Chapter 11

As we sat in the cafeteria having breakfast—that is, Larry and Laney sat while I got marginally comfortable with one knee on the chair and the other foot on the floor—the loudspeaker crackled to life, in Gil’s voice. “I need all First Year students to come to the Demo Room at 8:30 am. Demo Room, 8:30.”

The clock on the wall said 7:50. There were no classes until 9. Larry looked at me. “You guys had a demo a couple of weeks ago.”

I returned Larry’s puzzled look. “I remember. Better than anybody else, in fact. Do they...” My blood ran cold. “No. Oh no. Shit.” I jumped to my feet and ran out of the caf.

I pounded down the hallway and threw open the door of my room. “Grant?” I looked all around, looking for signs Grant had been there. Nothing was visible in the bedroom, but Grant rarely left anything laying around. In the bathroom, I felt the towel. Wet. Grant had showered, but now was gone somewhere.

I ran back up the hall, rounded the corner, and pounded on the dorm parents’ door. “Gil? Bridget?” No response.

Where is he, where is he, what is he doing? He’s volunteered for a demo, hasn’t he? Is that what all that talk last night led him to? Where is he?

I ran to the Hall of Honor, running breathlessly past the first aisle of heads, looking down each successive aisle as I came to it. No Grant.

I stopped at last, bent over, to catch my breath. I walked up the last occupied aisle, stopping at Susan’s head. “I wish you guys could tell me what happened here last night. What did he say to you? What’s he going to do? Did he promise he’d do one last service to the school and make up for the shit he’s done? DAMN it!” I turned to run out, but stopped myself. I turned back to Susan and petted Susan’s hair softly, bending to kiss my former roommate’s cheek. “Love you, hon. I’m not going to let another roommate join you in here just yet.”

As I ran out of the Hall of Honor, it occurred to me at last that, if the meeting in the Demo Room had anything to do with Grant, he was probably there now. I took the next turn in the corridors and ran down to the Demo Room.

I burst through the door, obviously startling Gil, Bridget, and Grant, who seemed all to be making adjustments on the noose hanging in the center of the currently-empty circles of seats. I shouted, “Grant, there’s no reason to...” I stopped suddenly and blinked. “What the hell is that?”

It wasn’t a noose they were adjusting. Hanging where the noose should be, there was instead a neck trainer suspended by the rope. “Grant, what’s happening? Gil?” I felt completely out to sea. Larry and Laney had never mentioned demos like this. And they had been as befuddled as me at the call for an unscheduled meeting.

Grant beckoned me over. “We’re almost ready here. I was about to come and find you. I want you to be here with me for this.”

“Ummmm ... for what?” I walked to him and stared up at the neck trainer. I couldn’t imagine what its intended use here would be. Obviously the neck trainers could be used to support a Noosemeister’s full weight, but it didn’t seem to me that a demonstration of that was really necessary.

“I’ll need some help. And...” Grant looked directly into my eyes. “I just need you here with me. Okay?”

I tried to see what was behind Grant’s eyes, and saw no sign that he was about to do away with himself. I did see, not just in Grant’s eyes but in every muscle of his body, that he was going to do something he found very hard. If Grant was, for one time in his life, asking for support, I was willing to give him all I could. “Sure.”

The door to the room opened, and three First Year boys came in, looking curious, seeming to notice simultaneously the neck trainer, and stopping to look at it and whisper to each other while finding seats. Gil and Bridget left the central area and hovered near the door, leaving Grant and me as the centers of attention. The fact that it was those two boys in particular, the subjects of last night’s punishment, standing by the platform was not lost on any of the students as they came trickling into the room, and I knew that most of the whispers and probably all of the giggles involved speculations as to whether there was some further punishment not mentioned in the student handbook. I moved closer to Grant, not only for support but also in hopes of picking up some vibration from him that might shed some light on what was happening.

By about 8:25, Gil signaled that everyone was present, and Grant cleared his throat, immediately quieting the by-now loud murmurs that filled the room.

“I asked Gil and Bridget if it was okay if we could all meet together like this. I just have some things I want to say, and then there’s something I wanted to show you.”

Jackie’s jaw was set in irritation, her eyes rolling, obviously wondering how Grant could be allowed to summon the whole class for a meeting and wondering what new outrage he might be hatching.

Grant went on, “I want to say that I’m sorry about last night. I know you all had to suffer a little for something I did, and I never meant for that to happen. I promise I’ll never let it happen again.”

It occurred to me that, for last night at least, the class was equally mad at me. I broke in, “I’m sorry too. For the rest of my life, if any of you ever lose any privileges, I promise, on my honor, it won’t be because of me.”

I looked at Grant and caught the tiniest smile in return. I could read that smile: Grant’s acknowledgment that none of the trouble had been my fault this time either.

The students started relaxing a little, even Jackie. A mass apology was something they could all live with, even at 8:30 in the morning.

Grant spoke again. “After just a month and a half, you’re probably all better at what we’re all trying to do than almost anybody in the world outside these walls...”

Several pairs of eyes shot wide open in surprise. Some of them may not have looked at it quite that way before, but beyond that, the last person in the world they would have expected to point it out would be Grant.

“ ... and I know all of you want to be the best Noosemeisters you can be. We can all get there by sharing with each other...”

Dropping jaws now were joining the bulging eyes. Jackie was looking directly at me, as if she suspected I was responsible for substituting a fake Grant in place of the real one.

“ ... and I’ve got something I can share, and I thought it would work simplest to show all of you together instead of one at a time. I’ve seen a lot of you trying to do some of the hanging moves I’ve been doing, and I know you’re running into the problem of trying to breathe while you’re doing it, like you were trying to recite the alphabet while writing the numbers from one to ten.”

I saw several stunned nods. The soft background whispers had vanished entirely. The room was in dead silence other than Grant’s voice.

“There’s some training you can do to help you get past that.” He stepped up onto the platform. He was fully dressed, but no one commented on the breach of etiquette—not even making jokes about why Grant didn’t want to show his butt uncovered today.