The Writing on the Wall A Novel - By W. D. Wetherell Page 0,26

window.

“Stay right there, we’re coming down for you!”

It was Peter and Lawrence who between them had decided it was far too nice to have class indoors. We walked downhill past the match factory which was empty and derelict, then, after passing the abandoned clothespin factory and climbing a fence or two, came at last to the railroad tracks that ran along the river.

It was breezy, the wind streaked the water, but if anything it felt even warmer than back at school. Lawrence tried catching the maple leaves as they fell but had a hard time, they swerved so at the last second. Peter tried and did much better. In a short time he had a bouquet which he handed me with a courtly flourish. He took my hand, then, acting a bit bashful, as if this were too bold of him, reached for Lawrence’s hand, too, so we walked three abreast on the bed of cinders that flanked the tracks.

We stopped where the trees opened into a meadow set high above the river’s surface. You could tell from the way the bank was worn that it was a favorite spot for picnickers and fishermen. Someone daring had shimmied up a tree and hung a hempen rope for a swing. It was a tall silver maple leaning from the bank, so the rope dangled a good way out. You could easily picture children playing on it in summer, reaching with a forked branch to tug the rope back to the bank, grabbing hold of it and laughing as they launched themselves over the water to land with a mighty splash. The end of the rope swing, the part that dangled over the river, was tied into two thick knots. Lawrence, pointing, said something strange.

“It looks like a noose, like a hangman’s noose.”

It cast a pall and he seemed to know it because right away, jumping up on a stump for a stage, he started in with his impressions of all the teachers. Peter tried not to laugh but in the end it was too much for him, especially his Miss Crabapple, and he applauded even louder than I did.

When Lawrence finished, Peter tried persuading him to go down the river bank with him to search for pike sunning in the shallows, but Lawrence was timid when it came to things like that so Peter went by himself. It was a steep, perilous climb down and Lawrence and I were certain he was going to tumble in, but at last he made it and lay there on the last narrow shelf with his arm extended out over the water as far as it would go. He was as still as a heron, concentrating, and then suddenly his hand dipped and came back out holding a silver minnow! He lifted it above his head as if it were a real trophy, then lobbed it as far out into the river as he could.

He is showing off again, I decided, and who else could that be for but me? It made me feel girlish, seeing that. With the sun shining down on him, outdoors, he gave off even more authority and strength than he did in his classroom and I wondered at myself that I had ever thought of him as homely.

After he climbed back up we lay quiet on the grass. Above us the maple leaves were layered atop each other like fans the breeze kept peeling back, so more sky became visible even in the few minutes we stared. I wondered if I should tell Peter about what the Steens had said at dinner, but they were so ridiculous, their accusations so wild and unfounded, it seemed that saying them out loud would only be making the danger more real than it actually was. In the end what did their accusations amount to? That ignorant bigots knew his name.

As beautiful as it was there, Peter had not forgotten this was supposed to be a class. From his battered army bag he took out a slim, rose-colored volume.

“A friend sent me this while I was in France. I carried it with me the whole time I was there. It became my talisman—my rabbit’s foot. There was one shell. Well, I won’t tell you what it did to us. But the first thing I did when I shook the mud off was check my pocket to see if it was still there.”

He opened the book, then hesitated. What he was going to share with