“Huh,” said Candy, not at all sure what to make of any of this now. She handed the object back to Norma, who carefully_even a little reverently_returned it to its place and slid the drawer closed. “So that and the note were all he left?” Candy asked.
“No,” said Norma. “He left something else.”
“What?”
“Look around you,” Norma replied.
Candy looked. What was there here that could have belonged to Henry Murkitt? The furniture? Surely not? The age-worn rug under her feet? Perhaps, but it was unlikely. The lamp? No. What did that leave? There weren’t any pictures on the walls, so—
“Oh, wait a minute,” she said, looking at the stains on the wall. “Not those?”
Norma just looked at her, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Those?” Candy said.
“No matter how many coats of paint the workmen put on that wall, the stains show through.”
Candy went closer to the wall, examining the marks. A part of her—the part that her morbid grandmother could take credit for—wanted to ask Norma the obvious question: how had the stains got up there? Had he shot himself, or used a razor? But there was another part that preferred not to know.
“Horrible,” she said.
“That’s what happens when people realize their lives aren’t what they dreamed they’d be,” Norma said. She glanced at her watch.
“Oh Lord, look at the time. I’ve got to get going. That’s the story of Henry Murkitt.”
“What a sad man,” Candy said.
“Well, I guess all of us are waiting for our ships to come in, one way or another,” Norma said, going to the door and letting Candy out onto the gloomy landing. “Some of us still live in hope,” she said with a half-hearted smile. “But you have to, don’t you?”
And with that she closed the door on the room where Henry Murkitt had breathed his last.
3. Doodle
Miss Schwartz, Candy’s History teacher, was not in a pleasant mood at the best of times, but today her mood was fouler than usual. As she went around the classroom, returning the project papers on Chickentown, only her few favorite students (who were usually boys) earned anything close to good marks. Everyone else was being criticized.
But nothing the rest of the class had faced compared with Miss Schwartz’s attack on Candy’s paper.
“
“Those
not
“But I was in that room in the Comfort Tree Hotel,” she said. “I saw Henry Murkitt’s sextant.”
“Are you hopelessly gullible?” said Schwartz. “Or are you just plain stupid? Every hotel has
Miss Schwartz’s upper lip began to twitch, a sure sign that she was going to start yelling soon.
“
real
There was a lot of tittering from the back of the class, where the coven of Candy’s enemies, led by Deborah Hackbarth, all sat. Miss Schwartz threw them a silencing look, which worked; but Candy knew they were smiling behind their hands, passing notes back and forth about Candy’s humiliation.
“Why can’t you be
Miss Schwartz held up the paper, so that everybody could see what an exemplary piece of work Ruth had done. “You see these graphs?” Miss Schwartz was flicking through the pages of colored graphs Ruth had thoughtfully provided as appendices to her paper. “You know what they’re about? Well, do you, Candy?”
“Let me guess,” said Candy. “Chickens?”
“Yes. Chickens. Ruth wrote about the number one industry in our community: chickens.”
“Maybe that’s because her father is the factory manager,” Candy said, throwing the perfect Miss R. Ferris a sour look. She knew—
“Who cares about chickens?” Candy said.
“Chickens are the lifeblood of this town, Candy Quackenbush. Without chickens, your father wouldn’t have a job.”
“He doesn’t have a job, Miss Schwartz,” said Deborah.
“Oh. Well—”
“He likes his beer too much.”
“All right, that’s enough Deborah,” said Miss Schwartz, sensing that things were getting out of hand. “You see how disruptive you are, Candy?”
“What did I do?” Candy protested.
“We waste far too much time on you in class. Far too much—”
She stopped speaking because her eyes had alighted on Candy’s workbook. She snatched it up off the desk. For some reason Candy had started drawing wavy patterns on the cover of her book a couple of days before, her hand simply making the marks without her mind consciously instructing it to do so. “
The interior was decorated in the same way as the cover: tightly set lines, hundreds of them, waving up and down all over the page. “It’s bad enough you bring these morbid stories of yours into school,” Miss Schwartz was saying. “Now you’re defacing school property?”
“It’s just a doodle,” Candy said.
“Good Lord, are you going crazy? There are
and
of this rubbish.” Miss Schwartz held the workbook at arm’s length as though it might infect her. “What do you think you’re doing? What
Thinking of him, she realized what she’d been drawing so obsessively in her workbook.
“It’s the sea,” she said quietly.
“It’s
“It’s the sea. I was drawing the sea.”
“Were you indeed? Well, it may look like the sea to
The laughter halted. There was a hush while one of the pens rolled to a halt. Then Miss Schwartz said: “I want you to pick all that
Candy didn’t reply, at least not at first. She remained in her seat, not moving a muscle.
“Did you
“I didn’t knock them off the desk, Miss Schwartz.”
“
?”
“I said: I didn’t knock them off the desk. You did. So I think you should pick them up.”
All the blood had drained from Miss Schwartz’s face. The only color that remained was the purple of the shadows under her eyes.