Foster said, smiling, “Well, I’m new at this, Mr. Edel. I didn’t know I was supposed to stray. Should I revise it?”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Edel said quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply that
you’re unarguably mistaken in anything you said. I don’t know why I’m fussing at you about it at all. I suppose you’ve taken a sort of engineering approach to literature, which is natural enough. Did you ever succeed in engaging your father in the project?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Edel. You can imagine.”
“He’s been away?”
“Why, no.” Foster was surprised. But didn’t his father go away now and then? He thought Foster had said—or almost said-He took the paper from him and leafed through it. “This is quite good enough for a pass, Foster. It’ll be read by somebody in the English chairman’s office, but that’s a formality. Let’s say you’ve completed your Enrichment Option.” He stuck out his hand and Foster took it warmly. “That, then, is that. Do you have to run now?”
“With all rods out,” Foster said. “I’ve got to prepare for the Math Team meet, a hundred things. Can I mail that for you?”
It was the letter to Fuqua on his desk. “Why, thanks.”
“Thank you, Mr. Edel, for the time you’ve taken with me.”
Well worth it, son, Mr. Edel thought after the door closed. There aren’t many like you. The paper was a little cold and cynical, but you’ll learn. Criticism’s heady stuff. Speaking quite objectively, you’ve done a piece thoroughly consistent with College Freshman English work, and that’s what you were supposed to do. If it helps get you into Colorado Springs, I’ve done my job.
He turned in the paper the next day to the English chairman’s office and the assistant chairman read it while he waited, mumbled “Seems quite competent” and entered a “Completed” on Foster’s grade card. He let his eyes run over the other grades and whistled. “A beaver,” he said.
“All rods out,” Mr. Edel smugly corrected him, and went to the door. A freshman girl who knew him, on messenger duty with the principal’s office, intercepted him in the corridor. The message: he would please report at once to the principal; Mrs. Giovino would be advised to take such classes as he might be obliged to miss.
“Classes?” he asked the girl, unbelievingly.
She knew nothing.
The assistant principal for teaching personnel received him at
once, alone in his two-window office. He was a gray man named Sturgis whose pride was getting to the point. “Edel,” he asked, “are you sure you’re happy here?”
Mr. Edel said, recognizing a sheet of typing on Sturgis’ desk, “May I ask how you got that letter of mine?”
“Surely. Your young friend Foster turned it in.”
“But why? Why?”
“I shall quote: 7 honestly do not believe that Foster has to lie his way through the personality profiles like the rest of us mortals.’ If you believed this, Edel, why did you counsel him to lie? Why did you show him this letter as proof that you lied yourself?”
“Counsel him to lie? I never. I never.”
His stammering was guilt; his sweating was guilt. Sturgis pitied him and shook his head. “He kept a little record,” Sturgis said. “Ha, a ‘log’ he called it—he’s quite space-minded; did you know?”
“I know. I demand a hearing, goddammit!”
Sturgis was surprised. “Oh, you’ll get a hearing, Edel. We always give hearings; you know that.”
“I know that. Can I get back to my classes now?”
“Better not. If you’re not happy here . . .”
Mr. Edel and Foster met that afternoon in the soda shop two blocks from the school. Mr. Edel had been waiting for him, and Foster saw the teacher staring at him from a booth. He excused himself politely from the Math Team crowd around him and joined Mr. Edel.
“I feel I owe you an explanation, sir,” Foster said.
“I agree. How could you—why—?”
Foster said apologetically, “They like you to be a little ruthless at the Academy. This will stand out on my record as a sign of moral fiber. No, Mr. Edel, don’t try to hit me. It’ll make things look that much worse at the hearing. Goodbye, sir.”