The Grounding of Group 6 Page 4

  Nat tried to keep his face the way it was. Maybe add a friendly little grin. “You’ve got a compass.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Is that all right? I didn’t mean—you know—to be, like, wise, or anything.”

  “Sure,” he said. “That’s fine. I’m glad that you know how to use the thing.”

  “Somewhat,” she said. “I’m not real good. I need a lot of practice.”

  “Right,” said Nat. “Anyway, what I’ve been thinking is, tomorrow maybe we could spend the day on something that I’d sort of hoped to do before you even got here. That’s build another room onto the Lodge.” Every face lit up, without exception. “I think I’ve got a rough idea of how we ought to go about it. It’d only be a small one, just enough to have two sets of bunks in …”

  He got them all involved in planning what they’d do: how they’d cut right through the west-side wall and have a door where now there was a window. The window they could put back in the new addition, so there would be some light in it, and so on.

  The Group became excited; another skill, thought Coke. Even Sara hadn’t done this kind of thing before. And only Sara noticed that she’d never got an answer to her question: how come they had headed north to end up south of where they’d started from?

  “You met Nathaniel Rittenhouse, I think,” said Dr. Simms to Mrs. Ripple.

  “I did,” said Mrs. Ripple. “Slovenly. A callow youth, was my impression. I feel so sorry for the family.” Mrs. Ripple was a stocky little woman, wearing good thick Carhart jeans, of russet brown, and boots from L.L. Bean. Her yellow oxford shirt, plain collar, also came from Bean’s; she had her circle pin on it, as usual. Mrs. Ripple learned that there was such a thing as standards at the age of reason—which was four, according to her mother—and she had then lived up to them for fifty-seven years. Even if she did say so.

  “I might have seen him, too,” said Homer Cone, trying to remember if he knew what “callow” meant. Homer Cone taught mathematics when he wasn’t planning parties, which he loved. He was a round-headed man who could draw a close-to-perfect freehand circle on the blackboard. His favorite other sports were shooting pool and bowling. “Sort of pale, ‘m I right? Looks like he crawled out from under a rock someplace?”

  Doctor said, “Not really, no. To give the devil his due—doo-wah—he looks like quite a healthy specimen. Of haystack.” Doctor chuckled. “Oh, my, yes. Yes, indeed. The hair right down to here, the little scraggly beard.” His fine white hands moved all around his face in flowing gestures. “He came up on the bus with them, and he was camping in the woods someplace all summer. ‘Summer—oh, Indian summer …,’ ” Doctor sang.

  “I never seen him, I can tell you that much,” said the other person in the room. Leviticus Welch had already lost more teeth than Doctor and Mrs. Ripple and Homer Cone put together, although his age (now twenty-one) was only an eighth of theirs. “Sounds like a gah-damn hippie to me,” he said. He was one of the fairly small number of people from around there who worked for the school (even the kitchen help came from out of state, “so’s they could make those keeshes that the kids all eat”) and the only one Doctor had ever taken a shine to, it seemed like. Before Leviticus worked for the school, he’d worked at other odd jobs and for the “Yew-nited States Army,” but after a while he hadn’t seen any more sense in being in the army, and sitting down in Georgia, than there’d be in working as a travel agent in a place like Sing-Sing prison. As far as Levi Welch was concerned, working at Coldbrook was a job a man could do, like lots of other jobs. Those people didn’t bother him, and he didn’t bother them. They were all supposed to have been to college, and Jesus, some of them was smart, but lots of them didn’t have any more sense than a three-year-old, and not to mention memory. Doctor liked to tell the kids that “Mr. Welch, here, is a real Maine guide,” and Homer, there, could never seem to learn to say his name right: Lee-vie. What he’d always say was “Leevee.”

  “You can’t judge a book by its cover, Levy,” Homer Cone advised him now. “Do you believe the world is flat, deep down? I bet you do. Or did until you saw those pictures from the moon? ‘m I right? Ah-ha—you see that, Doctor? I got him that time, didn’t I?”

  Levi Welch had had to smile; that was the truth. Homer Cone reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. He’d noticed Levi hated to be touched, so he would often dig him in the ribs, or throw an arm around his neck, or slap him on the ass good-naturedly.

  Levi thought that Homer was a mite peculiar, maybe, but there was no getting away from the fact that he was smart—the way he’d almost read a fellow’s mind. But, on the other hand, he had no sense, and didn’t know a sugar maple from a beech, or care, and couldn’t find his cock in his pants on a cloudy day. Yet he could shoot a .30-.30 rifle just about as good as anyone he’d ever seen, except old Miz Ripple there.

  “Well, never mind all that,” said Doctor. “The thing that matters is that Mrs. Ripple knows young Rittenhouse by sight, so there’ll be no mistake. What he’s agreed to do is take care of… things, on Monday morning, after which he’ll ‘disappear.’ ” Doctor had a taste for intrigue and elaboration, little games and ironies. He smiled and looked from face to face.

  “The children will be back of North Egg Mountain,” he went on, “where all the boulders are, beside the brook. Levi knows the place, I’m sure.” The young man nodded. He’d taken out his monster Bowie knife and laid it on his thigh. Levi’s hat, which rested on the other knee, and shirt and pants, were all of patterned camouflage material. It made a person blend in anywhere. “I said good-bye to Rittenhouse,” said Doctor. “He understood he’s not to come back here. He knows the country. How will he proceed?”

  Doctor, Homer Cone, and Mrs. Ripple looked at Levi Welch.

  “You mean, which way’ll he go?” Levi screwed his mouth around and, picking up his knife, he put the point of it against his head and scratched. A flake or two of dandruff fell to his shoulder, there to disappear. There was only one possible way for a fellow to go, if he had any sense at all, but there wasn’t any point in saying that, or answering too quickly.

  “Well, you could go any way, o’ course,” he said at last. “But if it was me, the chances are I’d head upstream a little ways to where that old bridge used to go, then cross on over, take that logging road up there along where Davis used to sugar—that’s all good road in there—and come on out by Hilton Hollow, zip right up to town, and catch a bus to Mexico or somewheres.”

  “And would there be a place along that route where all of you could…meet him, easily enough?” asked Doctor. Homer Cone and Mrs. Ripple both leaned forward very slightly in their chairs.

  “I’ve thought on that already,” Levi Welch replied. “An’ look …” He took the knife and ran the point of it along a pants leg, knee to thigh; a stout green worsted pants leg, Homer Cone’s. “Let’s say this here’s the stream, and here’s where that old bridge was…” He tapped the knife point high on Homer’s thigh. “Well, right up here, you get some scrubby spruces”—he quick-like set the knife on Homer’s fly—“with ledge rock right behind them …” It climbed to Homer’s belt. “Well, we could hunker down right here in them small spruces…” The knife point started down again.

  Homer cracked. He crossed the leg that had been nearest Levi Welch, which ruined Levi’s landscape and made him pull the knife away. Homer tried to make it seem that he was merely shifting in his chair: he leaned on his left arm and got his weight on his left hip. But Levi knew he’d won, and gotten even for that dig about him thinking that the world was flat. And Homer Cone knew Levi knew. He wished he could have farted at him then, just the way a boy could in his eighth grade class. Bip Barkley was his name, and he could fart the way some other kids could burp, just when he wanted to. His family had moved to Homer’s town that year from God-knows-where, and moved away the next, to Seekonk, or someplace like that.

  “I think that all sounds fine,” said Mrs. Ripple. Levi Welch, in her opinion, was nothing but a skinny sc
um-squat, while Homer Cone was little better than a poop-splash. Mrs. Ripple never yet had said a dirty word. To use profanity, she’d learned, was to be childish and disgusting. Thinking was an adult occupation. “But let me understand about the children in Group Six.” She shook her head. “Group Six. I always feel so sorry for the families. Nathaniel Rittenhouse will do as he’s been…asked to do, we must presume. What then? From what you have described, I have a picture of a rather trackless section of the woods. I wouldn’t want some coy-dogs finding them, or bobcats, either. And neither, I am sure, would Doctor.” She turned toward that small, antiseptic person. “Believe me, Doctor, I’m not trying to make waves…but it seems to me we have a duty to the families to see—”

  “‘See, see, rider, see what you done done …,’ ” sang Doctor suddenly. “Indeed, dear Mrs. Ripple,” he went on, “you make a most important point. But one I have anticipated. My thought is this: that quick as Rittenhouse is…well, seen off, then Levi here, and Homer-—and yourself—might go on back to camp with him. As we’ve been told, it isn’t any way at all. Then Levi here could hike on back to school and get the Rover, and four-wheel-drive back up the logging road to where the old bridge was. It shouldn’t take that long to load ‘em in and zip right back to you-know-where. Drop ‘em in the Letter Box, let’s say, and bingo-Bridget, we’re all done!” He beamed around the room. “All six of them are grounded, neatly and completely. Levi, here, can pick up all their gear on Tuesday. I think it’s Goodwill’s turn, way down in Albany, this time. ‘Time after time, dah-dah-dah-dah that I’m …,’ ” sang Doctor.

  Mrs. Ripple nodded, clasped her hands together. She could hardly wait for Monday dawn. Good works had such a domino effect, she’d always noticed.

  “I can’t believe what time I went to bed last night,” said Marigold at breakfast Sunday morning. “And now just look at me. I mean, staying up to watch the sun rise, that’s one thing. Getting up to watch it is another.” She put both fists up to her temples. “Quick. Someone get a cow. I think I want to milk. Oh, Coke”—she seized and shook his arm—“what’s happening to me?”

  The hike the day before had tired everybody out, and they had all slept well. Except for Nat and Sara, they were all completely lost, but none of them was scared. It seemed, that morning, that they’d known each other much, much longer than they had.

  They started working shortly after sunup. Nat felt that they could risk the chain-saw noise, considering the hour, and the distance from the school, and the fact that there were two large hills between them. And he was fast. Marigold was right; he could have taught a class in Chain Saw I, or II, or III. By lunch the logs that made the walls were notched and dropped in place, and people had the spaces in between them mostly chinked with mud and moss, inside and out. That afternoon they got the window in and laid the roof, and took two double-decker bunks apart and reassembled them.

  But then they thought that it would make more sense to have one double-decker and a “studio couch” in each room. “Whew,” said Coke, “at first I was afraid I’d have to sleep—heh-heh—with them.” He wrinkled up his nose and aimed it at the girls, who held their own and chorused retching sounds.

  When the job was finally finished and admired, everyone was hot and smeared with spruce gum. Marigold asked Nat if he would take a walk with “our two mascots,” so the women could avail themselves of what she called the “out-of-order hot tub.”

  “It’s really cold,” said Nat.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” said Marigold, “we frontier women have a taste for hardship. It was forty-three below the day that I had baby Zeke, camped out beside the Snake. Worst part was I had to break the ice to do a wash right after.”

  They heard the “frontier women” squealing in the water, from just around the knob, behind the spruce grove, but when they made their way back to the Lodge, they were informed that the water was both “bracing” and “refreshing.”

  “Well, I guess it’s our turn,” Sully said.

  “Oh, sure, go on,” said Marigold, not moving. “We don’t mind.”

  “Well, in that case “ Coke undid his belt as he said that. Sara and Ludi laughed, but quickly got up as well. Marigold stayed planted, sitting, smiling up at him.

  “Go on,” she said. Coke unbuttoned his top trouser button, took ahold the zipper tab.

  Nat watched the duel. Their smiles were frozen now, no fun at all. Man and woman overboard.

  “Go-wan yourself,” he said to Marigold. “Go-way. What sort of boys do you think we are?” He made a face. “Momma don’ ’low no voyeur-action here.” Marigold got up and brushed her seat off; it was play again.

  “That’s sexist,” Ludi said to Nat. “We’re not voyeurs; we’re voueuses, feminine gender. We’ll thank you to address us properly, henceforth.”

  “I’ve never been so offended in my life,” said Sara.

  “That’s right. Enjoy your wallow, M.C.P.’s,” said Marigold.

  And away they went, tossing drops of water off their hair and sniffing.

  That night, before they went to bed, Coke realized that he felt good enough to ask a little bit about the future. He had washed the supper dishes by himself, and now he knew that he could do it. Someone else could do it next time. Maybe he’d help, and maybe not.

  “So what’s the story with this place, exactly?” he began. They had a little fire going. He aimed the words at Nat. “I mean, I think I understand what’s happening right now. We’re meant to meet some other people, learn to get along with everyone, even if they’re gross or perverts”—Marigold stuck out her tongue at him—“and maybe even do a job together.” His eyes flicked up toward the Lodge again; seemed to everyone the new addition really made a difference in the place. “But still,” Coke said, “I’m not sure I get what happens when we go on back to school. I mean, I read about the classes and that stuff in the catalogue. But then there was this other crap—about the school’s philosophy, and making ‘men and women of the future,’ whatever that means. And how you—that’s us—are meant to set some goals with our advisor? Well, who’s our advisor? You?”

  “Um,” said Nat. “I guess I am.”

  “Well, what sort of goals are they talking about? I mean, there was some stuff in there about Coldbrook giving us the tools to operate our lives. Like what? And who really decides what my goals are?”

  “I’m not completely sure myself,” Nat said. “But what I understand is Coldbrook promises your parents—or whoever pays the bills—that it’ll teach you…attitudes that they—your parents and the school, that is—feel will get you ready for…the world.” He shook his head and picked a pebble from the lug sole of his boot.

  “Which could be college or anything, right?” said Sara.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Nat replied. “I guess the deal is, Coldbrook says they’re going to treat you like an adult and see that you turn into one.”

  “Wait a minute,” Coke said. “What all this sounds like to me is that the school’s already decided what my goals are, right? Christ, if there’s one thing my old man despises, it’s my attitude. That’s just the word he uses, all the time.”

  “But doesn’t every school believe it knows what’s best for all the kids that go there?” Sully asked.

  “Sure they do,” said Marigold. “So first you try to find out what the story is, wherever you end up. That’s what Coke is asking, right? What are they going to lay on us, down there? And I’d like to know—or what? What, happens if you don’t? Or can’t? Or won’t?” She turned to Nat. “Up here, it’s like you’re grounded to begin with—so what else is there? Tell us, Great White Father. Give us your advisories.”

  “I’m just not sure,” Nat said. “No one’s told me what happens to people if they don’t. Seems like they’re pretty sure that everybody will.” Except for Group 6, of course.

  “Well, maybe they do,” said Sara. “When I read about that goals business, and meeting my advisor every week, I kind of figured that was just to keep me
up-to-date on where I stand.” That didn’t sound too bad to her at all.

  “I can’t wait for all that stuff to start,” said Sully. He turned to Nat. “Doing this is neat, don’t get me wrong. I love it here. But I’m like you, I think,” he said to Sara. “I really want to get reports and all of that. I’ve got a lot to prove,” he said to Coke.

  “Yeah, I know but…,” Coke began. And then he shook his head. All that anyone could do was wait and see.

  “Nat,” said Ludi.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I’ve been thinking of your signs up there.” She nodded toward the Lodge.

  “Well, what about them?”

  “Is that the sort of stuff that you believe?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I mean, deep-down—no shit?” She sounded serious.

  “I do,” Nat said.

  “O.K.,” said Ludi, and she smiled at him. “I think we’ve got the right advisor.”

  That made him nervous. He gave her one quick, semigrateful smile and looked away.

  Shortly after that, they went up to their bunks. The girls had chosen the new wing as their domain, even though the food and stove were elsewhere.

  Coke named their place “The Ladies Room.”

  3

  Sully wasn’t anything like Coke: his hair had never been a problem, and neither had his shirttail coming out. Adults never hassled him about the way he looked at all; if anything, the opposite. In other words, they called him “cute,” meaning (Sully learned) a lot of very strange and adult things by that unwelcome adjective. To them, he looked like Huckleberry Finn, brought up to date, with money—the sort of kid they’d like their kid to play with (for a change). The one that all the parents hoped they’d got, when they heard, “Well, now, it’s a boy.”