Dan Simmons: Summer of Night

It was Dr. Roon, the principal, his dark, pinstriped suit and slicked-back hair blending with the darkness on the landing behind him so that his thin face seemed to float there, disembodied and disapproving. Dale looked at the man's pink skin and thought, not for the first time: Like the skin of a newborn rat.

Dr. Roon cleared his throat and nodded toward Old Double-Butt, who stood precisely where she had been, report card still half-extended toward Joe Allen, her eyes wide, her skin so pale that the rouge and other makeup on her cheeks looked like colored chalkdust on white parchment.

Dr. Roon glanced at the clock. "It is ... ah ... three-fifteen. The class is ready for dismissal?"

Mrs. Doubbet managed a nod. Her right hand was clenched so tightly on Joe's card that Dale half-expected to hear a crack as her finger bones snapped.

"Ah . . . yes," said Dr. Roon and his eyes flicked over the twenty-seven students as if they were trespassers in his building. "Well, boys and girls, I thought I would just explain that the ... ah ... odd noise you just heard was, Mr. Van Syke informs me, merely the boiler being tested."

Jim Harlen turned around and for a second Dale was sure that he was going to make a funny face-a sure disaster for Dale, who was so tense that he was bound to break up in laughter. Dale desperately did not want to be kept after school. Harlen widened his eyes in an expression more skeptical than funny and turned back to face Dr. Roon.

". . .at any rate, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a pleasant summer vacation," Roon was saying, "and to urge you all to remember the privilege you have had in receiving at least part of your education in Old Central School. While it is too early to tell what the final disposition of this fine old building will be, we can only hope that the school district, in its wisdom, will see fit to preserve it for future generations of scholars such as yourself."

Dale could see Cordie Cooke far up the line, still staring over her left shoulder at the windows and nonchalantly picking her nose.

Dr. Roon did not seem to notice. He cleared his throat as if preparing to give another speech, glanced again at the clock, and said only, "Very well. Mrs. Doubbet, if you would be so good as to distribute the children's fourth-quarter reports." The little man nodded, turned his back, and faded into the shadows.

Old Double-Butt blinked once, seemed to remember where she was, and handed Joe Allen his card. Joe didn't pause to look at it, but hurried to line up at the doorway. Other classes were already descending the stairs in lines; Dale always noticed that on the TV shows and movies about school, kids ran like crazy when they were dismissed or when a bell rang ending a period, but his experience in Old Central was that everyone traveled everywhere in lines, and these last seconds of the last minute of the last day in school was no exception.

The line was shuffling past Mrs. Doubbet, and Dale accepted his report card in its brown envelope, smelling a sour sweat-and-talcum smell around his teacher as he stepped past her to get in the other line. Then Pauline Zauer had her card, the lines at the door were formed-they didn't line up alphabetically for dismissal, but boys and girls, bus students in the front of each line, city kids behind-and Mrs. Doubbet stepped out in front of them, folded her arms as if to give one last comment or admonition, paused, and then silently gestured for them to follow Mrs. Shrives' fifth grade just disappearing down the stairway.

Joe Allen led the charge.

Outside, Dale breathed in the humid air, almost dancing in the light and sudden freedom. The school loomed behind him like a giant wall, but on the graveled drive and grassy playing fields, kids milled in excitement, gathered bikes from the bikestands, ran for the school buses where drivers shouted to hurry, and generally celebrated with noise and motion. Dale waved good-bye to Duane McBride, who was being shooed aboard a bus, and then caught sight of a cluster of third graders still gathered like quail near the bike stand. Dale's brother, Lawrence, galloped up the walk, showing his over-bite grin below thick glasses and hanging on to his empty canvas bookbag as he left his third-grade buddies and ran up to join Dale.

"Free!" cried Dale and swung Lawrence around in the air. Mike O'Rourke and Kevin Grumbacher and Jim Harlen made their way over. "Jeez," said Kevin, "did you hear that sound just as Mrs. Shrives was lining us up?"

"What do you think it was?" asked Lawrence as the group started out across the grassy baseball field.

Mike grinned. "I think it was Old Central getting some third grader." He rubbed his knuckles across Lawrence's crew cut.

Lawrence laughed and twisted away. "Naw, really?' Jim Harlen bent over, offering his backside to the old school. "I think it was Old Double-Butt ripping a fart," he said and provided the sound effects.

"Hey," cried Dale, taking a kick at Jim Harlen's backside and nodding toward his little brother. "Watch it, Harlen." Lawrence was already laughing and rolling on the grass. The school buses roared away, heading down different streets. The schoolyard was emptying quickly, kids hurrying off under the tall elms as if in a rush to beat the storm.

Dale paused at the edge of the baseball field, just across the street from his house, and looked back at the black clouds piled up behind Old Central. It was humid and the air felt still and quiet the way it did before tornado warnings, but he could tell by looking that the storm front was almost past. A band of blue sky was visible above the trees to the south. As the group watched a breeze came up, the leaves stirred on the trees ringing the block, and the summer scent of new-mown grass and blossoms and foliage filled the air. "Look," said Dale.

"Isn't that Cordie Cooke?" asked Mike. "Yeah." The short figure stood alone outside the north entrance to the school, her arms folded, foot tapping. She looked dumpier and sillier than ever in the oversized house-dress that almost dragged the gravel. Two of the smallest Cooke boys, the twins, who were in first grade, stood behind her, their bib overalls sagging. The Cookes lived far enough out of town to have the school bus take them home, but no bus went out toward the grain elevator and dump, so she and her three brothers walked out the railroad tracks. Now she was screaming something at the building.

Dr. Roon appeared at the door and shooed her away with a flick of his pink hand. White blurs in the tall windows above may have been the faces of teachers looking out. Mr. Van Syke's face floated behind the principal's in the dark doorway.

Roon called something else, turned his back, and closed the tall door. Cordie Cooke bent down, grabbed a rock from the gravel drive, and heaved it at the school. The rock bounced off the window of the main door.

"Jeez," breathed Kevin.

The door slammed open and Van Syke emerged just as Cordie grabbed her two little brothers by the hand and took off down the drive and then down Depot Street toward the train tracks. She moved very fast for a fat girl. One of her kid brothers tripped as they crossed Third Avenue but Cordie just dragged him through the air until his feet found pavement again. Van Syke ran to the edge of the schoolground and stopped, his long fingers groping at air.

"Jeez," Kevin said again.

"Come on," said Dale. "Let's get out of here. My mom said she'd have lemonade for all of us after school."

With a whoop and a holler the band of boys left the school-grounds, loped under the elms, bounded across the crowned asphalt of Depot Street, and ran toward freedom and summer.

Few events in a human being's life-at least a male human being's life-are as free, as exuberant, as infinitely expansive and filled with potential as the first day of summer when one is an eleven-year-old boy. The summer lies ahead like a great banquet and the days are filled with rich, slow time in which to enjoy each course.