“Huh,” said Candy, not at all sure what to make of any of this now. She handed the object back to Norma, who carefully_even a little reverently_returned it to its place and slid the drawer closed. “So that and the note were all he left?” Candy asked.
“No,” said Norma. “He left something else.”
“What?”
“Look around you,” Norma replied.
Candy looked. What was there here that could have belonged to Henry Murkitt? The furniture? Surely not? The age-worn rug under her feet? Perhaps, but it was unlikely. The lamp? No. What did that leave? There weren’t any pictures on the walls, so—
“Oh, wait a minute,” she said, looking at the stains on the wall. “Not those?”
Norma just looked at her, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Those?” Candy said.
“No matter how many coats of paint the workmen put on that wall, the stains show through.”
Candy went closer to the wall, examining the marks. A part of her—the part that her morbid grandmother could take credit for—wanted to ask Norma the obvious question: how had the stains got up there? Had he shot himself, or used a razor? But there was another part that preferred not to know.
“Horrible,” she said.
“That’s what happens when people realize their lives aren’t what they dreamed they’d be,” Norma said. She glanced at her watch.
“Oh Lord, look at the time. I’ve got to get going. That’s the story of Henry Murkitt.”
“What a sad man,” Candy said.
“Well, I guess all of us are waiting for our ships to come in, one way or another,” Norma said, going to the door and letting Candy out onto the gloomy landing. “Some of us still live in hope,” she said with a half-hearted smile. “But you have to, don’t you?”
And with that she closed the door on the room where Henry Murkitt had breathed his last.
3. Doodle
Miss Schwartz, Candy’s History teacher, was not in a pleasant mood at the best of times, but today her mood was fouler than usual. As she went around the classroom, returning the project papers on Chickentown, only her few favorite students (who were usually boys) earned anything close to good marks. Everyone else was being criticized.
But nothing the rest of the class had faced compared with Miss Schwartz’s attack on Candy’s paper.
“
“Those
not
“But I was in that room in the Comfort Tree Hotel,” she said. “I saw Henry Murkitt’s sextant.”
“Are you hopelessly gullible?” said Schwartz. “Or are you just plain stupid? Every hotel has
Miss Schwartz’s upper lip began to twitch, a sure sign that she was going to start yelling soon.
“
real
There was a lot of tittering from the back of the class, where the coven of Candy’s enemies, led by Deborah Hackbarth, all sat. Miss Schwartz threw them a silencing look, which worked; but Candy knew they were smiling behind their hands, passing notes back and forth about Candy’s humiliation.
“Why can’t you be
Miss Schwartz held up the paper, so that everybody could see what an exemplary piece of work Ruth had done. “You see these graphs?” Miss Schwartz was flicking through the pages of colored graphs Ruth had thoughtfully provided as appendices to her paper. “You know what they’re about? Well, do you, Candy?”
“Let me guess,” said Candy. “Chickens?”
“Yes. Chickens. Ruth wrote about the number one industry in our community: chickens.”
“Maybe that’s because her father is the factory manager,” Candy said, throwing the perfect Miss R. Ferris a sour look. She knew—
“Who cares about chickens?” Candy said.
“Chickens are the lifeblood of this town, Candy Quackenbush. Without chickens, your father wouldn’t have a job.”
“He doesn’t have a job, Miss Schwartz,” said Deborah.
“Oh. Well—”
“He likes his beer too much.”
“All right, that’s enough Deborah,” said Miss Schwartz, sensing that things were getting out of hand. “You see how disruptive you are, Candy?”
“What did I do?” Candy protested.
“We waste far too much time on you in class. Far too much—”
She stopped speaking because her eyes had alighted on Candy’s workbook. She snatched it up off the desk. For some reason Candy had started drawing wavy patterns on the cover of her book a couple of days before, her hand simply making the marks without her mind consciously instructing it to do so. “
The interior was decorated in the same way as the cover: tightly set lines, hundreds of them, waving up and down all over the page. “It’s bad enough you bring these morbid stories of yours into school,” Miss Schwartz was saying. “Now you’re defacing school property?”
“It’s just a doodle,” Candy said.
“Good Lord, are you going crazy? There are
and
of this rubbish.” Miss Schwartz held the workbook at arm’s length as though it might infect her. “What do you think you’re doing? What
Thinking of him, she realized what she’d been drawing so obsessively in her workbook.
“It’s the sea,” she said quietly.
“It’s
“It’s the sea. I was drawing the sea.”
“Were you indeed? Well, it may look like the sea to
The laughter halted. There was a hush while one of the pens rolled to a halt. Then Miss Schwartz said: “I want you to pick all that
Candy didn’t reply, at least not at first. She remained in her seat, not moving a muscle.
“Did you
“I didn’t knock them off the desk, Miss Schwartz.”
“
?”
“I said: I didn’t knock them off the desk. You did. So I think you should pick them up.”
All the blood had drained from Miss Schwartz’s face. The only color that remained was the purple of the shadows under her eyes.
“Get up,” she said.
“Miss Schwartz?”
“You heard me. I said
right now
Unfortunately it was a subject the principal took very seriously. Only a month ago he had talked to the whole school about that very subject. There would be a policy of zero tolerance, he told everyone, toward pupils who were disrespectful to teachers. Any student who crossed the line, he’d said, between civility and rudeness of any kind could expect serious consequences. He had meant what he said. Two weeks ago he had expelled two students for what he had called “extreme discourtesy” toward a teacher.
Candy half wondered if there was still time to apologize; but she knew it was a lost cause. Miss Schwartz wanted to see Candy squirming in front of the principal, and she wasn’t going to let anything keep her from witnessing that.
”You’re still sitting down, Quackenbush,” the woman said. “What did I tell you? Well?”
“Go to the principal’s office, Miss Schwartz.”
“So move your lazy behind.”
Candy bit her tongue and got up. Her chair made an ugly squeal as she pushed it back. There was more nervous laughter from one or two places around the class, but mostly there was silence, even from the loquacious Deborah Hackbarth. Nobody wanted to draw Miss Schwartz’s venomous attention in their direction right now.
“And pick up your workbook, Quackenbush,” Miss Schwartz said. “I want you to explain your defacing of school property to the principal.”
Candy didn’t argue. She dutifully went down on her haunches and gathered up all the things that Miss Schwartz had knocked off her desk: the pencils, the pens, the workbook and the paper on Henry Murkitt.
“Give that stupid paper
“Just
Once she was outside the classroom in the eerie hush of the corridor, she felt a peculiar sense of
She was a ridiculous woman anyway, with her endless snide remarks and her ludicrous obsession with chickens.
“
The door at the end of the corridor was open. Through it she could see the sunlit yard, and beyond the yard the school gate and the street. It would be so easy, she thought, just to walk out of here right now and never have to hear Miss Schwartz pontificate
And they were
Everyone in the classes along the passage had heard the woman, Candy knew. Tomorrow she’d be the butt of every idiotic joke. Candy glanced over her shoulder. Miss Schwartz was gaining on her, her arms crossed in front of her bosom. Held captive behind them was the evidence for the prosecution: Candy’s workbook and the paper on Henry Murkitt. Poor Henry Murkitt, sitting in that cold little room in the hotel, waiting with his sextant for a ship to come and find him. Checking the stars, consulting his watch. Waiting and waiting until he could stand the wait no longer.
Candy looked away from Miss Schwartz, her gaze returning to the rectangle of brightness at the end of the corridor.
And still the lines rolled on in her mind’s eye. Rolled and broke. Rolled and broke.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Miss Schwartz demanded.
Candy’s feet knew, even if her brain was a little slow at catching up with the idea. They were taking her out of here.
“You head right back to the principal’s office!” Miss Schwartz called after her.
Candy didn’t really hear the woman’s words very clearly now. The lines in her head were making a
Out she went, with Miss Schwartz pursuing her, inventing new threats and demands to throw in Candy’s direction. Candy took no notice of them.
She stepped over the threshold and out into the bright morning.
A little portion of her mind still said:
, but the voice was too small to convince her feet.
At the threshold, she broke into a run. It took her thirty seconds to reach the school gate and get out into the street.
A few students caught sight of her as she made her departure. Those who knew her said they’d never seen Candy Quackenbush looking happier.
4. “Street Ends”
The bright rolling doodle stayed in Candy’s mind’s eye, even though her feet had obeyed its instruction and carried her out through the school gates and into the street. She briefly thought about going home, but the notion didn’t stay in her head for long. She had no desire to be back in Followell Street. Though her mom would be at work, her father would be up and about by now, and he’d want to know why she had returned from school in the middle of the morning.
So she walked in the opposite direction: down Spalding Street to the intersection with Lennox; over Lennox and on toward the Comfort Tree Hotel on Stillman Street. She had half a thought to call in at the hotel and tell Norma Lipnik exactly what had happened when she’d tried to tell the sad story of Henry Murkitt. Perhaps she could even persuade Norma to lend her the passkey so that she could go back up to Room Nineteen and look at the sextant again. Hold it in her hands and examine it; see if she got a clearer picture of poor Henry’s last hours when she did so.
But once she got to the hotel, she found the desire to see the sextant was not as important as another desire, one which she could not name or comprehend, but which kept her going, on past the hotel to the intersection of Stillman and Lincoln.