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Show up the masquerade, and because they were all warm and happy inside from the utter ridiculousness of the game, Carol clasped Diane's hand in TINY BROWN MONKEY PAWS By “Hey, let’s Carol her own a moment. warm hand, tanned back and lighter on the palms. The fingers were dry and a little wrinkled, especially around ithe knuckles. The fingers were long and ‘tapering with the nails hard and flat like a monkey’s. That's what they were. Little monkey hands. She held the brown monkey paw in her own white ungraceful hand a moment more then they both ran into the crystallness of the winter air. Later that evening Carol thought Johnson pretend we're It was a very brown on the rats!’ Carol challenged Diane as_ they walked down the deserted school hall. It was dark except for a small yellow light far down the hal that made a circle of yellow on the floor beneath it but gave only a hint of light to the rest of the hall. It had a musty high school smell of damp tennis shoes and poster paints and janitorial supplies. There was a feeling of loneliness that empty schools have just before sunset on a winter day. The atmosphere was perfect for rats. Diane accepted the challenge, and they ran stealthily down < RS = vNS . *s J RE 3) MUNN NY ~~ > NERS SSNS Ways estat i —* " SSN ~~ ee y : ee N “ OX S ED the hall, crouched close to the lockers, hands curled at chest, backs hunched and eyes darting in a manner they thought common to rats. Diane looked out the corner of her huge brown eyes, now partly closed, with the long thick lashes ever seen a rat?” she asked Carol. Carol’s eyes, also partly shut to indicate the evilness of a rat came darting to their corners to meet those of Diane’s. They were a wishy-washy blue; it seemed they couldn't decide whether to be blue or hazel. “Heck, no,” she said. “We bed milk glass light on his desk. He would smell of sweat and eraser. There would probably be two (or three, depending on the intensity _ with which he was writing) deep wrinkles above his nose, and Brummels?” she asked innocently. “No.” Then completely ignoring the interruption he went on. “Beethoven, you know, was a maniac depressive.” Increduously, “No!” “Yes. It probably stemmed from hostilities towards his father, who, as you know, forced him to practice the violin hours and hours every day locked in his room.” “Nasty old man,” she said. “Yes,” and now really warming up, he lowered his voice confidingly, “and guess what, Carol? I read this book that says Tsychaikowsky was a homo! Isn’t that just too wild! I couldn’t believe it. I had to read ithat part over twice, you know. Like Mr. Comte says, ‘You don’t have to be crazy, but it helps’ ”’. Then Diane came walking down the hall in her graceful way, making her way artfully through tthe crowd, the motions of her body flowing into one another. “You sitting with me, or what?” Bob asked Diane somewhat nervously but with possession. in periods of thought he would tense and relax the muscles of his jaw, making them bulge out rhythmically, unconsciously he might push his black rimmed glasses higher on his nose or chew on his left thumb nail, turning it over, twisting it off... Of course his legs would be crossed and one foot going up and down, up and down, very fast, like an eager puppy wildly thumping his tail. And he would be tremendously proud of himself even if he chucked all his writings into the garbage can, because he had felt a Poetic Inspiration. Even if it hadn't produced anything, at least he had been moved, inspired. Feeling like a poet is half the fun of being one. Carol knew he was a phony and it disgusted her. Lines such as “I am wrapped in the cheese cloth of infatuation” and “To a pair of brown eyes” (that would be Diane) were evidence enough. Still to see him “Sure,” with Diane was very, very painful. with pain that someone else must hold that little monkey paw a great deal more than she did. Bob probable held it quite a lot. She could imagine him at home now, the pseudosophisticate looking up from his desk at the small winter moon. He would be thinking, or think he was thinking beautiful, poetic thoughts. Of Diane. He would be bent low over the white note paper, scratching out impatiently some line he didn’ like and adding something better, glancing at the moon occasionly for help. The room would be dark except for the knob- live clean around my place.” “Then how do you know we’re doing it right?” “I read a lot.” This statement satisfied Diane, and both pairs of eyes snapped quickly back into place. They continued furtively down the hall untill they came to the pool of yellow light on the floor. There they gave 26 she smiled to him. He had taken hold of her little dry monkey paw, and they had gone She remembered tthe time in the auditorium, one of many, many little hurts inside. It had been a Utah Symphony Concert and Bob and Carol had been waiting outside the auditorium, each for a friend. The mass of faces inside, without leaving her alone and insecure, a word and watching to Carol, terribly hurt the blur of faces flow all around her, hazy and indistinct. “They didn’t even speak to me,” she thought, “Diane, my very best friend, didn’t even say ‘one word. I don’t exist.” School that sophomore year went very fast, and suddenly it was summer The sultry heat made everything languid and lazy. The heat, the haze on the mountains and the smell of new mown grass and insect spray were the only things she was conscious of. Then the radio -- had it. floated around her, each an individual, someone she had seen before. Bob was telling her the glories of Beethoven. The world was moving all around her, and only Bob and she were stationary. “... and you know, as a connisseur of the great classical works, I have made a study of the Three B’s” Bob was saying. “Beatles, Beach Boys and Bro ay |