[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Page 28
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the noise.
Sam slumped in his chair. "This is it," he told Phil as everyone raved about
Simon's latest suggestion. "We are actually witnessing the birth of a stupid,
impulsive, harebrained idea."
Phil was on his feet right at Simon's side. "We need stakes to use as fence
posts!" he called out. "As many as you can get! They don't have to be
beautiful; they just have to be stakes! Raid the school! Raid the DeWitt
Plaza! Your house! Your neighbor's house! And rope  bring twine, string,
clothesline, cord  all you can get!"
There was a mad scuffle as the students all scattered in search of fencing
materials.
By seven-thirty that night, the fence was up. It wasn't pretty, but the land
now fulfilled all the legal requirements of a fenced-in area.
"This is a fence like Schuyler's Creek was a stream," Sam pointed out once the
line of fencing had started to grow.
"Exactly," said Phil, pounding a length of discarded bannister into the ground
with a heavy hammer. The enterprise had started immediately after the meeting
broke up. While the students were combing Greenbush and surrounding areas,
Simon, Phil, and Sam trekked out to the land, armed with a surveyor's report,
to mark off the exact perimeters of Lot 1346B. They actually found old stakes
and official town markers, most of them buried or rotted away, but all of them
a welcome
confirmation of their own measurements. If Inter-flux had taken the time to
look at the area at some point in the last thirty years, Simon noted with
satisfaction, they would have seen the markers, realized the situation, and
avoided what he hoped to turn into a real problem.
The three finished the land survey in forty-five minutes, Simon with
determination, Phil with clean-cut enjoyment, and Sam with continuous warnings
about the futility of the exercise. Fighting the expansion, he pointed out,
was only slightly easier than halting the arms race, outlawing chocolate, or
slicing off the Himalayas and relocating them in downtown Baltimore.
He had to keep his opinions to himself once the students began at arrive laden
with the building materials, ready and eager to participate in "the only
decent program this school has ever come up with." Even Sam knew better than
to demoralize the troops at the beginning of the war.
The fence required more than two hundred stakes, roped together with
everything from fishing line to grocery string. Even then there was a
multitude of material left over.
"You'd better save it, just in case," advised Dave Roper, who was emerging as
the liaison between the workers and the Antiflux top brass.
"Why?" asked Simon.
"Well, you never know. We could buy more land."
"But there is no more land."
"Still, it could come in handy. If another lot comes open suddenly, we won't
be caught offguard."
It was finally agreed that the extra materials would be heaped at the very
rear of the property.
When the fence was finished and the last post an old broken hockey stick, had
been connected to the first, a rotted two-by-four, by means of a few old
bicycle chains, the crew of one hundred stood back to survey the finished
product.
"It looks too naked," Dave said, reporting the consensus of the masses. "The
Interflux bulldozers might not pay any attention to it at all and just run
right through it. It's too  you know  in substantial."
It was then time for Phil Baldwin to add his bit of creativity to the project.
With Phil in the lead shouting encouragement, the group stampeded back to the
Nassau Arts building, raided the paper supply storeroom, and set to work
lettering signs to be placed at ten-foot intervals around the perimeter. These
Page 29
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
read:
NO TRESPASSING
PROPERTY OF ANTIFLUX
A BAD NEIGHBOR
Well pleased with themselves, Antiflux went home.
***
The next day, Simon found himself the object of much attention as word of
Antiflux spread through Nassau Arts. Countless times, students who had been
present on Wednesday stopped him in the hall to introduce him to their
friends. "Hey, this is the guy I was just telling you about," they would
say-"the one who's giving it to Interflux." Then Simon would be congratulated
all around, praised to the
skies, and offered all the help he might need.
Sam and Phil were receiving some of the sametment, as was, ironically, Wendy
Orr. As Stu-
dent Council president, it was assumed that she was an important factor in
Antiflux, which, in a way she was, since yesterday's meeting had really
started out as a ploy to keep her from shooting Simon down in disgrace.
According to reports, she was acting the part pretty well, smiling in all the
right places, and making sure to refer any questions to Simon. A few times,
Simon experimented with actually approaching Wendy, but every time he got
within about twenty feet, the sparks from her eyes would singe his confidence,
and he would retreat. He may have been director of the Nassau Arts Program
Board, and the father of Antiflux, but to Wendy he was still the sleazebag who
cleaned out her party fund.
That week, Emile Querada's elite painting seminar hit its stride, and the
first few finished pieces of work were ready for class presentation and
analysis. Simon was having a little trouble dealing with his newfound respect
for Querada. He had been charmed by the book, but the fact remained that Emile
Querada was an escapee from a rubber room with a definite tendency towards
sadism.
"Miss Dixon's 'Mother and Child' brings to mind a story you should all hear.
When I was in Paris, I was walking down the street, and I came upon a painting
very much like this one in an art shop window. Like Miss Dixon's work, it was
very well done. The brushwork was good, and the colors were very real. So I
asked myself, 'Querada, why do you detest this picture so violently that you
would like to destroy it?" 'And I answered myself, 'Five minutes in the
company of these persons would be like a hundred thousand years in purgatory!'
Look at those faces! There's nothing there! These aren't people!" "That's a
picture of my sister and her new baby," said Laura, her calm unruffled.
Querada leaped up so high that his head dislodged a piece of acoustic ceiling
tile. "Reality is no excuse for a picture!"
Sam leaned over to Simon. "When he hits the ceiling, he really hits the
ceiling."
Now Querada was in the middle of the class, eyes closed, long arms crossed,
hands gripping his shoulders. "When I look at that painting, I have a vision.
I see the creep from Albany winning the Vishnik Prize. I see the creep's
teacher, also a creep  how happy he looks. Ah! I see Querada  he doesn't
look happy at all. I see the judges yawning at your sister and her new baby."
Then he broke into a tirade about the Vishnik Prize, assured all twelve
students that they had no chance of winning it, predicted a Vishnik dynasty
for Albany, and very nearly burst into tears. Then he peered into each face
individually, pleading, "Somebody please paint something that will make this
awful vision go away!"
Wordlessly, he handed back Laura's picture, and Laura accepted it, also
Page 30
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
wordlessly.
Phil rushed into the cafeteria in a great state of agitation. Spying Simon and
Sam, he dashed over, grabbed Sam's drink, and drained it in one gulp. Cutting
off Sam's cry of protest, he took a deep breath and launched into his tale of
"I can't believe it! I just can't believe it! Yesterday everything was so
great, and today  this! I've been asked to leave the Poetry Department! In
fact, they insist! Man, T.C. just moved out of my house the day before
yesterday, and I'm back in the hot seat again!"
"What happened?" Simon asked.
Phil shook his head. "I really thought it would take them longer than this to
find out I have no talent for poetry. But just because of one little line  " [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]