2
THE NEW SCHOOL OPENED on schedule, although the building wasn’t finished. On the first day, in the middle of the morning, all of us were herded into the auditorium to hear the principal, Mr. Simon, explain the rules that we would have to follow. It was with nervous anticipation that we shuffled through the hallways to the auditorium, because all of us assumed that once Mr. Simon had finished explaining the rules, he would announce the winner of the name-the-school contest.
Scaffolding was arranged on the sides of the auditorium, and dozens of workmen stood on it, working on a tangle of wires, pipes, and ducts that would, perhaps, be concealed by a ceiling someday. No carpet was on the floor yet, and some of the seats hadn’t been installed, so some of the sixth-graders had to stand in ranks at the back of the hall where the seats should have been. The whine of the workmen’s electric drills and saws and the blows of their hammers echoed in the hall.
Principal Simon stood at a lectern on the stage. When the auditorium was full, he blew into a microphone.
“May I have quiet, please?” he asked, raising his eyes toward the scaffolding and looking around the room. Some of the workmen had heard him and noticed his look. They stopped work, elbowed their co-workers, and began shushing one another, and gradually the noise stopped.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Simon. “We’ll try to get through this as quickly as possible. Then Mr. Simone, our new superintendent of public schools, will talk to you.” Mr. Simon nodded in the direction of Mr. Simone, and a thrill of anticipation ran through all of us, as if we had been wired together. Mr. Simone must be the one who would announce the winner. Mr. Simon shuffled through some papers on the lectern, cleared his throat, and spoke to us with measured simplicity.
“Now, boys and girls, as you can see, the school is not quite finished yet.” Roars of laughter came from the scaffolding, a couple of hoots, and then much shushing. Mr. Simon ignored it and went on. “Because the school is not quite finished, we are going to have to try to stay out of the workmen’s way.” One of the workmen made a remark that no one but his fellows beside him could make out. They roared.
“I have made a list of some of the things that we will have to do to stay out of their way. I hope you will listen very carefully.”
We all listened carefully, even the workmen on the scaffolding.
“Do not walk under ladders,” Mr. Simon began. He went on, citing reasons for not walking under ladders, offering anecdotes that illustrated the misfortune that could befall a person who did walk under ladders, and then went on to another rule. While he spoke, we, and the men on the scaffolding, listened less and less carefully. It was the sort of thing we had heard before. All of us, at least all of the kids, wanted to get to the announcement of the winner of the name-the-school contest. When Principal Simon finally finished, he asked whether there were any questions. Matthew Barber raised his hand, but a much larger boy beside him quickly pulled it down and held Matthew in his seat so that he couldn’t raise it again.
“All right, then,” said Mr. Simon. I took a deep breath and held it. My heart was pounding. All around me, boys and girls took deep breaths of their own and held them. The auditorium was eerily quiet, except for the muffled rumble of our pounding hearts. “In just a minute,” said Mr. Simon, “Mr. Simone is going to—”
I swallowed hard. I wiped my palms on my pants. “This is it,” said Raskol. His jaws were clenched, and he was slowly striking his fists together. A sigh came from somewhere behind me, and Kevin McManus, in front of me, crossed himself and bowed his head.
“—explain your room assignments and your lunch, gym, art, music, and recess schedules to you,” said Mr. Simon. A unanimous groan escaped from us. “Well,” said Mr. Simon, “I know that you’ve been sitting still—or some of you have been standingstill—for a long time. What do you say we have a little seventh-inning stretch? Why don’t we have a game of Simon Says?”
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