Wonderland Read Online Free PDF

strings of light, also welcoming them in. The choir sings “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” to march them into their seats. A sprightly, energetic tempo. The girls are attentive and bright-faced. Their eyes are serious. The boys are very much together, in their own clusters; at certain places a boy must sit beside a girl, accidentally, and the two clusters come together. The choir is made up of about twenty students, mostly girls, and it is conducted by a very small, careful woman with gray curls, her back to the crowd, her arms moving in short, precise, finicky circles. The voices rise and fall, singing, marching the other students into place: “Hark the Herald Angels sing …” and “sing” has two syllables, both equally accented.
    The mood of the students changes gradually; it is not so rowdy now. Seated, the country boys are not so impatient. Their eyes are fixed upon the chorus and the Christmas tree. Their hands lie quiet upon their knees or are folded formally in their laps, a gesture that is automatic.
    The curtain behind the choir is made of velvet, a deep magenta: the high school’s color. Initials
Y.H.S
. in cream upon this magenta. Arranged in rows according to height, the chorus sings in front of this impressive curtain, and the Christmas carol is mixed with the initials, the flushed excited faces of the singers, the movements of the choir director’s arms inside her frothy sleeves.… Something is going to happen: it is a special assembly, a special day.
    No windows in the auditorium. One boy, seated on the aisle, keepsglancing back at the doors as if anxious about the weather, or about getting out. The third time he looks around, the boy sitting directly behind him thumps the back of his seat. “Hey, what’re you looking for?” he says.
    “No one. Nothing,” the boy says.
    The boy who has been looking around straightens in his seat, forces himself to stare straight ahead. He has red-blond hair. His complexion is not a redhead’s complexion, though: it is darker, as if still tanned from the summer. The boy’s face is broad and intelligent, but creased with thought or worry; he has become very nervous. For the fourth time he looks around—now they are closing the doors to the auditorium! He will not be able to get out. The boy stares up the narrow aisle to those closing doors, ignoring the taunts of the boy behind him, ignoring his teacher’s concern. She is a woman in her forties, heavyset and hearty and wise, with a liking for Jesse, but today Jesse has no mind for her or for anyone else. The chorus is beginning another carol. The words are soft and cajoling, like snow; they are meant to entice and make quiet—“O Little Town of Bethlehem”—but Jesse can’t pay attention to them. He must get out of this seat, out of this packed hot auditorium, he must get back home.…
    His father had gone out that morning before dawn. Stomping out the back path to the woods, his head lowered.…
    Jesse suddenly stands, confused.
    He feels himself blushing, even his neck is blushing. He hurries up the aisle, which tilts slightly, so that he has the impression of forcing himself up an invisible hill, a small stubborn obstacle meant to tease him. Someone whistles and calls out, “Hey, Jesse!” It is his cousin Fritz, grinning. He does not make any sign to Fritz. At the very rear of the auditorium his sister Jean is sitting, and his eye flies immediately, miserably, to her, to her stern face. She is two years older than he, sixteen, with a full, spry little body and an attractive red mouth. But now she looks angry, because Jesse has embarrassed her. There is a fierce, fine little frown on her forehead.
    Tonight at supper she will say, “Jesse couldn’t go to the bathroom
before
assembly, oh no, he had to wait until it began and
then
he excused himself.…” And Jesse will sit at the table in a fury of shame and hatred, unable to defend himself, wishing his sister dead.
    The high school principal, Mr.