Stephen King - Carrie

“You hurt yourself?”

“No.” She smiled, but suddenly it was difficult to smile. The sight of the blood was distasteful to her. She blotted it away with her napkin. “But I broke the pencil and it was a souvenir. Stupid me.”

“There's your boat,” he said, and pushed it toward her. “Toot, toot.” Her throat closed, and she felt sure she would weep and then be ashamed. She did not, but her eyes glimmered like prisms and she lowered her head so he would not see.

The band was playing catchy fill-in music while the Honor Society ushers collected the folded-over ballots. They were taken to the chaperones' table by the door, where Vic and Mr. Stephens and the Lublins counted them. Miss Geer surveyed it all with grim gimlet eyes.

Carrie felt an unwilling tension worm into her, tightening muscles in her stomach and back. She held Tommy's hand tightly. It was absurd, of course. No one was going to vote for them. The stallion, perhaps, but not when harnessed in tandem with a she-ox. It would be Frank and Jessica or maybe Don Farnham and Helen Shyres. Or-hell!

Two piles were growing larger than the others. Mr. Stephens finished dividing the slips and all four of them took turns at counting the large piles, which looked about the same. They put their heads together, conferred, and counted once more. Mr. Stephens nodded, thumbed [he ballots once more like a man about to deal a hand of poker, and gave them back to Vic. He climbed back on stage and approached the mike. The Billv Bosnan Band played a flourish. Vic smiled nervously, harrumphed into the mike, and blinked at the sudden feedback whine. He nearly dropped the ballots to the floor, which was covered with heavy electrical cables, and somebody snickered.

“We've sort of hit a snag,” Vic said artlessly. “Mr. Lublin says this is the first time in the history of the Spring Ball-”

“How far does he go back?” someone behind Tommy grumbled. “Eighteen hundred?”

“We've got a tie.”

This got a murmur from the crowd. “Polka dots or striped?” George Dawson called, and there was some laughter. Vic gave a twitchy little smile and almost dropped the ballots again.

“Sixty-three votes for Frank Grier and Jessica MacLean, and sixty-three votes for Thomas Ross and Carrie White.”

This was followed by a moment of silence, and then sudden, swelling applause. Tommy looked across at his date. Her head was lowered, as if in shame, but he had a sudden feeling

(carrie carrie carrie)

not unlike the one he had had when he asked her to the prom. His mind felt as if something alien was moving in there, calling Carrie's name over and over again. As if-“Attention!” Vic was calling. “If I could have your attention,

please.” The applause quieted. “We're going to have a run-off ballot. When the people passing out the slips of paper get to you, please write the couple you favor on it.”

He left the mike, looking relieved.

The ballots were circulated; they had been hastily torn from leftover prom programs. The band played unnoticed and people talked excitedly.

“They weren't applauding for us,” Carrie said, looking up. The thing he had felt (or thought he had felt) was gone. “It couldn't have been for us.

“Maybe it was for you.

She looked at him, mute.

“What's taking it so long?” she hissed at him. “I heard them clap. Maybe that was it. If you fucked up-” The length of jute cord hung between them limply, untouched since Billy had poked a screwdriver through the vent and lifted it out.

“Don't worry,” he said calmly. “They'll play the school song. They always do.”

“But-”

“Shut up. You talk too fucking much.” The tip of his cigarette winked peacefully in the dark.

She shut. But

(oh when this is over you're going to get it buddy maybe you'll go to bed with lover's nuts tonight)

her mind ran furiously over his words, storing them. People did not speak to her in such a manner. Her father was a lawyer.

It was seven minutes of ten.

He was holding the broken pencil in his hand, ready to write, when she touched his wrist lightly, tentatively.

“Don't… “What?”

“Don't vote for us,” she said finally.

He raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. That's what my mother always says.”

(mother)

A picture rose in her mind instantly, her mother droning endless prayers to a towering, faceless, columnar God who prowled roadhouse parking lots with a sword of fire in one hand. Terror rose in her blackly, and she had to fight with all her spirit to hold it back. She could not explain her dread, her sense of premonition. She could only smile helplessly and repeat: “Don't. Please.”

The Honor Society ushers were coming back, collecting folded slips. He hesitated a moment longer, then suddenly scrawled Tommy and Carrie on the ragged slip of paper. “For you,” he said. “Tonight you go first-class.”

She could not reply, for the premonition was on her: her mother's face.

The knife slipped from the whetstone, and in an instant it had sliced the cup of her palm below the thumb.

She looked at the cut. It bled slowly, thickly, from the open lips of the wound, running out of her hand and spotting the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. Good, then. It was good. The blade had tasted flesh and let blood. She did not bandage it but tipped the flow over the cutting edge, letting the blood dull the blade's sharp glimmer. Then she began to sharpen again, heedless of the droplets which splattered her dress.

If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out.

If it was a hard scripture, it was also sweet and good. A fitting scripture for those who lurked in the doorway shadows of one-night hotels and in the weeds behind bowling alleys.

Pluck it out.

(oh and the nasty music they play)

Pluck z. t

(the girls show their underwear how it sweats how it sweats blood)

out.

The Black Forest cuckoo clock began to strike ten and (cut her guts out on the floor)

if thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out.

The dress was done and she could not watch the television or take out her books or call Nancy on the phone. There was nothing to do but sit on the sofa facing the blackness of the kitchen window and feel some nameless sort of fear growing in her like an infant coming to dreadful term.

With a sigh she began to massage her arms absently. They were cold and prickly. It was twelve after ten and there was no reason, really no reason, to feel that the world was coming to an end.

The stacks were higher this time, but they still looked exactly the same. Again, three counts were taken to make sure. Then Vic Mooney went to the mike again. He paused a moment, relishing the blue feel of tension in the air, and then announced simply:

“Tommy and Carrie win. By one vote.”

Dead silence for a moment. Then applause filled the hall

again, some of it not without satiric overtones. Carrie drew in a

startled, smothered gasp, and Tommy again felt (but for only a

second) that weird vertigo in his mind (carrie carrie carrie carrie)

that seemed to blank out all thought but the name and image of this strange girl he was with. For a fleeting second he was literally scared shitless.

Something fell on the floor with a clink, and at the same instant the candle between them whiffed out.

Then Josie and the Moonglows were playing a rock version of “Pomp and Circumstance,” the ushers appeared at their table (almost magically; all this had been rehearsed meticulously by Miss Geer who, according to rumor, ate slow and clumsy ushers for lunch), a scepter wrapped in aluminum foil was thrust into Tommy's hand, a robe with a lush dog-fur collar was thrown over Carrie's shoulders, and they were being led down the center aisle by a boy and a girl in white blazers. The band blared. The audience applauded. Miss Geer looked vindicated. Tommy Ross was grinning bemusedly.