Free Shadowland by Peter Straub Page A

shone whitely; a slight flabbiness under the eyes was the only visible loose flesh. Above these gray-white pouches, his eyes were very pale, almost white, like old blue jeans. His eyebrows were only faint tracings of silvery brown. A strong odor of Old Spice hung between us, though his skin appeared too stingy and tight for whiskers: as though it would begrudge them the room. 'You messed up my report,' he said, and shoved a bent sheet of paper under my nose. 'Five push-ups, right now.' —
     
         'Oh, hell, Steve,' said Hollis Wax. I glanced over and saw that he bad 'braced' Dave Brick, who was now stiffly at attention, his forearms stuck out at right angles before him and piled with Wax's books. 'Shut up. Five. Right now.'
     
         I stepped around Ridpath and did five push-ups in the corridor.
     
         'Who was the first headmaster, jerk?' 'B. Thurman Banter.'
     
         'When did he found the school and what was its name then?'
     
         'He founded the Lodestar Academy in 1894.' I stood up.
     
         'You zit,' he hissed at me, his face twisting; then as he turned away, he reached out a simian arm and smacked the back of my head with his fist — just hard enough to hurt. His knuckles felt like needles. The blow did notsurprise me: I had seen a witless hatred in his eyes. He swiveled his bony head on his neck and looked at me gleefully. 'Come on. I have to make a class.'
     
         But we stopped after only a few steps. 'Who's this fat creep, Waxy?'
     
         'Brick,' Wax said. Dave Brick was sweating, and his. beanie had been pulled down over his eyes.
     
          'Brick. Jesus. Look at him.' Ridpath took the fold of skin beneath Brick's chin and twisted it between two long fingers. 'How many books are there in the library, Brick? What's my name, Brick?' He jabbed one of his bony fingers into Brick's cheeks and pressed it hard against the teeth. 'You don't know, do you, fatso?'
     
         'No, sir,' Brick half-sobbed.
     
         'Mr. Ridpath. That's my name, dumbo. Remember it, Brick. Brick the Prick. You'd better cut your disgusting Zulu hair, Brick the Prick. There's more grease in it than most guys have in their cars.'.
     
         Standing beside him with his books, I saw Tom Flanagan and Bobby Hollingsworth coming toward us. They stopped just down the hall.
     
         'And who's this little greaseball?' Ridpath asked Terry Peters.
     
         'Nightingale.' Peters smirked.
     
         'Oh! Nightingale,' Ridpath crooned. 'I should have known. You look like a goddamned little Greek, don't you, Nightingale? Little cardsharp, aren't you, Nightingale? I'll have to take care of you later, Birdy. That's a good name for you. I heard you chirp.' He seemed very excited. He turned his ghastly face to me again. 'Come on, jerk. Ah, shit. Just give me the books.' He and Peters and Wax ran down the hall in the direction of the old section.
     
         'I'm afraid it looks like you've got nicknames,' Tom Flanagan said.
     
       
     
       
     
      15
     
       
     
      Dave Brick was doomed to carry the obscene name Skeleton Ridpath had given him, but Del Nightingale'swas altered for the worse during football practice on the Friday evening of the first week of October. White Del and Morris Fielding and Bob Sherman and I sat on the bench with several others — freshmen and sophomores — our JV team had lost our first game the previous week. Chip Hogan had made our only touchdown. The final score had been 21-7, and Mr. Whipple and Mr. Ridpath had spent the four practices since the game frenziedly pushing us through exercises and play patterns. Sherman and I hated football, and already were looking forward to our junior year, when we could quit it for soccer; Morris Fielding had little aptitude for it, but suffered it gamely and performed as second-string center with a dogged persistence Ridpath admired; Del, who weighed little more than ninety pounds, was entirely hopeless. In