Free The Ninth Wave by Eugene Burdick Page A

You've got two A's

and two B's. You'll have to do a little better. Right now you're on

the borderline."

"I'm happy," Hank said. He was reading his Gray's and had it open to a

diagram of the delicate, intertwined, complex muscles of the ankle. "I'll

get three A's next quarter and I'll be qualified for a scholarship.

Don't worry about me."

"The old cigar box is getting low," Mike said. He walked to his bureau

drawer and took out a battered White Owl box. He opened it and took out

a stack of wrinkled bills and poured a mound of coins onto the table. He

counted it rapidly. "Two hundred and sixty-seven bucks left. That's all."

He scooped the money back into the box and threw the box in the drawer.

"We can get through the winter quarter, but we'll be broke by spring

quarter," Mike said. "It's the incidentals that run up. Laundry,

haircuts, books."

Hank looked up from his book.

"I eat too much,," Hank said apologetically. He kept his finger on a

plate in the book. It was squarely over the long thick purple sweep of the

aorta through a skeletonized neck and down into a yellow muscle-streaked

chest. "I'll cut down."

"You can't cut down," Mike said. "You're hungry so you've got to eat. You

don't get any fatter so it must be going into energy or some damned thing.

But you can't eat less."

Hank was vaguely ashamed of his appetite. He would eat the huge starchy

meals they served in Commons, take seconds, and then two hours later he

would feel a sharp pain in his stomach and in a moment he was ravenous. A

Hershey bar, a huge handful of peanuts, a few apples, almost anything,

would blot out the appetite and in a moment he had forgotten it completely,

could work absorbedly until the next attack of hunger. But if he did

not have the food at once he became dizzy, his attention dissolved

and he felt a sharp anxiety. Sometimes he even woke up at night and

staggered around the room, half asleep, looking for a candy bar or a bag

of peanuts or anything. If there was nothing in the room he would put on

his clothes and half sick with embarrassment and anger would walk down

to the all-night restaurant and eat a mass of fried potatoes and toast

and then walk back to the campus.

Hank worried because the enormous amount of food never made him any

fatter. His face was thin, his ribs stuck out. He longed for a layer of

fat over his bones.

"I know, I know," Hank said. "But maybe I could cut down on the food

between meals."

"You can't," Mike said flatly. "We've just got to get more money."

Hank's face went hard and tough and defensive.

"Look, Mike, I told you no crap about money. We made an agreement."

"But we need money for the next quarter."

"You said we had two hundred and sixty-seven bucks."

"It'll be gone next quarter when we pay tuition. What about the spring

quarter?"

"We'll worry about it when the money's gone," Hank said.

His bleached thin features relaxed. He murmured a word softly, looking

down at the book. "Aorta, aorta, aorta," said with the bemused repetition

by which a child chants a word into meaninglessness or twists it into

a special emphasis.

"Hank, why don't you get into the poker game Hollis has in his room

every night?" Mike said. "If you can play like you said you can you'd

win plenty."

Hank turned the page, read a few words and then looked up at Mike. Mike

knew he had not heard him. He was repeating another word, worrying it

to death.

"Poker, Hank," Mike said. "Get in the poker game in Hollis' room. A lot

of those eastern prep school boys play there. They've got money. They

play for big stakes."

"Phagocyte, phagocyte, phagocyte," Hank murmured. Then he heard what

Mike was saying. His odd blue eyes snapped open, he swung his feet to

the ground. "No. Don't mention it again. I hate poker. No more crap

about money. Understand? And especially not about poker money."

Mike left the room and walked down to Hollis' room. Hollis had money.

Everyone in Encina knew it. Hollis never