Read Online Punish the Sinners by John Saul - Free Book Online

and Marilyn Crane had no reason to move—no one had invited her to sit by them. Balsam noticed, however, that the boy who eventually did sit next to Marilyn—Jeff Bremmer, if his memory served him correctly—smiled and spoke to her. While they resettled themselves, Balsam wondered how many, if any, of his students had figured out that he had just gotten them to tell him something about themselves without saying a word. He knew they would continue to tell him about themselves as they rearranged themselves through the term. It would be particularly interesting to watch the front row, the four girls Monsignor Vernon had mentioned to him, and the boy, Jim Mulvey, who was apparently Karen Morton’s boyfriend.
    When they were finally settled in their new seats, Balsam began telling them what he hoped to accomplish in the psychology course. He would not, he told them, be spending too much time on the field of abnormal psychology, though he would delve briefly into some of the more exotic forms of madness. That earned him an appreciative laugh.
    But what he was most interested in, he told them, were the possibilities the course offered for them all to get to know themselves, and each other, better. In this class, he announced, he intended to stay as far away as possible from the formalized teaching methods that were the norm at St Francis Xavier’s. Instead, he hoped the students would learn from each other as much as from him. At the same time they were teaching each other, he told them, they would be teaching themselves.If they all worked together, it should prove an interesting and valuable year.
    Balsam glanced at the dock, and saw that he had only fifteen minutes left Behind him, where it had been for forty-five minutes now, a map of the Holy Roman Empire covered much of the blackboard. Balsam now directed the attention of the class to the map.
    “Behind the map,” he told them, “there is a picture. I’m going to raise the map for just a second, then pull it down again. Then we’ll talk about what you saw.”
    Quickly, before the students could begin buzzing among themselves, Balsam raised and lowered the map, exposing for not more than a second a large black-and-white print, done with a pen in great detail
    “Well?” he said, turning back to the class. “How about it? What did you see?”
    In the front row, Judy Nelson’s hand slowly rose.
    “Judy?” Balsam said, then, as she started to stand up, he waved her down. “Not in this class,” he said, smiling. “Let’s save the calisthenics far Latin, shall we?”
    Judy’s eyes widened in surprise; this had certainly never happened at St. Francis Xavier’s before. Not only she, but the entire class seemed to relax. She sank back into her seat.
    “Well?” Balsam prompted her.
    Judy started to speak, then giggled self-consciously, “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just not easy to answer questions sitting down. None of us has ever done it before.”
    Again the class laughed, and Balsam was pleased. So far, everything was going exactly as he planned it.
    “That’s all right,” he said easily. “You’ll get used to it Now, if you haven’t forgotten completely, what did you see in the picture?”
    “Well,” Judy said slowly. “I think it was a skull. At least that’s what it looked like to me.”
    Balsam nodded. “Anybody else see a skull? Raise your hands,” All the hands in the room went up, except one. Marilyn Crane sat, her hands folded on the desk in front of her, her face betraying the shame of having missed out on something.
    “We seem to have a dissenter,” Balsam said, trying to let Marilyn know with a smile that it was all right with him if she hadn’t seen a skull. “What did you see, Marilyn?”
    The girl looked as if she was about to ay. She didn’t want to be the only person who hadn’t seen what everyone else had seen. But she’d seen something different, and she wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t.
    “I—I suppose it