White Sands, Red Menace

After the bell rang, the main hallway of Alamogordo High School was loud with students talking and laughing, the hollow clang of metal locker doors slamming shut, the scuffling of hundreds of leather-soled shoes on the linoleum floor.

Dewey stood next to Owen’s locker, waiting for him to get out of English. Suze had sprinted out of Home Ec to go trash-picking with Ynez.

“Sure. I’m goin’ to the shop in an hour or so.” He put his black marbled composition book onto the shelf and tucked a sheaf of purple homework dittos into his binder. He still talked about quitting school, but they hadn’t painted a new sign yet. He said it was because he and his dad couldn’t agree on a color, but Dewey hoped Mr. Parker was trying to change Owen’s mind.

“But right now,” he continued, “I’ve got auditorium duty. Coach is screening some new Driver-Ed films for the principal and folks. Might have a real class next year.” He closed the door with a soft but solid thunk. “Come along and keep me company?”

“I finished it in Home Ec.” She made a face. “It’s Personal Grooming month, and Janice was in the catbird seat. We were supposed to be watching exactly how she rolls her hair every night, but who cares.”

“Your hair’s curly enough.” Owen unhooked the ring of keys from his belt loop. “I thought you girls were learning to cook? Something practical.”

“Last month. But Mrs. Winfield said food prices are too high. All we ever did was read cookbooks and make white sauce. Even that took a week—twenty girls and only one stove. Home Ec’s pretty useless.”

“Sure.” She’d spent a whole Saturday in training, but Mr. Knott hadn’t put her name on the rotation list for projectionists yet, or given her a set of keys. She could run all the machines and do repairs—tighten loose fittings, change the bulbs, strip new leader onto old film—but it was still Owen and Gilbert and Everett who wheeled the cart to classrooms. Was it because she was the new kid, or because she was a girl? If she asked anyone—even Owen—she didn’t think she’d get a straight answer.

The classroom equipment and carts were stored in a closet on the second floor. The big projector in the auditorium stayed in the booth, a tiny room with a wide glass window, high above rows of varnished wooden seats. Owen unlocked the door at the back of the last row. Dewey climbed the narrow stairs.

At the top, he had to duck to get through the doorway, and when he stood up straight, she could hear his hair brush the acoustic tile ceiling. The booth was Dewey’s favorite place in the whole school: tucked away, hidden and secret, like a room in a Nancy Drew mystery. In the winter, when it’d been too cold for anyone to go home at noon, kids ate lunch in the auditorium and they’d shown movies—Flash Gordon serials and Woody Woodpecker cartoons. But now that it was spring, she borrowed Owen’s key sometimes to have a quiet lunch by herself.

She turned on the lights. From up here, she could control almost everything: the house lights, the PA system, and the screen that rolled down from a gray tube hanging over the stage. At the flip of a switch, it lowered slowly, ponderously, gears turning and echoing across the empty seats until a blank white rectangle blocked the center of the heavy maroon curtains.

Owen handed Dewey the flat film can. She slid the reel onto the machine and threaded the perforated celluloid through the gates and onto the take-up reel.

Dewey killed the lights, and Owen slumped into the chair to the right of the projector. Standing, she was an inch or two taller than he was, for once. She flicked the switch and the beam of the projector’s lamp angled out over the auditorium onto the screen, dust motes dancing in the expanding cone of light. When the announcer’s voice began—Speed, sinister and deadly, beckons to the impatient and the thrill-seeker—Dewey turned off the booth’s speakers. On the screen, colorful toy cars careened silently out of control on painted toy streets.

The motor of the projector whickered, loud and continuous, like a mechanical Bronx cheer. Loud enough that when Owen spoke, Dewey wasn’t certain that she’d heard him say, “My dad walked me to school this morning.”

His voice broke, and in the flickering light she saw his mouth tremble. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and a lock of hair fell onto his forehead.

Dewey reached over and brushed it back with her fingertips. He looked so sweet, so happy. Her hand smoothed his hair and rested on the back of his head. She leaned down and kissed him, right above his eyebrow, where the stray lock had been. “That’s so great,” she whispered.

Owen tilted his head to look at her, his expression both startled and pleased. Dewey bent lower, and kissed him again. His lips were soft and a little dry.

“Shhh.” Dewey kissed him once more, then leaned her head against his. He smelled like soap and spearmint gum. They stayed like that, without another word, alone in the shifting darkness high above the Alamo High auditorium, until THE END filled the screen.