Chapter 21 — Crew
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nyone who thought Billy Edwards was enduring an unhappy winter at Kennebec Academy would have been far wide of the mark. Edwards, Cluett, Henry Phillips, Alec Horton, Tim Feineman, Geordie Melton, Butch Hummelman and a shifting constellation of others took their classes as they came and dropped them at the bell. They played pick-up hockey on the pond, threw snowballs, chased each other through the halls, rough-housed in the Common Room, played video games, skied stiff-legged down the hill behind the gym, read comic books and talked and talked. With Geordie’s father’s shotgun they murdered a rabbit and tried to cook it in the wet woods. They devoured the remains partly steamed, partly smoked, partly burned and mostly raw. They complained loudly about the school food, declared it unfit for human consumption, but never missed a meal and left on the plates not enough to bait a hook. They perpetrated on the faculty the age-old tricks involving water, chalk in the erasers, pencil sharpener shavings in the window shades, a strategically placed alarm clock. They put a live mouse in Alice’s desk drawer, but the mouse escaped before she opened the drawer. A grand plan for introducing a stuffed skunk at a dance was aborted by an alert chaperone. They tolerated the academic life, but occasionally a spark caught tinder. Alec discovered chemistry, generated oxygen supervised from afar by Mr. Colburn, and burned a wad of steel wool to the delight of the observers. An experiment with aluminum powder, ferric oxide and magnesium was halted just short of an incendiary bomb. Henry Phillips liked algebra, really understood it, and devised horrible word problems for Mr. Marvin. Mr. Marvin caught Billy’s attention by requiring him to come regularly for extra help in math. He led Billy slowly and logically through the first steps in algebra. Billy seemed to understand it but quickly forgot what he had learned the week before. The relationships of numerator to denominator, term to factor, and one side of an equation to another could not compete with Kipling. The compelling rhythms of the romantic poetry and the fast-moving sympathetic short stories held him in the library for hours. For the most part the older boys paid little attention to the ninth graders, but the dark days of winter roused a few sadistic natures. It suddenly became very funny for no discernible reason for one to ask another a question and on getting the answer to intone in loud and scornful tones, “Cut the Crap” and knuckle the victim twice on the muscle of the upper arm. Many ninth graders bore painful bruises. One night after study hall Walter Edgehill on a routine patrol of his upstairs hall found Butch leaning over a washbasin coughing, blowing his nose, wiping his eyes in obvious distress and trying not to cry. “What in the world happened to you, Butch?” “They gave me a whirly.” “What’s a whirly?” “They put your head in the pot and flush.” Walter, outraged, burst into the hall, opened doors, conducted an inquisition. At length he tracked down the perpetrators, who declared that Butch was a little wise-ass and asked for all that he got. On being asked for the fiftieth time to “Cut the Crap,” Butch had answered,” And leave you headless, craphead?” and ran. He was caught at the dead end of the hall and whirlied. However, the knuckle on the muscle went on. “What day is it?” “Tuesday.” “It is not. It’s February 3! Two for lying!” Two for laughing, two for wearing mittens, two for asking why, two for nothing. Two more for nothing. 92
