Free B004QGYWKI EBOK by Mario Vargas Llosa Page B

him!” I shouted. He restrained himself, shaking, while Lou began to scream:
    “Know what the principal told us? He insulted us, he treated us like dogs. He doesn’t feel like posting the schedules because he wants to make it hard on us. He’ll flunk the whole school and it doesn’t matter to him. He’s a…”
    We were back at the starting point and the twisted rows of boys started swaying. Nearly the entire junior high was still there. With the heat and each word from Lou, the students’ resentment grew. They were incensed.
    “We know he hates us. We don’t get along with him. Since he arrived, this school isn’t a school. He insults us, he whips us. On top of everything else, he wants to screw us on the exams.”
    A sharp, anonymous voice interrupted him:
    “Who’s he whipped?”
    Lou hesitated for a second. He exploded all over again.
    “Who?” he challenged. “Arévalo! Show them your back!”
    Amid whispers, Arévalo emerged from the center of the crowd, pale. He was a Coyote. He went up to Lou and uncovered his chest and back. A thick red welt showed on his ribs.
    “This is Ferrufino!” Lou’s hand pointed to the mark while his eyes studied the astonished faces of those nearby. Tumultuously the human sea pressed around us: everyone struggled to get close to Arévalo and nobody listened to Lou or to Javier and Raygada, who were asking for calm, nor to me, shouting: “It’s a lie! Don’t pay any attention to him! It’s a lie!” The tide carried me away from the railing and from Lou. I was suffocating. I managed to open a path for myself until I got out of the mob. I loosened my tie and slowly caught my breath with my mouth open and my arms straight up, until I felt my heart regain its beat.
    Raygada was next to me. Indignant, he asked me:
    “When did that happen to Arévalo?”
    “Never.”
    “What?”
    Even he, always calm, had been taken in. His nostrils were quivering sharply and he was squeezing his fists together.
    “Nothing,” I said. “I don’t know when it was.”
    Lou waited for the excitement to die down a little. Then, raising his voice over the scattered complaints:
    “Is Ferrufino going to beat us?” he shouted, his angry fist threatening the students. “Is he going to beat us? Answer me!”
    “No!” five hundred or more burst out. “No! No!”
    Shaken by the effort his shrieking had required of him, Lou was swaying victoriously on the railing.
    “Nobody goes into the school until the exam schedule’s posted. That’s only fair. It’s our right. And we won’t let anyone enter the elementary school either.”
    His aggressive voice got lost in the shouting. In front of me, in the bristling crowd of raised arms jubilantly throwing hundreds of caps into the air, I couldn’t make out a single one who remained indifferent or opposed.
    “What’re we going to do?” Javier wanted to look calm, but his eyes glittered.
    “It’s okay,” I said. “Lou’s right. Let’s help him.”
    I ran to the railing and climbed up. “Tell the kids in the lower grades there’s no afternoon classes,” I said. “They can go home now. Kids in the upper classes stay to surround the school.”
    “And the Coyotes too,” Lou finished, happy.

5.
     
    “I’m hungry,” Javier said.
    The heat had let up. On the one usable bench in Merino Square we were taking the sun’s rays, gently filtered through a few clouds that had appeared in the sky, but almost nobody was sweating.
    Leon rubbed his hands together and smiled. He was fidgety.
    “Don’t tremble,” said Amaya. “You’re too big to be afraid of Ferrufino.”
    “Watch it!” Leon’s monkey face had gone red and his chin stuck out. “Watch it, Amaya!” He was up on his feet.
    “Don’t fight,” Raygada said calmly. “Nobody’s scared. You’d have to be a screwball.”
    “Let’s go around the back way,” Javier suggested.
    We went around the school, walking down the middle of the street. The high windows were half open