Robert Cormier - Beyond the Chocolate War

The heat vanished.

With a final thunderstorm, more violent than earlier storms. Trees fell, power lines snapped, a small bridge over the Moosock River collapsed, sweeping a seventy-two-year-old man to his doom. Darkness enveloped Monument, broken only by occasional lightning splits.

Toward morning thunder echoed wearily in the distance and lightning scrawled feint flashes near the horizon. Bird cries greeted the dawn, and dawn itself brought the sun and fresh breezes. The breezes leaped from tree to tree, through the streets and avenues of the town. Early risers stretched magnificently, filling their lungs with the clean, bracing air of morning.

At seven thirty Obie left for school, his cold miraculously gone with the heat and the thunder and lightning. Maybe it had been an allergy, after all. He drove through the streets with purpose and determination, knuckles pale as he grasped the steering wheel, impatient with traffic lights. He drove with hope in his heart. Hope and hate. The hate, he knew, was his only means of surviving.

That, and Fair Day.

Some people called it Fool Day.

This year he would make it Fear Day for Archie Costello.

Afternoon: classes over for the day. Air sizzling with a thousand scents and colors, sun dazzling on car roofs, setting Trinity windows aflame, but the heat of the sun benevolent now, the sun of springtime.

The Trinity campus leaped with activity — baseball players jogging to the athletic field, volleyballers lunging in the air, students in the assembly hall rehearsing the sketches for Skit Night.

Obie searched for Archie in the halls and classrooms, on the steps, in the parking lot. He finally found him in the stands at the athletic field, languidly watching the action below.

The hardest thing of all: approaching him.

"Hi, Archie."

The long slow look from Archie, the slight lifting of eyebrows but quick to hide surprise, proud of his ability to remain always cool. Ah, Obie knew him like a book, like he knew himself.

"Obie." The name hung in the air, noncommittal. Not welcoming, not rejecting. Letting Obie make the move.

"How's things?" Obie asked, trying to keep his voice normal.

"In control."

Down on the field the baseball practice went on. Players throwing the ball, hitting the ball, scooping up the ball. All that activity centered on a small round object. Obie thought of that other small round object, the black marble.

"How's things with you?" Archie asked.

Obie felt as if he were poised on the edge of a chasm, a thousand feet above sea level. Tensing his stomach, he leaped.

"Not so good. But I'll recover." Not wanting to say too much, letting Archie draw the information from him.

"Recover from what?"

Another leap:

"That girl. Laurie Gundarson." Despite his determination, her name on his lips almost brought tears to his eyes. "We broke up."

And then, astonishingly — but Archie was always astonishing — Archie turned to him, eyes melting with compassion, face twisted in an attitude of commiseration, understanding. As if Obie's pain was his own pain, Obie's loss taken upon himself like a cross.

"Tough," Archie said. But the single solitary word was imbued with such emotion that Obie felt Archie Costello was truly his only friend in the world, the only person who could understand his misery and loss. He had to forcibly remind himself that Archie was the architect of his defeat with Laurie.

He was surprised to find Archie reaching out, touching his shoulder. Archie, who never touched another guy, who always held himself isolated.

"Welcome back," Archie said.

Obie did not move. The leap was over. He had plunged into the deep, not knowing if he would sink or swim. He had come to the surface. The scheme was launched.

Down on the field, a throaty voice called: C'mon, Croteau! Joined by other voices: Get the lead out, Croteau. Hey, Croteau, you dumb or what?

"Poor Croteau," Archie said. "Whoever he is."

Archie seemed to be having one of his compassionate days. Obie wondered: Should he press his luck? Why not?

"Fair Day," he said, as casually as possible.

"What did you say?"

"Fool Day."

"I thought you said Fair Day."

"I did."

They laughed, sharing the joke, the old play on words. Maybe he's actually glad I'm back in the fold, Obie thought. Which encouraged him to go on.

"It's coming up soon."

"Got to go easy on Fair Day," Archie said. "All those fathers and mothers and little kids." A touch of W.C. Fields in his voice.

"I know. But we have the Fool."

"True. Any candidates?"

"I'll check the notebook."

Archie looked down at the field. "Croteau," he said. "He'll make a great Fool. Sign him up, Obie."

Poor Croteau. So much for Archie's compassion. Then Obie tensed himself again. Big moment coming up. Walking the tightrope, with the drop far below.

"How about Skit Night?"

"What about Shit Night?" Archie parried.

"Remember that lad, Ray Bannister?"

"The new one?"

"Right. He's a magician, Archie. Does all those magic tricks."

Archie said nothing, eyes on the field, waiting.

"He does tricks with cards and balls. Stuff like that." Paused, hoped Archie didn't notice him taking a deep breath. "He also has a trick he does with the guillotine—"

"The guillotine?" A question in Archie's voice, and a flash in his eyes. Guillotine was a deadly word, an Archie Costello kind of word.

"Right. The guillotine. This kid, Ray Bannister, has built an honest-to-God guillotine. A trick, of course. But it seems too good to pass up. The guillotine and Skit Night. Some tad's head — like the Fool — on the block. ." Get the picture, Archie? He waited for Archie to get the picture.

"Let me think about it," Archie said, moody suddenly, brooding, going deep within himself. Obie knew all the signs. He had gone as far as he dared at the moment.

"See you later," Archie said, dismissal in his voice. But something else, too.

He's hooked, Obie thought gleefully.

The Goober spotted Janza across the street from Jerry Renault's apartment building in the dusk of evening and stopped short, fading into the shadows. He swallowed hard, pressing his body flat against a stone wall. After a while he peeked around the corner to make sure it was Janza, and saw without a doubt the figure of Emile Janza pacing the sidewalk.

What was he doing here? And why was he out in the open like that, walking up and down like someone in a picket line? The Goober didn't know the answers to those questions, but he knew that there was something sinister about Janza's presence on the street. Every once in a while Janza's eyes swept over the building, his head thrown back, as if he were issuing some land of silent challenge to Jerry, a challenge only Jerry could hear, the way a dog hears the high-pitched whistle that human ears can't pick up.

What do I do? the Goober thought. Should he run by Janza, show himself? Or slink away in the direction he had come from? The Goober wanted to do the right thing. He didn't want to betray Jerry Renault again.

I've got to warn him, he said silently. Then stopped short. Janza was making no secret of his presence, strutting around like that in the open. Jerry must have already seen him. Okay, so what do I do? Do I face Janza now? Tell him to bug off? Get out of there? He shivered in the night air, as he always did when he paused in his running.

What would Jerry want him to do? Christ, I've got to do the right thing. This time. Can't let him down.

He peeked around the corner, carefully, squinting, one-eyed, didn't see Janza. Had he gone away or was he hiding in the shadows? Probably gone away. No reason for Janza to hide in the shadows. When Goober first spotted him, he was obviously making his presence known.