The Wanton Troopers Read Free

To Riff and Harold, school was a ribald joke. Next summer, they would be peeling pulp or sawing slabs at the mill.
    â€œWell, if it ain’t Key-von!” Riff laughed.
    Kevin reached for the knob of the inner door. Lifting his leg lazily, Harold barred his way.
    â€œWhat’s yer hurry, Key-von? Don’t yuh like the company?” Harold smirked.
    Ashen-faced, his hands by his sides, Kevin said nothing. Av Farmer stepped forward, a pudgy, fox-eyed boy of about Kevin’s age. Kevin’s terror of this boy was so abject that he could not muster sufficient pride to hate him.
    Harold, Riff, and the others pressed close, grinning, their eyes bright with anticipation.
    â€œThe man spoke tuh yuh, Key-von,” Av leered. “The cat got yer tongue or somethin’?”
    â€œMebbe he ain’t learnt tuh talk yet,” Alton Stacey guffawed.
    Women said of Alton that he was pretty enough to be a girl. But his cunning had saved him from Riff and Harold. He had come to Lockhartville from Ontario, and he had cultivated the reputation of a sophisticate, a reputation he had enhanced by teaching Riff and Harold to shoot craps in the woodshed behind the school house. In these games, Alton invariably lost, and neither Riff nor Harold ever taunted him because of his resemblance to a girl.
    â€œShow Daddy if the cat’s got yer tongue!” Av demanded. He grabbed Kevin’s collar and shoved him against the door. “Come on now, show Daddy!” The others giggled.
    Kevin went limp. His paralysis was too negative a thing to be described as fear. His blood was water, his heart and brain ash. All feeling was dead. The room was a vibrating blur.
    â€œShow Daddy, Key-von!”
    Idiotically, he stuck out his tongue. The boys howled and danced with excitement. Kevin wished that he could sink through the floor, sink to the dark centre of the earth and cower there forever.
    â€œKey-von’s got a tongue! Cat didn’t git it, after all!” Av shrieked.
    â€œDid yuh see that! Did yuh see what Av done!” Riff was almost hysterical with joy.
    Av reached out, grabbed Kevin’s nose with one hand and his chin with the other, yanked his mouth open.
    â€œYessir, he’s got a tongue!”
    â€œKey-von’s got a tongue!”
    Mercifully, the bell rang. Av threw Kevin aside like a worn-out toy. The boys brushed past, elbowing him. Blindly, he stumbled after them into the class room.
    Kevin believed that every one of these boys was stronger, tougher, and braver than he. Secretly, he envied their courage and strength and wanted to be like them. But he consoled himself by the conviction that when they grew up they would be only pulp peelers and mill hands. They would live all their lives in Lockhartville, fenced in forests and rivers, and at last they would die here and be buried in the cemetery behind the Anglican church. But he — ah, he would be a lawyer, a doctor, a member of parliament, and one day he would come back here, wearing a black suit and a shining white shirt, and then he would spit in their eyes! And, in thinking this, his eyes and mouth took on that insolent, faintly contemptuous look that made them hate him.
    Thirty children, ranging in age from six to fifteen, were seated at three rows of desks. The desks and seats in each row, made of scarred wood and rusting metal, were linked together so that they reminded Kevin of the cars in a train. Frayed canvas maps, rolled up like scrolls, hung over each of the three blackboards. The air was heavy with the smell of chalk, soap, sweat, and the stale crumbs of yesterday’s sandwiches.
    Miss Roache, the teacher, sat facing the children from behind her desk at the front of the room. Kevin slid into the seat that he shared with Alton Stacey.
    â€œGood morning, class,” Miss Roache enunciated.
    â€œGood morning, Miss Roache,” they chanted.
    Kevin never joined in such chants. He thought the meaningless singsong