9

I continued standing there for a moment. It was clear that Jordan—and the audience—was waiting for someone or something. Though the auditorium was quiet, I could sense the presence of everyone who was in there, and I knew that Joey could, too. But while I felt weak in the knees, as if I were the one who was going to have to go out there, Joey looked completely calm, as if it had nothing to do with him.

Suddenly the hall door opened and there was Uncle George. His face was drawn, but he was doing his best to appear undisturbed. Dr. Dale was with him. My heart skipped a beat. I was no longer completely alone.

“Hello, boys,” said Uncle George.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Can I talk to you for a minute, Mark?” asked Uncle George. “Out here?”

Again I nodded. I went out into the hall, closing the door behind me.

“How did you know?” I asked Uncle George. “What made you come back?”

“I brought him,” said Dr. Dale. “Wally Jordan called me and told me if I was interested in Joey I should be here at four thirty. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I decided I ought to talk to your uncle about it. I got hold of him at the PTA meeting, and we came down together.”

“Is that what Jordan’s waiting for now?” I asked. “You?”

“I suppose so,” said Dr. Dale.

So that was it. When Jordan showed Joey up, made him look ridiculous, he wanted Dr. Dale to be there, too, because he wanted him—as well as everyone else—to think that the tests had been an accident and that they didn’t mean anything.

“Exactly what’s going on?” asked Uncle George. “Do you know?”

“I think so,” I said. I told him what I’d said to Wally Jordan in the woods and afterwards, when we got back to the house.

“But why?” asked Uncle George. “Why did you agree to let Joey make a spectacle of himself?”

“I didn’t want to,” I said, “but it kind of got away from me. At first I was angry at Jordan for saying what he did about Joey, his not realizing that Joey wasn’t like anyone else. And later, when he told me that he’d made the arrangements for this afternoon … Well, it’s not easy to say no to someone like him. And besides, he didn’t give me a chance.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” he said. “Well, luckily I got here in time. I’ll go in and put a stop to this whole thing right now.”

“No, Uncle George,” I said. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you realize that Jordan did all this because of you? Because he’s worried about you and your ideas? If you go in and stop this, it will make you look like a phoney. As if you don’t really believe in Joey or in those tests yourself. And then what chance will you have of getting any of the things you’ve been fighting for?”

“If you’re talking about the new school budget,” he said, “do you think I care about that? I mean, of course I care about it, but we’ll battle that out with Wally Jordan at the next town meeting. Or, if we have to, at the next election. The important thing right now is Joey.”

“That’s right,” I said. “But …”

“Just a minute, Mark,” said Dr. Dale. “Do you remember what you said when your uncle and I wanted Joey to go to our school in Branford? You were against it because you felt it would make him seem too special and that would cut him off from everyone his own age. Well, don’t you see how this would be even worse? Obviously you didn’t mean what you said about his being able to fly,”—he didn’t give me a chance to say that I did mean it, though I probably wouldn’t have—“but the fact is that he’s not merely gifted. He’s apparently a good deal more than that. And if he stood up there and gave a public demonstration of some of the things he’s capable of …”

“I know,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about, too.”

And I had been. I had been thinking, not just about what it would be like for Joey not to have any friends, not to learn how other people think, but about something else. I had been wondering what it would do to him at his age or even a few years from now to have everyone constantly watching him, waiting for him to say or do something remarkable. After all, Siddhartha, who became the Buddha, had been almost thirty when he left his home to look for enlightenment, and almost forty when he sat under the Bo tree.

“Then you can see why I’ve got to go in there,” said Uncle George.

“No,” I said. “It’s too late for that. Too many people know about that already—about those tests—practically everyone in the school.”

“I’m afraid that was my fault,” said Dr. Dale. “When I came down here, I had to tell Miss Gregory why I was so interested in Joey.”

“It’s not just your fault,” said Uncle George. “It’s mine, too. I didn’t really think it through. The thing is, we’ve got to do something about it, and …”

“I’d like to ask you something,” I said. “Do you believe what I told you about Joey? Not just about what he’s like and why, but about what he can be some day?”

Uncle George and Dr. Dale glanced at one another, then they both nodded.

“Yes,” said Uncle George.

“All right,” I said. “Then let me handle it.”

“How?” asked Uncle George.

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“Will it take very long?” asked Dr. Dale. “Jordan knows I’m here. He’s waiting for me to come in …”

“No,” I said. “It won’t take long.”

I went back into the small room. Joey was sitting where I’d left him, and he looked at me.

“Uncle George doesn’t think you should do it,” I said. “Go out there, I mean.”

“Why not?”

“He just doesn’t think you should.”

He went on looking at me and while I wasn’t sure I could do what he had done so often lately, close my mind to him, I tried to think about what I was saying and nothing else. A strange expression came over his face, an expression I’d never seen before, part sullen and part stubborn.

“Stop that,” I said. “I’ve told you a dozen times not to do that, just think things. Why can’t you say them like everyone else?”

“All right,” he said. “I don’t care.”

“What do you mean, you don’t care?”

“I don’t care what Uncle George says. I’m going out there anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to. I don’t like Mr. Jordan. He thinks he knows a lot, but he doesn’t know anything. I’m going to show him.”

“Show him what?”

“You’ll see.”

“I’ll bet!” I was suddenly furious. I realized later it was myself I was angry with, but I didn’t know it then, and it was a good thing I didn’t know it because it helped me to say what I had to say. “This is what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? A chance to really show off, show everyone just how wonderful you are! What are you going to do—answer all his questions, read his mind and then end up flying around the auditorium?”

His face white and his eyes enormous, he nodded.

“Well, of all the dopey and conceited little creeps! Who do you think you are—Superman, Batman … or maybe a bodhisattva? Do you want to know what you really are? You’re just a stupid kid with a lot of crazy ideas in his head about how great he is!”

He stared at me, stricken, and his expression now was much the same as it had been when the nurse came out of the hospital room, and we knew that mother was dead. Only he had had me then. Now he had no one.

The other door—the door to the auditorium—opened.

“All right, Joey,” said Jordan. “We’re ready. Come on.”

Joey didn’t move.

“I said, come on!”

Slowly, as if he were walking in his sleep, Joey got up and followed Jordan out on to the stage.