The Dirty Duck Part 22

Some giggles again, and whispers when they realized someone was out here on the walk. As matches spurted and cigarettes were being lit up in acts of bravado, one of them asked: "Who's there?"

Jury peered into the darkness of the colonnaded building, unable to see anyone or anything except the b.u.t.t ends of the cigarettes. He could make out the school uniforms of the ones who had been sitting (but who had hopped up when they saw him). They were all dressed alike, the ones he could see. As a few more came out of the darkness-curiosity having finally outweighed the fear of getting caught-he made out six or seven, a few others still stopping back there in the safer dark, and still giggling nervously.

In a tone that one of the boys probably regarded as a display of fearlessness in the face of authority, the question was repeated: "Well, who's there?"

"n.o.body," said Jury. Tiny flames spurted and they began to light up cigarettes again.

"You're not a teacher or anything, are you?" came a voice out of the darkness, suspicious.

"Good lord, no."

There was a mutual, silent turning-over of this answer. "What are you doing out here?"

"Taking a walk." He smiled into the darkness. "What are you doing out here in the bra.s.s-rubbing center?"

More giggles and a small-girl voice from the darkness replied, "There's more'n bra.s.s gets rubbed out here." From the fresh giggles, Jury imagined there was a good deal of clumsy groping going on.

"Tell us who you are, then," said a girl who Jury estimated was a year or two younger than Penny. She had stepped forth as if separating herself from her mates, who were a bit silly, when she meant business.

"n.o.body. I told you."

For some reason, she now felt it necessary to jump from the edge of the structure down to the ground and walk heavily about, trampling down the black loam where, probably, a gardener had been hard at work planting. "That's what Odysseus said."

"It is?"

"Well, you've heard of Odysseus, I expect." Her tone was condescending and also announced that if she was neglecting Shakespeare tonight, she was not neglecting the Greeks. "You know. When he was in the Cyclops' cave. It's how he got away, saying he was n.o.body."

"Maybe that's what he meant. Or Homer did."

Jury's reward for this unwanted insight was a giant sigh, as the girl tramped heavily about in this newly-budded garden and then hitched herself back up and onto the edge of the building. He could make out little of her face, except to see it was ghostly-white and heart-shaped and fringed by long hair.

He continued on his way, along the unlit path, uncertain of where it led. They would be glad to be rid of him, another adult intruding on their few stolen moments of privacy.

But when he'd got perhaps a hundred feet away he heard the voice of the girl call good-bye in a tone which rather surprised him, the tone of one who shared a secret.

Jury turned and made them a salute and called good-bye. All he saw then in the total dark was the coal-end of one cigarette as its owner inhaled before flicking it away. It made a small arc of light, and then dimmed and went out, its brightness falling from air.

end.