And so to Brodsky I said, I bet Maholtz and the Co-Captain and Shlomo get to go to the pep rally, even though they’ve got ISS.
“Everyone in ISS tomorrow will go to the pep rally,” said Brodsky, “but that decision belongs to me, not Mr. Botha — I’m the one who gave them their ISS’s.”
He was certainly using reason.
Fair enough, I said, but where are Maholtz and the Co-Captain gonna sit? Are they gonna sit with Eliyahu and the other five?
“I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose, though, that they’ll sit with their teammates.”
They’ll get special treatment, I said.
“Well—”
Not because they deserve it, though, I said, but because the school deserves it, right? The school deserves to have a look at every one of their basketballers at the pep rally. The school deserves to have a proper pep rally. Especially after all the panic from that false alarm. The school needs to heal.
“Something like that,” he said, leaning over his desk a little = “Go on.”
I said, Even though the special treatment might be unfair to the others in ISS, it would be unfair to everyone else at Aptakisic if that special treatment weren’t granted. So it’s unfair to the few vs. unfair to the many. You do the math and the choice becomes obvious.
And this time he said it: “Go on,” he said.
The plan is for Scott to sing with Boystar, I said. I said, This morning, that Tanya Volleyball person announced there’d be a special guest. Most people don’t know it’s gonna be Scott. They’re expecting someone famous. Instead they’re gonna get a retarded kid. You knew all of that, and you planned it that way; to keep the special guest a secret. You must have figured it was good for the school. Maybe it’s a little manipulative — get their hopes up, sink them suddenly, and then they’re thrilled beyond they’re wildest imaginings because it turns out the elfy-looking boy is a great singer… And after about six notes, they’re gonna decide to be nice to this boy, and respect him for having talent, and maybe think twice about being cruel to other retarded people, of which the world has a great many. Yet none of that happens if, to be fair to Botha, you don’t let Scott sing. So it’s unfair to Botha vs. unfair to the whole world.
Brodsky spun the wingnut.
“I’ll let him sing. We’ll have to work out another punishment for him, though.”
I said, That’s very reasonable of you, Mr. Brodsky.
“I’m glad you think so. You see how far you get with me when you talk like a mensch? Now consider what I’ve asked of you, okay?”
I let the mensch thing slide.
I said, I’ll consider it.
“And that’s reasonable of you,” he said.
Reasonable of you, John. Reasonable of you, Dick. No two Israelites had ever pattered so goyischely.
By the time Miss Pinge started writing my pass, I’d finished considering. And this is what I decided: Brodsky had only been flattering me. If he really believed I had as much sway as he said — and I did, regardless of what he thought — he would have been willing to bargain.
Call-Me-Sandy hadn’t returned to the C-Hall water fountain.
“I never left,” she cried.
She cried like a television beauty. Her breathing wasn’t sniffly, just deep and sudden, and she didn’t make any choked sounds. Her bright blue eyes were much brighter wet, and when she wiped at them with the hand that wasn’t on the button, her sleeve, rather than sopping up the tears, spread them all over her face.
I thought about hugging her, but then I thought it would just make her cry more and I didn’t want her to cry more.
She chinned the air at the I EXPLODE Benji’d Darkered in the basin, and said, “I think this water fountain might explode if I take my finger off the button. Don’t smile about it.”
It’s not a bomb, I said.
“I was calling out for help, and no one would help me,” she said. “At first I was just waiting for Floyd to come by, but—”
He’s roving, I said, and the water fountain’s not a bomb.
“He didn’t come by, and after a while I gave up and started calling out, but no one would help me. I started having crazy thoughts. I started thinking that maybe I was so lost in my own thoughts that the schoolday had actually ended without my noticing, and no one was around anymore.”
I said, It’s just C-Hall. The doorways are sound-buffers. No one heard you. And it’s just past three, which means school hasn’t ended.
It meant something else, too — what did it mean, though, just past three?
“I know that,” she said. “I know what time it is. But I started having the thought that the day had ended, and it was crazy. It was a crazy thought to have, and I recognized that, and I thought, ‘This water fountain’s not a bomb — that’s just another crazy thought you’re having, Sandy,’ but that didn’t comfort me at all—”
Because for a little while you believed the crazy thought about the schoolday ending, I said, and if you weren’t able to distinguish the crazy thoughts from the normal thoughts at one point in time, who’s to say you could do so at any other? Not you. It wouldn’t be rigorous. So maybe the thought of the water fountain being a bomb isn’t crazy at all. Maybe it only seems crazy. And plus even if it is a crazy thought — in fact, especially if it’s crazy, and you’re not normally crazy — then might not your craziness attest to the water fountain bomb being real?
“Right,” she said. “Because my—”
Because why, if you aren’t usually crazy, would you get suddenly crazy? There would probably be a reason.
“Intuition,” she said.
I said, Maybe you’re highly attuned right now. I said, Maybe your intuition is telling you something. It’s never told you much before, and you never really even believed in intuition, but that could be all the more reason to believe in it right now. This moment could be exceptional because it could be a life-and-death one, and maybe, right before a person dies, they acquire — by unknown means — the knowledge that they’re about to die. Maybe right before someone dies, they intuit their death — maybe that’s how it is for everyone. And maybe some of them scoff at the intuition because they don’t believe in intuition, but then maybe others don’t — it’s not a thing that we can know. But maybe the intuition is God telling you something loud and clear — telling you you’re about to die — maybe He’s telling you as a sort of courtesy, so you can think pretty last thoughts, say goodbye to the world in your heart of hearts, send a message telepathically to your loved ones which, at the moment of your death, will cause a change in the air surrounding them, and they’ll either think something of it because they believe in intuition or think nothing of it because they don’t believe in intuition — maybe God is loudly and clearly telling you you’re about to die, but you don’t necessarily believe what He’s telling you because His language isn’t concise, or maybe His language is so concise that it doesn’t even seem like language, and that’s why you doubt it came from outside of you. Maybe the only reason you’d even think to doubt that you’re about to die by exploding water fountain is that God speaks so concisely that when you hear Him, it’s as if He simply planted an idea in your head, a feeling in your chest — maybe His language is so concise, so perfectly convincing, that it doesn’t even seem to communicate the messages it communicates — so concise and convincing that the thoughts and feelings His messages stir are incited instantaneously, making it seem as though the messages have come from within you. Or you might be crazy. But I’m telling you you’re not about to die.