“Did you hear a sort of—noise? Trampling sort of far off noise?” She mentioned, casually.
“Just changing classes,” he said to her, just as casually. Marjorie sighed, before the mirror. Her eye caught Tiger’s, in the mirror. She smiled, warmly.
“The zip?” Tiger murmured.
“Oh gosh, yeh, Tiger—honey—”
And she skipped over to him, warm, lovely, and stood before him, looking up at him, wrinkling her nose in the cutest way imaginable, at him.
“Go then.”
“When," she said, reaching down and taking hold of the zipper-upper, and tugging just a little bit, and then changing her mind, slipping her shapely hand inside, tenderly.
“Wuh uh—” Tiger said.
“Tiger honey—"
“Not that way—”
“Let me honey—”
“Not today—”
“Oh let me play—•**
“Up, honey—”
“Honey honey—”
“You little honey—”
“I’m not little—”
“We have work to do.”
“Don’t we—”
“C’mon, honey,” Tiger spoke firmly.
She looked hard at him. She pouted at him. She withdrew her hand, slowly, from the organ.
“You could go again,” she murmured, “Real easy ”
“Not today,” he reiterated.
“Oh, Honey!” She pouted at him.
“The zip,” he murmured, “Honey.”
She zipped him up, slowly.
He was dressed.
He grinned at her.
“There,” he said, touching her face, passing his hand gently along the side of that face, as she continued looking up at him, sulking, but smiling, a little bit too, definitely.
“Now where were we?” He said, turning, surveying his desk, “Just where were we?” He said again, almost to himself, heading toward his desk.
Ponce was unhappy. He was ashamed of that long, screaming run, ashamed of a lot of things. He was that way, he couldn’t help it. He only wondered, would he have bolted out of there and screamed that way if it had been anyone but Mr. Mummer? Because, no doubt of it, the more he thought of it, that’s the way he was beginning to see it. True enough, he had planned it, even while the door was just opening, before he could see who it was there opening it. But would he have done it, say, if Tiger had appeared, or Mr. Crispwell—or—anybody—instead of Mummer? Ponce pondered, miserable. More and more, he thought that must be it. Because Muuuner was something, unquestionably. And had been more or less like a final spur, guaranteeing the dash, without a doubt of it. Ponce remembered, sinking lower. That day last term, in the lavatory, when he had discovered something about Mummer that had jolted him, and appalled him: the man had propositioned him, and in such a cunning way Ponce hadn’t realized it until almost too late. Almost, though. For he had realized, finally, and had promptly walked out of there, undefiled. He thought and thought about that, down in the dumps. He hadn’t mentioned it to anybody, for he had never heard anything funny about Mummer before, outside of the bug he had for Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning, he was a real fanatic on that, which Ponce (and Tiger too) were thoroughly against. And he had wondered: Why me? What was so special about me? Why had he picked on him? That had worried and worried Ponce, but he had never mentioned it to anybody, not even Tiger, for he was just too ashamed of it, and in time he had more or less forgotten about it, though he steered clear of Mummer by a mile at least, except for that Trig class of course, and in any event hadn’t ever bumped into him in the lavatory again—up to now, that is. That character. What a character. He almost wished he had killed him, or broken a few bones, his skull for
example, at least. Now what should he do about him? Tell the Police about him? Tell someone about him? What if he were the one? Couldn’t a pervert like that—be just the one? What a sly one! Ponce pondered, thinking hard over it, highly disturbed by it, all of it. Once again he was foxed by the thought: Was it possible no one, nobody at all, not even Tiger, knew about him? He just hadn’t heard anything at all like that about him. Certainly, you could never know it looking at him! And he was married, with kids, to boot! Why me? Ponce was foxed, alright, and worried again, alright, all over again, but now, here, doubly so. For he felt a pressing duty to tell somebody. If only he had once heard something, just a little something, about the
man, from somebody! He wouldn’t hesitate to spill the
beans. To Tiger, first of all, preferably. Ponce was up the creek. And here he was now, in Mr. Proffer’s office, with Captain Surcher, of the State Police, who had led him there from the lavatory, not too long ago in fact. He had
respect for Surcher, he was serious, obviously intelligent,
a tall, well-constructed policeman. In plain clothes, to boot. Not at all like that buffoon Poldaski. Jesus! Though Ponce couldn’t help grinning, thinking of him. Ponce was answering Surcher's questions. The Captain spoke in a mild voice to him, in fact, his entire manner was mild, surprisingly enough—more like Tiger’s, Ponce suddenly was aware, liking him even more. The questions were many and varied, making him forget, for the moment, the worrying thing on his mind, and what to do with it, finally. No matter the Captain’s manner, Ponce was unhappy though. Outside the private office, in Miss Craymire’s territory. Chief Poldaski, a number of uniformed Troopers, Mr. Proffer, and an assorted collection of others stood around, talked, and otherwise busied themselves, as best they could, under the circumstances. The phone kept ringing. Was Proffer himself doing the answering? Ponce wondered. Miss Craymire herself had disappeared. In fact, at this moment, she was stretched out on the very comfortable bed of the School Dispensary, ministered to by the highly competent School Nurse, that well-rounded personality, Mrs. Mortlake. Though Ponce, of course, didn’t know it Captain Surcher was writing in his notebook, and Ponce, having just finished answering his thirty-sixth intelligent question at least, watched him doing so. He wondered how long he would continue doing so. The Captain certainly knew what he was doing, Ponce never doubted that Shrewd observer and interpreter of human nature that he was. even at this tender age. Ponce knew that. He had at once known that. Should he tell him? What if Mummer denied it? What if he had been the only one ever propositioned by him? And what if, on top of that, he turned out to have no connection at all with this—wouldn’t he be a prize duck! Wouldn’t he! Ponce kept quiet, reserving the matter for further pondering and profound thought over, on his own.
“Alright, Ponce,” he heard the Captain say, “I think that just about answers all the questions 1 have for you—anyhow, I can’t think of any more,” he paused, looking understanding^ at the boy, Ponce appreciating it, “How do you feel?” He was asked. “I’m sorry I had to take all this time with you, maybe you’ll understand someday though. That must have been some shock running into a thing like that. I know—I remember the first time I ever saw something like that—” He paused, a moment, “And I was a lot older than you—already a Trooper in fact. And I can tell you—I know how I felt, let me tell you. How are you?"
“Uh—” replied Ponce, “Not too bad, Captain.”
Surcher ncxided, slightly. “Well, I think you ought to go home maybe, and take it easy for a while. I guess that’s one thing though you’re not going to find all that easy to do—everybody’s going to have a million questions for you —I know. Get set for that, Ponce.”
“What should I tell them?” the lad inquired, suddenly aware of that fact. And dreading them.
Surcher shrugged, “You can’t get away from them.”
“It’s o.k. if I tell them?” He suddenly said—regretting it.
“What, Ponce?” The Captain asked him.