Read Online Ghost Story by Peter Straub - Free Book Online Page A

black hair, ivory cheeks, a handsome face and extremely powerful looking arms and shoulders. It was the way he was looking at Fenny Bate. He looked feral. And with the wildness, there was a striking sort of freedom in the way he stood there, a freedom that went deeper than mere self-assurance. To me he seemed extremely dangerous; and it seemed that I had been transported into a region where men and boys were wild beasts in disguise. I looked away, almost frightened by the savagery in the man's face, and when I looked back he was gone.

    My notions of the place were confirmed that evening, when I had forgotten all about the man outside on the road. I had gone upstairs to my drafty room to try to work out my lessons for the second day. I would have to introduce the multiplication tables to the upper grades, they all could use some extremely elementary geography ... things of this sort were going through my mind when Sophronia Mather entered my room. The first thing she did was to turn down the kerosene lamp I had been using. "That's for full dark, not evening," she said. "We can't afford to have you using up all the kerosene. You'll learn to read your books by the light God gives you."

    I was startled to see her in my room. During supper the previous evening she had been silent, and judging by her face, which was pinched and sallow and tight as a drumhead, you would say that silence was her natural mode. She made it very expressive, I can tell you. But I was to learn that apart from her husband, she had no fear of speech.

    "I've come to quiz you, schoolteacher," she said. "There's been talk."

    "Already?" I asked.

    "You make your ending in your manner of beginning, and how you begin is how you'll go on. I've heard from Mariana Birdwood that you tolerate misbehavior in your classes."

    "I don't believe I did," I said.

    "Her Ethel claims you did."

    I could not put a face to the name Ethel Birdwood, but I remembered calling it out—she was one of the older girls, the fifteen-year-olds, I thought. "And what does Ethel Birdwood claim I tolerated?"

    "It's that Fenny Bate. Didn't he use fists on another boy? Right in front of your nose?"

    "I spoke to him."

    "Spoke? Speakin's no good. Why didn't you use your ferule?"

    "I don't possess one," I said.

    Now she really was shocked. "But you must beat them," she finally got out. "It's the only way. You must ferule one or two every day. And Fenny Bate more than the rest."

    "Why particularly him?"

    "Because he is bad."

    "I saw that he is troubled, slow, disturbed," I said, "but I don't think that I saw that he was bad."

    "He is. He is bad. And the other children expect him to be beaten. If your ideas are too uppity for us, then you'll have to leave the school. It's not only the children who expect you to use the ferule." She turned as if to go out. "I thought I would do you the kindness of speaking to you before my husband hears that you have been neglecting your duties. Mind you, you'll take my advice. There's no teaching without beating."

    "But what makes Fenny Bate so notorious?" I asked, ignoring that horrific last remark. "It would be unjust to persecute a boy who needs help."

    "The ferule's all the help he needs. He's not bad, he's badness itself. You should make him bleed and keep him quiet—keep him down. I'm only trying to help you, schoolmaster. We have use of the little extra money your allowance brings us." With that she left me. I did not even have time to ask her about the peculiar man I had seen that afternoon.

    Well, I had no intention of doing further damage to the town scapegoat.

    (Milly Sheehan, her face puckered with distaste, set down the ashtray she had been pretending to polish, glanced at the window to make sure the drapes were closed and edged around the door. Sears, pausing in his story, saw that she had left it open a crack.)
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    Sears James, pausing in his story and thinking with annoyance that Milly's eavesdropping was becoming less subtle every