The Pet

Norman seemed doubting, and Don didn't understand. In all his life he'd never done anything like that; he had been told often enough that he was neither to take advantage of his position-whatever that was-nor pretend he was only one of the boys. He wasn't. He was, by fate, special, with special problems to handle. And Norman expected more of him than to have it end up like this.

"End up like what?" He sprang to his feet and approached the desk. "Dad, why don't you listen to me? I didn't do it!"

Norman stared and said nothing.

"All right, I left the nurse's office when I shouldn't have, I guess, and I wrote out my own pass. All right, that's wrong. Okay. But I did not throw that crap in Mr. Hedley's room!"

"Donald," his father said in perfect control, "I will not have you speak to me that way, especially not in here."

"Oh, Jesus." And he turned away.

"And you will not swear at me. Ever."

Don surrendered. Suspended between belief and suspicion, bullied off the subject by time-worn and weary pronouncements, he surrendered, he didn't care, and he didn't argue when he was given six days detention, beginning the next day.

"You should count yourself lucky," Norman said as he escorted him out the door just as the last bell rang. "Most other kids would have been suspended."

"Then suspend me!" he said, surprised to hear himself on the verge of begging. "Please, suspend me."

"Don't be smart, son, or I will."

Don pulled away from the hand that guided him around the counter, ignored the curious looks the five secretaries gave him. "You don't get it," he said as he walked out the door. "You just don't get it."

He fetched his books and went home. His mother wouldn't be in for at least another hour, and his father would stay at South until just before dinner. That gave him time to unload his gear and change into his jeans, fix himself a peanut butter sandwich and go for a walk.

Shortly before dark he walked into the park.

... and then the crow ...

He stopped, and cocked his head.

He could not see far beyond the lights that ringed the oval, but he was positive he had heard someone approaching out there. Listening, his hands gripping his knees, he guessed it was his mother, come to take him home and scold him and make him eat a bowl of soup or drink a cup of watery cocoa. And when the noise didn't sound again, he convinced himself it wasn't really a footstep he had heard.

He heard it again.

To his left, out there in the dark.

A single sound, sharp on the pavement, like iron striking iron as gently as it could.

Without looking away he zipped his jacket closed and stood, slowly, sidling toward the pond for an angle to let him see through the light.

Again. Sharp. Iron striking iron.

Not his mother at all; someone else.

"Hey, Jeff, that you?" he called, jamming his hands into his pockets.

Iron striking iron. Hollow.

"Jeff?"

The breeze husked, scattering leaves at his feet and making him duck away with his eyes tightly shut. The pond rippled, and a twig snapped, and something small and light scurried up a trunk.

Swallowing, and looking once toward the exit, he walked around the oval and a few steps up the path. With the light now behind him his shadow crept ahead, reaching for the next lamppost fifteen yards away. And between there and here he saw nothing that could have made the sound that he'd heard. A frown, more at his own nervousness than at the puzzle, and he walked on, cautiously, keeping to one side and wincing each time his elbow brushed against a shrub.

Iron striking iron, hollow, an echo.

He started to call again, changed his mind, and made a clumsy about-face. Whatever it was, it didn't want to be seen, and that was all right with him; more than all right, it was perfect. He hurried, shoulders hunched, cheeks burning as the wind worked earnestly to push him faster, the tips of his ears beginning to sting. His own shoes were loud, slapping back from the trees, and his shadow had grown faint, even under the lamps. He looked back only once, but all he could see was the pond reflecting the globes, freezing them in ice, turning the oval into a glaring white stage.

Iron. Striking iron.

He ran the last few yards, skidded onto the sidewalk and gaped at the traffic on the boulevard. The air was warmer, and he took a deep breath as he chided himself for being so foolish.

Then he turned to check one last time.

And heard iron striking iron, muffled and slow, and not once could he see what was back there in the dark.

Tanker cowered in the bushes, covering his face with his hands and praying that the moon would keep him hidden from whatever was walking out there in the dark.