Stone Lake: part 46

A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg

Chapter 15 continues

The story so far: Teachers get kicked out of the cafe.

The following day, during his lunch hour, Patty offered him a petition:

We, the undersigned, are offended by the way you treated our colleagues at the Stone Lake Public School — namely, Miss Patty Porter, Miss Phyllis Clark, Miss Mary Boone and Miss Gladys Laandsverk — at dinner on the evening of February 3rd. Unless you apologize and invite them back to The Food Box to enjoy their evening meal, we, too, will refuse to eat in your establishment again.

There were three signatures at the bottom, the only one of which Allen recognized was Pauline Lund's.

"You want me to sign this?" he asked.

Allen liked eating at The Food Box. He liked the food (better than at Hauglund's, cheaper than at the hotel). He liked the waitresses and the Saturday night waffles. Moreover, he agreed with the owners that the women made too much noise.

"I'm afraid I can't," he said.

"You can't?"

"I like eating there."

"Well, so do we. All you have to do is sign it and eat there anyway. They probably don't have the slightest idea who Allen Post is. Just go in and sit down at your stool like you always do."

"Sorry," he said. "I can't do it."

"My God," she said. "Who do you think you are, Mr. Honorable or something?"

He shrugged and walked away.

"Didn't I offer to help you with your sophomore class?" she called after him. "Just wait till you need help with your One-Act Play Contest. Just wait until you need help with the Senior Class Play. See how much help you get then."

He thought he could get along very well without her.

One morning toward the end of January, the temperature stood at 38 below. School was closed.

A few days later it dropped to 50 below. Allen did not dare venture out. He ate a couple of candy bars he had stowed in his desk and spent the day reading.

For the first time since arriving in Stone Lake, he felt a little discouraged. In class he functioned well enough. But when he was alone, he found himself brooding. What was he doing here anyway, snowed in, isolated from the world? What good was he doing? Who cared whether or not he was bringing a little temporary enlightenment to his students? Certainly not the students themselves. The prospect that it might in some way contribute to their future lives seemed remote.

In one of his walks home with Helen Vorgt after a basketball game on a bitterly cold night, he confessed to her that he could turn into a misanthrope very easily. "Why do I admire Captain Ahab so much," he asked, "one of the great misanthropes of all time?"

She didn't know.

Did she, cap pulled down to her eyebrows and scarf wrapped over her nose, smile?

"You couldn't be a misanthropist," she said.

"Why not?"

"You're too nice."

What could he say to that?

To see you, he thought. He didn't say it. "Just for the show," he told her.

"You're probably a little depressed," she advised. "It happens to lots of people here in the winter."

He insisted, not quite truthfully, that he was never depressed. He told her that he was not like other people.

"If you were like other people," she agreed, "you wouldn't be walking me home every night after a basketball game — especially on a night like this."

He told her that he liked walking her home.

***

The arrival, a few days later, of 10 copies of Lord Dunsany's "A Night at an Inn" from the play loan library service at the University of Minnesota did much to cheer him up — his choice for the One-Act Play Contest.

He thought he'd made a good selection. Not only was the play very short, not only were there no more than four speaking parts, but the stage settings were exceedingly simple. A table and three or four kitchen chairs. The sets required only a window and a door.

Yet the play was dramatic. There was action and suspense. There might not be any profound meaning beneath it all, but it was different and could provide some exciting entertainment for the audience. Certainly it would give him good practice for directing the senior class play in May. And who knew? They might even win and travel to Minneapolis for the finals.

The story involved four merchant seamen who have stolen a precious ruby from an idol's head in India. Their names are Bill, Albert, Sniggers and, most important, A.E. Scott-Fortescue, better known as "the Toff," their leader. The four men are holed up in an inn after their theft, waiting for what only the Toff knows. The others, certain that they have eluded the three Indian priests pursuing them, are impatient to leave, sell the huge ruby and become millionaires. But the priests, as well as the statue from which they plucked the ruby, are still in pursuit.