"You wants, you wants," Remo said. "What do you deserveses?"
"Ah gots go school."
"School? You?"
"Assright. And ah gots go or ah gets in trouble and yo' be in trouble 'cause it's de law dat ah go school."
"Little Father," Remo asked, "what could they teach this thing in school? They've had him most of his life already and they still haven't been able to teach him English."
"Maybe it is an intelligent school system," Chiun said, "and devotes no time to the study of inferior languages."
"No," said Remo. "I can't believe that."
"Dey teach me," said Tyrone, "and ah learns. Ah speaks street English. Dat de real English before it be robbed by de white man who ruin it when he steal it from de black man."
"Where'd you hear that drivel?" Remo asked.
"Ah hears it in de school. Dey have dis man who write de book and he tell us that we talk real fine and everybody else, dey be wrong. He say we speak de real English."
"Listen to this, Chiun. You don't have to like English but it's my language. It's a shame to hear this done to it." Remo turned to Tyrone again. "This man who wrote that book about your English. Is he in your school?"
"Yeah. He de guidance counsellor at Malcolm-King-Lumumba. He one smart muvver."
"Remember what I told you last night?" Remo asked.
" 'Bout killing me?"
Remo nodded. "I haven't made up my mind yet. If I find out you're responsible for you, then you're going to vanish without leaving a spot. But if it's not your fault, then, well maybe, just maybe, you'll live. Come on. We're going to talk to your guidance counselor. On your feet, Tyrone."
"Those are the things at the ends of your legs," Chiun said.
The Malcolm-King-Lumumba School had cost nineteen million dollars when it had been built five years earlier. The building covered one square block, and the interior of the building surrounded a central court of walkways, picnic tables, and outdoor basketball backboards.
When the city had first designed the building, the nationally famous architect had called for a minimum of glasswork along the four exterior sides of the building. This would be compensated by window walls on the inside of the building, bordering the courtyard.
The community school board had attacked the plans as racist attempts to hide away black children. A public relations firm hired by the school board mounted a campaign whose theme was "What do they have to hide?" and "Bring the schools out into the light" and "Don't send our children back to the cave."
The New York City central school board surrendered to community pressure in forty-eight hours. The school's plans were redrawn. The inside of the school building still had floor-to-ceiling windows, but the perimeter of Malcolm-King-Lumumba was changed from mostly stone to mostly glass.
The first year, the cost of replacing broken glass caused by passing rock tossers was $140,000; the second year, new glass cost $231,000. In four years, the cost of windows for Malcolm-King-Lumumba exceeded one million dollars.
In the fifth year, two important things happened. The city faced a budget crunch in the schools. When the budget cut hit Lumumba High, the president of the community school board knew just where to cut expenses, because of the second important thing: his brother, having been made almost a millionaire by four years of supplying windows to the school, sold his glass business and opened a lumberyard.
Lumumba High stopped replacing glass. They boarded up all the big window openings around the four outside walls of the school with plywood. The first year's cost was $63,000.
Lumumba High was now sealed off from the outside world by a wall of stone and exterior-grade Douglas fir plywood through which not light or air or learning could penetrate.
When a member of the community school board protested about the plywood and the resultant lack of light and asked a meeting "What are they trying to hide?" and to "Let our children out of the dark," he was beaten up on his way home after the meeting. There had been no protests since that time.
When the architect who had originally designed the school drove up one day to look at it, he sat in his car for an hour weeping.
Remo deposited Tyrone Walker inside the main corridor of Malcolm-King-Lumumba School.
"Now you go to your classes," Remo said.
Tyrone nodded but looked toward the front door where a pale knife-edge of sunlight slipped in alongside one of the plywood panels.
"No, Tyrone," said Remo. "You go to your classes. If you don't and you try to get away, I'll come and find you. And you won't like that."
Tyrone nodded again, glumly. He swallowed with a gulp as if trying to devour a swollen gland in his throat.
"And don't you leave here without me," Remo said.
"What yo do?"
"I'm going to talk to some of the people here and see if it's your fault or theirs that you are what you are."
"All right, all right," said Tyrone. "Anyways, dis nice day to be in school. We gots de reading today."
"You study reading? I thought you didn't." Remo was impressed.
"Well, not dat honkey kind of shit. De teacher, she read to us."
"What's she read?"
"Outen a big book wifout de pitchers."
"Get out of here, Tyrone," Remo said.
After Tyrone left, Remo looked around for the office. Two young men who looked to be ten years older than the minimum age for quitting school walked toward him and Remo asked if they knew where the office was.
"You got a nickel, man?" said one.
"Actually, no," Remo said. "But I've got cash. Probably two thousand, three thousand dollars. I don't like to walk around broke."
"Den you gives us some bread iffen you wants de office."
"Go surround a ham hock," Remo said.
The young man backed off a step from Remo, and with a jerking movement of his hand, had a switchblade out of his pocket and aimed at Remo's belly.
"Now you gives us bread."
The other young man stood off to the side, applauding quietly, a big smile on his face.
"You know," Remo said, "school is a great learning experience."
The man with the knife looked confused. "Ah doan wanna…"
"For instance," Remo said, "you're going to learn what it feels like to have your wrist bones mashed to jelly."
The knife wavered in the hand of the young man.
Remo moved a step closer and as if responding to a dare, the youth pushed the blade forward. The first thing he heard was the click as the knife blade hit the stone floor. The next thing he heard was a series of clicks as the bones were shattering in his right wrist, in the twisting grip of the white man.
The man opened his mouth to scream, but Remo clamped a hand over his face.
"Mustn't make loud noises. You'll disrupt the little scholars at their work. Now where's the office?"
He looked at the second young man who said, "Down that corridor. First door on the right."
"Thank you," Remo said. "Nice talking to you boys."
The door to the office was solid steel without windows and Remo had to lean his weight on it before it pushed open.
Remo walked up to the long counter inside the office and waited. Finally a woman appeared and asked "Wha' yo' want?" The woman was tall and overweight, her hair a haloed mountain of frizz around her head.
An office door to Remo's left said, "Doctor Shockley, Guidance Counselor."
"I want to see him," Remo said, pointing toward the door.
"Him's busy. What yo' want see him 'bout?"
"One of your students. A Tyrone Walker."
"De police precinct be down de street. Tell dem 'bout dis Tyrone."
"I'm not here with a police problem. I want to talk about Tyrone's schoolwork."
"Who you?"
"I'm a friend of the family. Tyrone's parents are both working today and they asked me to stop by and see what I could do."