“Con...” Daley started.
“Yes?”
“Confidence,” Daley said triumphantly.
“Ah-ha, that’s it,” Rick said. “Confidence.” He paused and made a sour face. “But that doesn’t seem real,” he said. “I mean, do you really think a word could give someone the confidence he needed?”
“Yeah, sure,” Speranza said belligerently.
“No, I don’t think so,” Rick said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Speranza said. “Sure, it could happen.”
“How?”
“Well... like sometimes I’m scared before we take a test or something, an’ I say three Hail Mary’s, and I feel okay after that.”
“It gives you confidence, is that right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Speranza said.
“But still... a word like Rumplesnitz. I mean, after all, Hail Mary is a prayer. Rumplesnitz isn’t a prayer.”
“I don’t think,” Padres said slowly, “thees word means that. I mean, I don’t think Rumplesnitz ees suppose to be nothing. You know what I mean?”
“Not exactly,” Rick said. He felt hot all at once. He felt almost feverish. He was tense and tight, and he knew now that the kids were really responding, were really discussing this thing the way it should be discussed, were really giving him something, helping him. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t stop to ask why. He just held on and prayed almost, and he heard Padres say, “Thees Rumplesnitz, thees ees a fake, you know? I mean, the Hail Mary, that’s real. Rumplesnitz, it don’t mean nothing. Thees Gawaine, he fooling heemself.”
“How is he fooling himself?” Rick asked.
“ ’Cause there ain’t no magic,” Bello said derisively. “Hell, he coulda killed all the dragons he wanted, Rumplesnitz or no.”
“Yes, then why does he need the word? Are there people like that who fool themselves? Who need magic words?”
“Sure,” Price said. “My brother-in-law’s like that.”
“How so. Price?”
“Oh, he’s a big bull artist, you know. He’s always talkin’ about his big deals, but he ain’t really got no big deals. He’s jus’ a little crumb, you know? But he makes out like he’s a big shot.”
“And is he one?” Rick asked.
“Naw, he’s a crumb. But he talks so much, I think he believes it himself.”
“Like Rumplesnitz, you mean?”
Price hesitated for a moment, and then a smile flowered on his face. “Yeah,” he said, surprised, “like Rumplesnitz. Just like that.”
It was rolling now. It was rolling fast, and the kids out there all had their hands up in the air, and those hands were waving frantically.
“Does anyone else know anyone like that?” Rick asked. “People who fool themselves like that. People who could kill dragons if they tried, but who are too afraid to without the help of magic.”
The kids were squirming because they all had something to say. They didn’t call out because they wanted this lesson to proceed in an orderly fashion. They were enjoying this, and they felt something of the same thing Rick was feeling, and they wanted to express their ideas.
“This guy who pitches for our team,” Finley said, “he got to chew gum or else he can’t pitch. He don’t need the gum. He’s a good pitcher anyway.”
“But that’s superstition, isn’t it?” Rick asked. “Is Rumplesnitz superstition? Is that what Rumplesnitz is supposed to be?”
“No,” Bello said. “No, it ain’t. It’s what gives him the confidence. But it ain’t superstition. That’s different.”
“How so?”
“Superstition is you’re afraid of something. Like black cats or thirteens. Gawaine ain’t afraid of Rumplesnitz. He loves that word. That’s his courage, that word.”
“That’s what he leans on,” Spencer said.
“A crutch?” Rick asked.
“Yeah, that’s it, a crutch.”
“And there are people who need crutches in life?”
“Cripples need crutches,” Finley said.
“Only cripples?” Rick asked. “Was Gawaine a cripple?”
“No,” Theros said, “he was strong.”
“In his body,” Rick said.
“Oh,” Theros said, “you mean maybe like he was crippled in his head. Like maybe ’cause he was scared, he was crippled. Like that?”
“Possibly,” Rick said. “Are there people like that?”
“I know a guy can’t do anything without his mother says okay,” Wilson said. “Like he don’t trust his own... his own...”
“Judgment,” Rick supplied.
“Yeah. But he’s okay. I mean, when his mother ain’t around, he’s fine. He could do things without her. He don’t need her.”
“The way Gawaine doesn’t need Rumplesnitz, right?”
“Right,” Wilson said emphatically.
“A cripple,” Rick said.
“As long as his old lady’s around,” Price said.
“Rumplesnitz, you mean,” Ventro said.
“But I thought this story was all about a knight who kills dragons,” Rick said, delighted now, pleased, almost thrilled. He knew he’d broken through, and his watch told him there were three minutes left to the period, and he wanted to round it out, wanted them to realize that the story said one thing while it meant another. “Was it?”
“Yeah, it was,” Finley said.
“And only that? Just a knight who kills dragons.”
“Well, you could twist it around,” Price said. “Then it becomes everybody, and not just Gawaine.”
“Everybody?” Rick asked.
“Everybody who needs a crutch,” Speranza supplied. “Like in real life.”
“You mean the story has a message?” Rick asked.
“Sure. It tells about fake words, and how you don’t need them. If you’re strong and quick, what you need the phony crutch for? You got it all in you anyway. You can kill dragons, not really, but you could maybe be a good mechanic, like that, you know?”
“Yes,” Rick said, “exactly. And is the story a better one because it tells a second story, because it gives a message, and because it’s not only about a cowardly knight?”
“It’s a good story,” Bello said.
“Yeah, that was a good one,” Price said. “I liked that one.”
“And will you remember the word for a story that tells two stories at the same time, a story that gives a message?”
“Yeah, what is it?” Speranza asked.
“An allegory,” Rick said, and he wrote the word on the board, and someone behind him said, “That was a damn good story,” and then the bell sounded.
He sat at his desk, and the kids crowded around him, and they asked him if there were other stories like that, where you could get something else out of them and not just the story. And one kid thanked him for showing him the second story because he’d only realized the story about the knight, and it was like finding something special, a present you didn’t know was there. And another kid told him about a friend of his who was like Gawaine and had a Rumplesnitz, and another kid asked if Rick would read them another story like that.
And Rick sat there stunned, answering their questions, listening to their stories, thinking I’ve broken through, Christ, I’ve broken through, and watching the kids mill around his desk while the kids in his second-period class filed in, puzzled. And at last the kids left, and he was too stunned to try a repetition of the same story in his second-period class, so he let it go, thinking all the while, I’ve broken through, oh my God, I’ve broken through to them. I’ve reached them.
And when he walked to his Hall Patrol at the end of the second period, he was stopped by kids in his seventh-term classes, kids who said they’d heard about the knight story, and would he teach them the same story. And one kid asked him what this was about Rumplesnitz, and could he learn it? And he was stopped at least a dozen times on his way down to the first floor, and each kid made the same request: teach us about the fifty-first dragon.