Her Barbie doll face crumpled. Ignoring the startled looks from the students beside her, she snatched up a napkin and blotted her eyes. “It was awful, just awful. Weiss made it clear he could have Jerry fired at any time. He also stopped me in the corridor late one afternoon after a club meeting and suggested that he-he and I engage in-in-a-oh, it was dreadful!”
“Did you tell Jerry that Weiss wanted sexual favors in exchange for job security?” I continued, unmoved by her display.
“Jerry called me that evening, and I just broke down.” She sniffled bravely into the napkin. “He was furious, but I managed to calm him down and talk some sense into him. He wanted to go right over to Mr. Weiss’s house, pound on the door, and make a terrible scene. It would have cost him his job for sure. With that on his record, he wouldn’t have been able to coach anywhere.”
Or buy a cottage and reproduce, I amended to myself. I was about to ask more questions when the bleachers above us erupted in a roar. The band took up the strains of the Falcons’ fight song, competing with the opposing band’s blare. Paula gave me an apologetic look and scurried away to blink bravely, if somewhat damply, at the popcorn machine. I left the crushed box of cold popcorn on the counter, and went back to join Sherwood and Evelyn on the fifty-yard line.
The band marched onto the field and arranged itself in some mysterious way that must have had some significance to those higher in the tiers. The cheerleaders bounced about like irregular ping-pong balls, shaking their pompoms among other things and arousing the pep squad to frenzied squeals. The drill team formed two lines and shook their pompoms among other things. The scene reminded me of a primitive, sacrificial ceremony in which virgins would go to the grave intact. To the tune of “Fight Ye Falcons,” no less. The crowd loved it.
The Homecoming court convertibles appeared on the track that encircled the football field. The girls perched on the backseats, their white, clenched fingers digging into the upholstery as they smiled at the crowd. They were escorted from their thrones by as-yet-unsullied football players to be presented to the crowd and to accept bouquets and admiration. Followed by the kindergarten attendants, Cheryl Anne clutched the arm of her darling Thud, who clumsily put a plastic tiara on her head and handed her a bouquet of roses. It brought back memories, distant and blessedly mellowed with time, of faces arranged in the yearbook, all grim and determined to succeed. I looked particularly stem under a bouffant hairstyle that always left Caron and Inez weak from sustained laughter.
The presentation of the court, sniveling babes and all, was touching. The next two-and-a-half hours of bodies flinging themselves against each other were not, except in the obvious sense. Grunts and thumps, the sound of helmet against helmet, the incessant screams of the pep squad, the boisterous verbosity of the fans-it verged on something worse than Dante had ever envisioned for the lowest circles of the Inferno.
The thermos ran dry. The flask went the same way. My feet forsook me and my hands turned blue. My nose ran a marathon. I was kicked from behind and elbowed from both sides. A coke dribbled down my neck during a particularly exciting play.
The majority of the plays were incomprehensible, although I did my best to follow both the ball and the seesaw score. The home team took the lead, then lost it via a fumble. Thud snatched the ball from a Bantam and scampered all the way to the goal line, sending the cheerleaders into paroxysms of glee. The Bantams doggedly scored once again. Everyone in the bleachers, with one exception, rose and fell with pistonish precision.
The final quarter arrived, along with a couple of Falcon fumbles and Bantam triumphs, causing the scoreboard to tilt dangerously to the enemy side. Just as I neared a frostbite-induced coma, the referees called it a night. The cheerleaders burst into tears on each other’s shoulders, while the band played a version of the fight song that seemed more of a dirge. Cheryl Anne stalked down from the bleachers, paused to hiss at the forlorn Falcons, then led her cortege into the metaphorical sunset. Thud threw his helmet on the ground, having displayed enough foresight to remove his head from it first. The coaches shook hands and trudged across the field, their troops in straggly formation behind them.
“Shall we go?” I said, trying not to sound too heartened by the thought of a car heater and even a gymnasium.
Evelyn sighed. “It’s such a shame to lose the Homecoming game. The kids really care about this sort of thing.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Shall I carry the blanket? Where’s the nearest exit?”
Sherwood glanced at me, but offered no editorial. We followed the stream out of the stadium. The students punched each other on the shoulder and verbally rehashed the final plays of the game; their liberal use of profanity was more than mildly disturbing to someone who would be obliged to restrain them in the immediate future:
I tugged at Evelyn’s arm. “What precisely is my assignment at the dance?”
“You have floor duty. Emily always volunteered for it, swearing she enjoyed it, and no one ever argued with her for the privilege.” Her voice dropped until it was almost inaudible. “You’ll survive, probably.”
“Floor duty?” I said.
Sherwood patted me on the shoulder. “You are the ultimate in loco parentis, dear sleuth. All you must do is keep the rabble from dancing too closely together-school policy is three inches and not a whit closer-and the ones sitting down to keep their paws off each other.”
“And the band from singing obscenities,” Evelyn added. “The lyrics can get pretty raunchy if you don’t keep an eye on them.”
“Don’t let anyone drink anything that comes from a back pocket,” said Sherwood. “No smoking, snuff, or chewing tobacco. No vodka in the punchbowl. No fistfights. Don’t let the girls roll up their skirts or the boys unzip their jeans.”
“That’s all?” I laughed gaily. “And I’m going to do this all by myself, right? I won’t have a squadron of marines to help me out, or even an automatic weapon. I’ll just shake my finger at perpetrators, and they’ll back off from whatever felonious activity they’ve chosen.”
“Oh, you’ll have help.” Evelyn gave me a wry look. “I believe you’re assigned with Mr. Chippendale and Mr. Eugenia.”
“Wonderful,” I sighed. And I had alienated Peter, whose presence might have saved me from what threatened to be slightly worse than root-canal surgery done by a drunken dentist-in a bouncing jeep. Just when I needed a whiff of nitrous oxide.
Evelyn drove us to the faculty lot. We went to the gym, which was dripping with red-and-gold crepe paper, and glumly surveyed the battlefield. I presumed it would be strewn with bodies by midnight; all I could hope was that mine would not be included in the count.
Speakers the size of refrigerators were arranged in front of a low platform cluttered with beglittered guitars and an intricate formation of drums. The acned boys in the band huddled on one side, their eyes darting as if they anticipated attack or arrest. They had long, stringy hair and feral expressions. A droopy banner taped on the wall above them proclaimed them to be “Pout,” an ominously appropriate name. Evelyn and Sherwood wished me luck, then drifted away to their assigned posts elsewhere in the building, where they might not even be able to hear Pout’s best efforts to deafen us.
Mr. Chippendale came through the door, metal chairs under his arms. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Malloy, are you prepared for the dance?”
“Certainly. Mr. Chippendale. I’ve made a new will, consulted a neurologist about potential auditory nerve damage, and booked a private room at Happy Meadows.”
He gave me a startled look, then busied himself unfolding chairs along the wall. A grayish man with bifocals introduced himself as Erwin “Gene” Eugenia, Algebra and Trig, and took a stack of chairs to the opposite side of the vast room. Students drifted in to set up the refreshment table, all sober from the defeat at the hands (talons?) of the Starley City Bantams. I watched them carry in the punch bowl, reminding myself that I was assigned the formidable task of assuring their continued sobriety until the dance was done.