Robert Cormier - Beyond the Chocolate War

"Bunting," he said, voice sharp and cold. "Here's the deal. A Vigil meeting today. The usual time. ."

Doubt formed a frown on Bunting's face.

"Dig into your notebook and find somebody for an assignment. Pick a name from the list I gave you the other day."

"But Obie will be at the meeting," Bunting said. The last thing he wanted was to meet Obie face to face.

"Exactly."

Let Bunting stew awhile. Let him worry through the day.

"Problems are never solved by delay," Archie said in his best lecturing tone, enjoying Bunting's growing discomfort. "We have a problem here, and the best way to solve it is to take action. So we meet today. Bring everybody together. Business as usual. That's why we need a kid for an assignment. Everything must look normal. And then let me read between the lines." This is what Archie loved. Showdowns, sixguns at sunset, adversaries coming face to face. To see what would happen, what explosions would be touched off or, if not explosions, what emotional collisions would occur.

There was an even more important reason for calling a meeting, however. The Obie-Bunting showdown was only a screen for Archie's real purpose — searching for the traitor. He suspected that the traitor was a member of the Vigils. More than suspected. Few kids outside the Vigils knew that the day off from school was to have coincided with the Bishop's visit. And the letter to Leon had focused on the visit. Thus, the meeting was a place to begin his pursuit of the traitor, and instinct — instinct that never failed him — dictated that he would find his betrayer there.

He turned again to Bunting, saw his troubled countenance, the beads of sweat dancing on his upper lip.

"And Bunting. ."

"Yes?"

"Forget the alibi. The Vigils don't provide alibis," Archie said The words final, like a trapdoor slamming shut.

Notices for Vigil meetings were always posted on the main bulletin board in the first-floor corridor, directly across from the Headmaster's office. Archie was entertained by the location of the notice right under Leon's nose. The notice was simple, involving the words TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL at the top of the board. On the day of the meeting, the Y of Trinity was inverted: л . Which made it look, as Archie said, like an upright finger. Thus, the Vigils giving the finger to the world while calling a meeting. That's what the upside-down Y was called: the Finger.

Bunting inverted the Y shortly before the bell sounded for the start of classes. Stepping away, from the bulletin board, he pondered his next move: delivering the invitation, without being spotted, to the victim selected for today's meeting. The invitation was usually a crudely written note left in the victim's desk in his homeroom, or in his locker, sometime during the day. Bunting delivered the note without difficulty a few minutes later — the victim's homeroom was empty, and he slipped the sheet of paper into the desk without risk of being seen.

As he headed for his first class, Bunting's mind was dark with doubts and forebodings. He wondered whether his confession to Archie this morning had been a mistake. He knew he could control Cornacchio and Harley. But Archie was different, so different that Bunting sometimes woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, almost sorry that he had ever gotten involved with Archie and the Vigils.

Obie had gotten into the habit of checking the bulletin board for a possible Vigil meeting ever since Bunting had come on the scene. There had been a time, only a short while ago, when Obie had controlled the meetings and inverted the Y . But Archie had been carrying on his own relationship with Bunting for a few weeks, obviously grooming him for the role of Assigner, and Obie had accepted the situation. Because Laurie had become more important than calling Vigil meetings.

Now he was like all the other Vigil members, at Archie's mercy, unable to plan what to do after school until he learned whether a meeting was scheduled. This morning, like all mornings, he headed for the board before going to 'his locker. Did it automatically. Still numb from the events of the night before, he trudged wearily down the corridor, feeling dull, eyes burning from lack of sleep, an anger he had never known before smoldering within him, consuming him, taking away his appetite, making him sleepless, feeding his thoughts — and his thoughts were agonizing as he played over in his mind last night's events.

Laurie. Her cries. The assault upon her body. The devastation to her — her being . As if they had violated the thing that made her a person, a girl, a woman. When he finally confronted her after scrambling to his feet, the echo of the departing car deafening in his ears, she had looked at him with such an expression of — what? Fear, loathing, revulsion. Eyes wide with panic, injury, and the most terrible thing of all — accusation. As if he himself had been the attacker.

In short hysterical bursts, she told him what had happened while he had been a helpless prisoner under the car. She had not been raped. It took her a long time to get the words out, and Obie winced as he saw how hard it was for her to talk. She was like a child crying in the dark, horrified, in the middle of the night. Not raped, no, but he, whoever he was, had touched her. Touched . As she said the word, the sobs began again. Obie was unable to comfort her. All the time that she was telling him what had happened, she kept herself shriveled away from him, huddled pathetically against the door. And then silence, snifflings, a sigh now and then. She refused to speak after that first outburst, sat silent and immobile as Obie drove her home. He felt hopeless, helpless.

In an attempt to provide reassurance, he reached out to touch her, hold her hand, caress her shoulder. She shrank away from him, shuddered a bit. He tried to apologize for what had happened, felt responsible, guilty, knew that he had failed to protect her. Christ, he thought as he drove carefully through the darkened streets, if only he'd had some warning. If only he was the macho type, knew karate, how to defend himself instead of being so easily, effortlessly subdued.

His arm still ached from the way the guy had pushed it far up his back. Would ache forever, it seemed. But it was not as bad as the ache he felt in his soul, his spirit, whatever it was in him that had suddenly come into existence in order to hold his anguish.

Now, in the corridor, he saw in dismay the Finger on the bulletin board. Could he face a meeting today? He only wanted to get through the classes somehow and then drive to Laurie's house this afternoon.

She had sent him away last night in silence. She was calm by the time they reached her house, in control, but a deadly calm, a part of her elsewhere, not in the car, out of his reach, beyond his presence.

"You okay?" he asked, frowning, emotions in a whirl, wanting to say something , the right thing, but confused, not knowing what to do or say.

"Yes," she answered. But the yes was unconvincing.

"Sure?"

"I'm sure."

They agreed to do nothing about the assault, decided not to report it to the police. After all, there had been no rape and no injuries inflicted; they had not really seen the assailants, had no evidence, no clues to their identities. What's more, Laurie said she did not want to talk about the attack, not to the police, not to anybody.

"Talking about it makes me feel dirty," she said. After a long pause: "I don't feel clean anymore."

He kissed her lightly on the cheek, not daring anything else. She didn't flinch but did not respond. "I'll call you tomorrow after school," he whispered. She did not reply. Then she went into the house, walking slowly, robotlike. Watching her go up the steps, he dreaded the possibility that he had somehow lost her, that things would never be the same again. And told himself: Tomorrow everything will be different, will be better. He clung to that thought. That's all he had.