The Chocolate War Read Online Free PDF Page B

had appeared, like an evil stain spreading on his flesh. Somehow, the tables were turned. Now it seemed as if Bailey had been at fault all along, that Bailey had committed an error, had stood in the wrong place at the wrong time and had caused his own misfortune. Jerry squirmed in his chair. Leon gave him the creeps, the way he could change the atmosphere in a room without even speaking a word.
    “Bailey,” Leon said. But not looking at Bailey, looking at the class as if they were all in on a joke that Bailey knew nothing about. As if the class and Leon were banded together in a secret conspiracy.
    “Yes, Brother Leon?” Bailey asked, his eyes magnified behind the glasses.
    A pause.
    “Bailey,” Brother Leon said. “Why do you find it necessary to cheat?”
    They say the hydrogen bomb makes no noise: there’s only a blinding white flash that strikes cities dead. The noise comes after the flash, after the silence. That’s the kind of silence that blazed in the classroom now.
    Bailey stood speechless, his mouth an open wound.
    “Is silence an admission of guilt, Bailey?” Brother Leon asked, turning to the boy at last.
    Bailey shook his head frantically. Jerry felt his own head shaking, joining Bailey in silent denial.
    “Ah, Bailey,” Leon sighed, his voice fluttering with sadness. “What are we going to do about you?” Turning toward the class again, buddies with them—him and the class against the cheat.
    “I don’t cheat, Brother Leon,” Bailey said, his voice a kind of squeak.
    “But look at the evidence, Bailey. Your marks—all
A
’s, no less. Every test, every paper, every homework assignment. Only a genius is capable of that sort of performance. Do you claim to be a genius, Bailey?”
    Toying with him. “I’ll admit you look like one—those glasses, that pointed chin, that wild hair …”
    Leon leaned toward the class, tossing his own chin, awaiting the approval of laughter, everything in his manner suggesting the response of laughter from the class. And it came. They laughed. Hey, what’s going on here, Jerry wondered even as he laughed with them. Because Bailey did somehow look like a genius or at least a caricature of the mad scientists in old movies.
    “Bailey,” Brother Leon said, turning his fullattention to the boy again as the laughter subsided.
    “Yes,” Bailey replied miserably.
    “You haven’t answered my question.” He walked deliberately to the window and was suddenly absorbed in the street outside, the September leaves turning brown and crisp.
    Bailey stood alone at the front of the class, as if he was facing a firing squad. Jerry felt his cheeks getting warm, throbbing with the warmth.
    “Well, Bailey?” From Leon at the window, still intent on the world outside.
    “I don’t cheat, Brother Leon,” Bailey said, a surge of strength in his voice, like he was taking a last stand.
    “Then how do you account for all those
A
’s?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Brother Leon whirled around. “Are you perfect, Bailey? All those A’s—that implies perfection. Is that the answer, Bailey?”
    For the first time, Bailey looked at the class itself, in mute appeal, like something wounded, lost, abandoned.
    “Only God is perfect, Bailey.”
    Jerry’s neck began to hurt. And his lungs burned. He realized he’d been holding his breath. He gulped air, carefully, not wanting to move a muscle. He wished he was invisible. He wished he wasn’t here in the classroom. He wanted to beout on the football field, fading back, looking for a receiver.
    “Do you compare yourself with God, Bailey?”
    Cut it out, Brother, cut it out, Jerry cried silently.
    “If God is perfect and you are perfect, Bailey, does that suggest something to you?”
    Bailey didn’t answer, eyes wide in disbelief. The class was utterly silent. Jerry could hear the hum of the electric clock—he’d never realized before that electric clocks hummed.
    “The other alternative, Bailey, is that you are not perfect. And,