In no particular order, yet as if we were completing a series, Edwin and I visited a new place every night. We sat under the watertower on the moonlit cliff, overlooking the remains of Rose Dorn’s forest; in the blackness of the new moon we crept into Penn’s old yard and peeked through a cellar window at a black wall. One bright night we peered through the black windows of the old stone library at shelves of moon-striped books. In vain we tried all the exit doors in the deserted parking lot of the local movie theater. We were more successful in entering the railroad station, where one night we recklessly appeared under cover of the last train, and discovered to our dismay that the old movie machines had all been replaced by new white-and-silver ice-cream machines, and that the old hand-cranked machine with the faded advertisement at the top had been replaced by a red machine that printed your name on a piece of metal. But our boldest and most memorable adventure was our farewell visit to Franklin Pierce.
Although I by no means approved of Edwin’s dangerous and irresponsible plan, under the gentle fury of his insistence I found myself giving way, as if unable to refuse a dying man a drink of water. On the far part of the playground where the tar turned to dirt and weeds, softly I laid my bike. Silently we crossed the moon-washed expanse of the deserted playground toward the dark back of the school, followed by two long shadows. Both back doors were locked; the classroom windows were ten feet over our heads; the cellar windows were barred with iron. “Let’s go,” I whispered, looking nervously about, while Edwin continued to stare up at the high windows. I whirled at the sound of an approaching car, not yet visible on the street by the dark sidewalk; in brief bursts its headlights illuminated a fire hydrant, the base of a telephone pole, the skirts of the willow. Edwin and I pressed against the wall as a small truck emerged from the side of the school, throwing patches of light fitfully before it and soon rattling out of sight. “Let’s go,” again I whispered. But mad Edwin began to stride toward the very side of the school that had just frightened us. He had already disappeared around the corner before it occurred to me to go after him. Even at this hour there was occasional traffic on the wide street in front of the school, and as I turned the corner, just as Edwin turned the corner in front, I saw through black trees and bushes the moonlit ruby hat of a passing police car. Not daring to shout I hurried after him. When I turned the second corner I saw him halfway up the bright front steps, unspeakably visible in the brilliant light of the moon. And as I rushed after him, suddenly I found myself smiling broadly in the brilliant light of the moon. When I reached the steps he was tugging noisily at the big locked doors above; and half giddy in the intense moonlight, moon-mad and moon-bold, I threw all caution to the moony winds and rushed up moonily the moon-flooded steps, dreamily expecting to be shot from behind. Two steps from the top a fresh brown excrement gleamed in the moonglow as if it were made of plastic. “How do you do?” I could not help saying; smiling, I bowed. “Make a ladder,” whispered Edwin, looking fearfully about, and as I linked my fingers he stepped with one foot onto my palms, holding onto my shoulder with one hand. In each of the side walls that framed the deeply set front doors, a dark window sat in a frame of brick. As Edwin pushed at the bottom rail of the window in the left wall, there came into my mind the words: “All of this is called the frame, boys. This piece here is called the sash: it holds the glass.” But what was the name of the side piece? “The other one,” whispered Edwin. We moved to the other window. As Edwin groped at the stubborn glass, I groped for the proper word. I saw the bottom rail rise slightly from the black sill, thinking: top rail, bottom rail, something, something. Already the window was wide open. Edwin’s pants and sneakers stuck out above my head and were slowly disappearing into the dark. Top rail, bottom rail, sash, sash? With Edwin’s help I pulled myself onto the sill, and before I knew precisely what was happening I found myself inside.
We were standing at the back of a brightly moonlit classroom, striped with parallel desk-shadows. Distorted windows of mad moonlight lay on the long blackboard at the side of the room. Edwin began moving toward the teacher’s desk in front, and as he passed before the row of windows I had the presence of mind to whisper: “Get down!” Crouching beneath the sills, between a row of desks and a row of cold radiators, slowly he made his way to the front of the class, where straightening up he tiptoed to the teacher’s desk and sat down in a flood of moonlight. “Edwin!” I whispered. As I started after him, creeping along under the windows, Edwin giggled, rose, and went to the blackboard. With a stub of chalk he began writing in rapid shrieks. “Stop it, Edwin!” I whispered, and as I hurried after him he put down the chalk and dashed to the front door, where turning the handle he vanished into the dark hall. In a sloppy hand he had printed: JEFFREY WAS HERE. I searched in vain for an eraser and finally had to use my palm, leaving a little pale cloud on the dark night of the board. Then stepping into the hall, and closing the door softly behind me, I saw his black shape tugging at the locked door of a nearby room to the right. “Stop it!” I half-shouted, and suddenly he was running down the hall toward the distant steps down which he had chased Rose Dorn long ago. Elongated versions of the little square windows at the top of the shut doors lay against the wall to my left, and as I hurried after Edwin I saw my shadow passing against the moon-windowed wall.
The metal steps were invisible. In a small black window I saw a black treetop in a blueblack sky. The smooth black rail above its invisible, remembered posts guided me on my slow way down, and at the bottom I stared at utter blackness, shaped by memory into ceiling, walls, and floor. At first I heard no sound, but soon I heard quite clearly a gentle patting in the distance: Edwin’s sneakers. “Edwin!” I whispered, but my playful friend did not answer. Slowly I made my way through blackness, clinging to a sandpapery wall that suddenly turned into the smooth wood of occasional doors. I was startled by the nearby jiggle of a doorknob, followed by a cinematic creak. Tensely I groped my way to the open door, and as I stepped inside, suddenly I heard in memory a tune I had forgotten I was looking for: top rail, bottom rail, stile, stile.