them as well. If you want to creep up on anyone, I’m here.” I twist the knob with the last of my shiver and let myself into the school.
The empty corridor stretches past the cloakroom and the assembly hall to the first set of fire doors, pairs of which interrupt it all the way to the front of the building. My thoughts must have affected me more than I realised; I feel as though it’s my first day at school, whether as a pupil or a teacher hardly matters. I have a notion that the sunlight propped across the corridor from every window won’t be able to hold the place quiet for much longer. Of course it won’t if the boys break cover. I scoff at my nerves and start along the corridor.
Am I supposed to be making a noise or waiting until Mr. Holt lets himself be heard? For more reasons than I need articulate I’m happy to be unobtrusive, if that’s what I am. Nobody is hiding in a corner of the cloakroom. I must have glimpsed a coat hanging down to the floor, except that there aren’t any coats—a shadow, then, even if I can’t locate it now. I ease open the doors of the assembly hall, where the ranks of folding chairs resemble an uproar held in check. The place is at least as silent as the opposite of the weekday clamour. As the doors fall shut they send a draught to the fire doors, which quiver as though someone beyond them is growing impatient. Their panes exhibit a deserted stretch of corridor, and elbowing them aside shows me that nobody is crouching out of sight. The gymnasium is unoccupied except for an aberrant reverberation of my footsteps, a noise too light to have been made by even the smallest of the boys; it’s more like the first rumble of thunder or a muted drum-roll. The feeble rattle of the parallel bars doesn’t really sound like a puppet about to perform, let alone bones. Another set of fire doors brings me alongside the art room. Once I’m past I wonder what I saw in there: one of the paintings displayed on the wall must have made especially free with its subject—I wouldn’t have called the dark blotchy peeling piebald mass a face apart from its grin, and that was too wide. As I hurry past classrooms with a glance into each, that wretched image seems to have lodged in my head; I keep being left with a sense of having just failed to register yet another version of the portrait that was pressed against the window of the door at the instant I looked away. The recurrences are progressively more detailed and proportionately less appealing. Of course only my nerves are producing them, though I’ve no reason to be nervous or to look back. I shoulder the next pair of doors wide and peer into the science room. Apparently someone thought it would be amusing to prop up a biology aid so that it seems to be watching through the window onto the corridor. It’s draped with a stained yellowish cloth that’s so tattered I can distinguish parts of the skull beneath, plastic that must be discoloured with age. While I’m not sure of all this because of the dazzle of sunlight, I’ve no wish to be surer. I hasten past and hear movement behind me. It has to be one if not more of the boys from Jack’s party, but before I can turn I see a figure beyond the last set of fire doors. It’s the headmaster.
The sight is more reassuring than I would have expected until he pushes the doors open. The boy with him is my son, who looks as if he would rather be anywhere else. I’m about to speak Tom’s name as some kind of comfort when I hear the doors of the assembly hall crash open and what could well be the sound of almost a dozen boys charging gleefully out of the school. “I take it you were unable to deal with them,” says Mr. Holt.
“They were all hiding together,” Tom protests.
Since Mr. Holt appears to find this less than pertinent, I feel bound to say, “They must have been well hidden, Tom. I couldn’t find them either.”
“I’m afraid Master Francis rather exceeded himself.”
“I was only playing.” Perhaps out of resentment at being called that, Tom adds, “I thought I was supposed to play.”
Mr. Holt doesn’t care for the addition. With all the neutrality I’m able to muster I ask, “What did Tom do?”
“I discovered him in my passage.”
Tom bites his lip, and I’m wondering how sternly I’m expected to rebuke him when I gather that he’s fighting to restrain a burst of mirth. At once Mr. Holt’s choice of words strikes me as almost unbearably hilarious, and I wish I hadn’t met Tom’s eyes. My nerves and the release of tension are to blame. I shouldn’t risk speaking, but I have to. “He wouldn’t have known it was out of bounds,” I blurt, which sounds at least as bad and disintegrates into a splutter.
Tom can’t contain a snort as the headmaster stares at us. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been accused of lacking a sense of humour, but I fail to see what’s so amusing.”
That’s worse still. Tom’s face works in search of control until I say, “Go on, Tom. You should be with the others” more sharply than he deserves. “Sorry, head. Just a misunderstanding,” I offer Mr. Holt’s back as I follow them both, and then I falter. “Where’s—”
There’s no draped skull at the window of the science room. I grab the clammy doorknob and jerk the door open and dart into the room. “Someone was in here,” I insist.
“Well, nobody is now. If you kne
w they were, why didn’t you deal with them as I asked?”
“I didn’t see them. They’ve moved something, that’s how I know.”
“Do show me what and where.”
“I can’t,” I say, having glared around the room. Perhaps the item is in one of the cupboards, but I’m even less sure than I was at the time what I saw. All this aggravates my nervousness, which is increasingly on Tom’s behalf. I don’t like the idea of his being involved in whatever is happening. I’ll deal with it on Monday if there’s anything to deal with, but just now I’m more concerned to deliver him safely home.
“Would you be very unhappy if we cut our visit short?”
“I’m ready,” says Tom.
I was asking Mr. Holt, who makes it clear I should have been. “I was about to propose some noncompetitive games,” he says.
I don’t know if that’s meant to tempt Tom or as a sly rebuke. “To tell you the truth”—which to some extent I am—“I’m not feeling very well.”