Different Seasons - Stephen King [197]
some fuckin' shoeshop in Auburn or maybe even up to Hillcrest pluckin' chickens. And that pie story will never get written down. Nothin'll get written down. 'Cause you'll just be another wiseguy with shit for brains.'
Chris Chambers was twelve when he said all that to me. But while he was saying it his face crumpled and folded into something older, oldest, ageless. He spoke tonelessly, colourlessly, but nevertheless, what he said struck terror into my bowels. It was as if he had lived that whole life already, -that life where they tell you to step right up and spin the Wheel of Fortune, and it spins so pretty and the guy steps on a pedal and it comes up double zeros, house number, everybody loses. They give you a free pass and then turn on the rain machine, pretty funny, huh, a joke even Vern Tessio could appreciate.
He grabbed my naked arm and his fingers closed tight. They dug grooves in my flesh.
They ground at the bones. His eyes were hooded and dead-so dead, man, that he might have just fallen out of his own coffin.
'I know what people think of my family in this town. I know what they think of me and what they expect. Nobody even asked me if I took the milk-money that time. I just got a three-day vacation.'
'Did you take it?' I asked. I had never asked him before, and if you had told me I ever would, I would have called you crazy. The words came out in a little dry bullet.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah, I took it.' He was silent for a moment, looking ahead at Teddy and Vern. 'You knew I took it, Teddy knew, everybody knew. Even Vern knew, I think.'
I started to deny it, and then closed my mouth. He was right. No matter what I might have said to my mother and father about how a person was supposed to be innocent until proved guilty, I had known.
'Then maybe I was sorry and tried to give it back,' Chris said.
I stared at him, my eyes widening. 'You tried to give it back!'
'Maybe, I said. Just maybe. And maybe I took it to old lady Simons and told her, and maybe the money was all there and I got a three-day vacation anyway, because the money never showed up. And maybe the next week old lady Simons had this brand-new skirt on when she came to school.'
I stared at Chris, speechless with horror. He smiled at me, but it was a crimped, terrible smile that never touched his eyes.
'Just maybe,' he said, but I remembered the new skirt-a light brown paisley, sort of full. I remembered thinking that it made old lady Simons look younger, almost pretty.
'Chris, how much was that milk-money?'
'Almost seven bucks.'
'Christ,' I whispered.
'So I just say that I stole the milk-money but then old lady Simons stole it from me. Just suppose. Then suppose I told that story. Me, Chris Chambers. Kid brother of Frank Chambers and Eyeball Chambers. You think anybody would have believed it?'
'No way,' I whispered. 'Jesus, Chris!'
He smiled his wintry, awful smile. 'And do you think that bitch would have dared try something like that if it had been one of those dootchbags from up on The View that had taken the money?'
'No,' I said.
'Yeah. If it had been one of them, Simons would have said 'kay, 'kay, we'll forget it this time, but we're gonna spank your wrist real hard and if you ever do it
again we'll have to spank both wrists. But me well, maybe she had her eye on that skirt for a long time.
Anyway, she saw her chance and she took it. I was the stupid one for even trying to give that money back. But I never thought I never thought that a teacher oh who gives a fuck, anyway? Why am I even -talkin' about it?'
He swiped an arm angrily across his eyes and I realized he was almost crying.
'Chris,' I said, 'why don't you go into the college courses? You're smart enough.'
'They decide all of that in the office. And in