The Chocolate War Read Online Free PDF Page A

you, Goober. You and your screwdriver.”
    Now, the final moment, the climax, almost like coming—
    “And here’s what you do, Goober.” Pause. “You loosen.”
    “Loosen?” The Adam’s apple dancing.
    “Loosen.”
    Archie waited a beat—in strict command of the room, the silence almost unbearable—and said, “Everything in Brother Eugene’s room is held together by screws. The chairs, the desks, the blackboards. Now, with your little screwdriver—maybe you’d better bring along various and assorted sizes, just in case—you start to loosen. Don’t take out the screws. Just loosen them until they reach that point where they’re almost ready to fall out, everything hanging there by a thread …”
    A howl of delight came from the guys—probably Obie, who had gotten the picture, who couldsee the house that Archie was building, the house that didn’t exist until he built it in their minds. Then, others joined in the laughter as they envisioned the result of the assignment. Archie let himself be caressed by the laughter of admiration, knowing that he’d scored again. They were always waiting for him to fail, to fall flat on his face, but he’d scored once more.
    “Jeez,” The Goober said. “That’s going to take a lot of work. There’s a lot of desks and chairs in there.”
    “You’ll have all night. We guarantee you won’t be disturbed.”
    “Jeez.” The Adam’s apple was positively convulsive now.
    “Thursday,” Archie said, a command in his voice, no nonsense, final, irrevocable.
    The Goober nodded, accepting the assignment like a sentence of doom, the way all the others did, knowing there was no way out, no reprieve, no appeal. The law of The Vigils was final, everyone at Trinity knew that.
    Somebody whispered, “Wow.”
    Carter snapped his fingers again and tension quickly built up in the room once more. But a different kind of tension. Tension with teeth in it. For Archie. He braced himself.
    Reaching under the abandoned teacher’s desk he sat behind as presiding officer, Carter pulled out a small black box. He shook it and the soundof marbles could be heard clicking together inside. Obie came forward, holding a key in his hand. Was that a smile on Obie’s face? Archie couldn’t be sure. He wondered, does Obie really hate me? Do they all hate me? Not that it mattered. Not while Archie held the power. He would conquer all, even the black box.
    Carter took the key from Obie and held it up.
    “Ready?” he asked Archie.
    “Ready,” Archie said, keeping his face expressionless, inscrutable as usual, even though he felt a bead of perspiration trace a cold path from his armpit to his rib. The black box was his nemesis. It contained six marbles: five of them white and one of them black. It was an ingenious idea thought up by someone long before Archie’s time, someone who was wise enough—or a bastard enough—to realize that an assigner could go off the deep end if there wasn’t some kind of control. The box provided the control. After every assignment, it was presented to Archie. If Archie drew a white marble, the assignment stood as ordered. If Archie drew the black marble, it would be necessary for Archie himself to carry out the assignment, to perform the duty he had assigned for others.
    He had beaten the black box for three years—could he do it again? Or was his luck running out? Would the law of averages catch up to him? A tremor ran along his arm as he extended hishand toward the box. He hoped no one had noticed. Reaching inside, he grabbed a marble, concealed it in the palm of his hand. He withdrew his hand, held the arm straight out, calmly now, without shiver or tremor. He opened his hand. The marble was white.
    The corner of Archie’s mouth twitched as the tension of his body relaxed. He had beaten them again. He had won again. I am Archie. I cannot lose.
    Carter snapped his fingers and the meeting began to break up. Suddenly, Archie felt empty, used up, discarded. He