Robert Cormier - Beyond the Chocolate War

Obie leaped a bit as a hand touched his arm. "Are you okay?" Ray Bannister asked.

"Of course I'm okay," Obie said, a giggle escaping his lips. "What makes you think I'm not okay?"

"I don't know," Ray said unhappily. And he didn't know, really. All he knew was that Obie still looked hyper, too excited, eyes fever bright.

"Look, the show's about to begin but it's got nothing to do with us," Obie said. "Maybe we can rehearse the guillotine act somewhere out back—"

"Without the guillotine?" Ray asked.

"I mean, the positions, where we'll be standing. The patter. . didn't you say the patter was important?"

"We already rehearsed a million times," Ray said. "And the patter is nothing. Cripes, Obie, you're getting spooky, know that?"

"I just want everything to go right," Obie said.

Ray sighed. "Look, I'm going to watch the show from out front. I'll come back when the skits are over, okay?"

"Okay, okay," Obie said impatiently. He wanted to be alone, anyway, didn't want company at this moment.

Ray drew back and started for the small hallway that led to the assembly hall. At the last moment he turned and looked doubtfully at Obie.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Obie?" he said. Allowing himself for one moment to contemplate a possibility he had avoided for a long time. He wondered whether this was a life-and-death matter, after all.

"Get going," Obie said. "The show's about to begin. . "

Ray lifted his shoulders and let them fall. He knew that Obie planned to give Archie Costello the scare of his life. He also suspected that Obie planned to go further, to carry out some kind of weird plot against Archie. But he refused to contemplate more than that. One last look at Obie, still pressed against the wall, and he hurried down the stairway as the first burst of music from a stereo filled the air. An old Beatles song, "Yellow Submarine."

He looks at me as if I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy, am I? Crazy people aren't eighteen-year-old seniors in high school. And anyway, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to scare the hell out of Archie Costello. Humiliate him in front of the entire student body. Get him on his knees. Okay, so nobody wanted to dunk him in the water and nobody wanted to kick him in the ass. But they'll have to sit there and see him on his knees, his neck on the block. That's all.

Ah, but that isn't all, Obie, is it? You know what you're planning to do. And that's where the crazy part comes in, the insane part. Insane, Obie baby. You are out of your mind. You can't do what you're planning to do. Not in a high school in Monument, Massachusetts, in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Obie recoiled from the voice in his mind, paced the floor restlessly, let the Beatles song carry him, heard the scattering of applause as the first skit began, the whoops and cries of the actors. As usual, when he stopped thinking about Archie and the guillotine, he encountered Laurie Gundarson, a ghost lurking in his heart. He was doing all this for her sake, of course. Couldn't simply let her go out of his life without this gesture.

Christ, Laurie.

One more chance, he thought, one more chance.

He fumbled in his pocket for change, isolated a dime from the other coins, paused, tossed it in the air — it came up heads — and then made his way out to the corridor. He stopped at the pay phone, stared at it a moment, said out loud: "Okay, Laurie, I'll let you decide. . "

He inserted the coin, dialed her number, listened to the blurt of ringing.

"Hello." Her father, rough-tough voice, a heavyweight-boxer voice although he sold automobiles.

"Is Laurie there?" Obie's own voice thin and sparse by contrast.

"Is this you again?" A brutal, give-no-quarter voice.

He ignored the question, had become accustomed to ignoring her father's voice.

"Could I talk to Laurie, please?"

"Look, kid, she doesn't want to talk to you."

"Is she there?" he asked patiently. This was the last try. If she came to the telephone, if he heard her voice again, he would take it as a good omen. It would give him hope. And he could call it all off, wouldn't have to go through with the plan.

He heard an exasperated sigh at the other end of the line and then her father's voice, threatening now: "Do you know what harassment is, kid? You call here again and you'll be in big trouble."

The receiver slammed in Obie's ear and he sagged against the wall. Last chance gone. He had his answer now. Knew there was no turning back. Knew what he had to do.

Brother Leon arrived late for the performance. His late entrance was not a surprise. Everybody knew that Leon hated the student skits and sketches. Too often there had been hilarious takeoffs on the faculty and, a few years ago, a devastating burlesque of Brother Leon by a student named Henry Boudreau. Boudreau had minced across the stage, speaking in a prissy voice, wielding an oversized baseball bat the way Leon used his teacher's pointer, as a weapon. The performance had become a legend at Trinity. But funny thing about Boudreau: He had flunked out at the end of the year.

Brian Cochran, watching Brother Leon settle into the seat, looked at him with undisguised dislike. Leon had forced Brian into the role of treasurer at last fall's chocolate sale, meaning that Brian had had to consult with him on a daily basis. Since then Brian had avoided contact with Leon, which was about par, of course, for most students at Trinity. Looking at Leon now, Brian noticed that he was rumpled, hair a bit mussed, seemed distraught, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Beautiful: Leon worried and apprehensive about something — the skits tonight? Or probably the incident this afternoon. Brian had heard rumors that an unidentified student had fled the residence after robbing the place. Another rumor, also unfounded: a student had attacked Brother Leon, threatened to kill him.

Brian Cochran was not a saint by any means, although he went to communion every Sunday, had served as an altar boy until his sixteenth birthday, knelt and said his prayers every night. He considered himself a good Catholic but admitted that he would have enjoyed seeing Brother Leon under attack by someone with a knife or a gun. He wouldn't wish for Leon to be killed or wounded, but a good scare would be terrific.

Turning his attention to the stage, Brian pondered the presence of the guillotine, acknowledged its ugliness and the threat it represented. He was aware of the wild stories about Ray Bannister accidentally cutting a student's head off down on the Cape. Another rumor, of course. Just like the rumor that Obie and the Vigils had engineered Archie Costello into picking the black marble the other day. After all these years. Which meant Archie would be placing his neck on the block.

Brian searched for Archie, saw him in the seat near the front, surrounded by the Vigil members as usual. He wondered whom he disliked more — hated, really — Brother Leon or Archie Costello. He conjured mental pictures: Leon wounded and gasping for help, the blade descending on Archie's neck.

Shuddering a bit, he tried to escape the images — and wondered whether these were sins he would have to tell the priest the next time he went to confession.

Carter sat next to Archie Costello.

He did not look at Archie at all during the entire program.

And Archie did not look at Carter.

Archie, in fact, did not seem to be looking anywhere. He stared at the stage, but he neither laughed nor groaned nor shook his head like other students as the antics unfolded before him. Some of the skits were downright funny, Carter thought, although Carter did not laugh either. He could recognize the funny part of a skit without having to laugh. Which was funny — strange, that is — in itself, wasn't it?

At first Carter had been uncomfortable sitting silently beside Archie. Carter did not like silences. But when Archie seemed content to sit there, immobile, like a figure in a trance, Carter shrugged and permitted himself silence as well. The other Vigil members took their cues from Archie and Carter, did not make conversation but responded to the crazy stuff on stage. Laughed at the good jokes, and groaned and hissed at the jokes that fell flat, the skits that failed. A lot of the skits failed, probably because this year nobody dared poke fun at the faculty. The skits mostly had to do with student life. And what was funny about homework, lockers with broken locks, the furnace that gave no heat, and all the other inconveniences of life at Trinity? That was not stage stuff. That was real life.