The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (3 page)

As we approached the girls’ locker room, the
door suddenly swung open and a girl stumbled out, apparently
pushed, clad only in a white bra and white panties. Then she ran
back inside, and the door closed behind her. I didn’t see her
face.

I turned to look at Sylvia. She was looking
at me with a half-smile. “Does that happen very often?” I asked,
trying to keep my composure. It was not a feature of life at
Atherton High.

“Oh, once a while.”

“Do you know who that was?”

“It’s probably better that you don’t know.
But that outfit, although a little sparse, is a lot more attractive
than the bloomers we girls have to wear in gym class.”

“Yeah.” I certainly agreed, although I hadn’t
discussed gym uniforms with a girl before.

“Mark my words, Gary, a revolution is
coming.”

“It is?”

“Yes, and it’s going to start with women’s
fashions.”

It couldn’t come soon enough for me.

CHAPTER 3

Lunch at Carter High was in three shifts.
Three short shifts. It was eat and run. I found this information
out from Miss Thoman, the guidance counselor, as she and I put
together a schedule for me. Not an easy schedule either: Advanced
Algebra, Chemistry, World History, English, and Latin 4. And gym
class, which I had every day. I was certain it would be my favorite
period.

I started going to class during third period,
when I had Chemistry. I met several of my classmates and learned
that I wasn’t out of sync as far as the subject matter. A little
good news.

By the time I arrived at the cafeteria for
the last lunch, I was famished. Most of the seniors had the third
lunch. Presumably we could go the longest without eating. Sylvia
met me there, as she had promised she would. We pushed our trays
through the line and got some of the slop they were serving. The
state of New York had a program that allowed us to get a second
carton of milk for two cents, so I did.

My lunch cost twenty-seven cents. The cashier
was a girl from our class. She was stacked and wearing her sweater
tighter than most. As she gave me my change, my hand almost brushed
against her sweater. With my recent luck, if it did, she would haul
off and punch me in the nose.

The cafeteria was on two levels. The lower
level was for students. The tables and benches were attached to the
walls, and I saw that they could be retracted into the walls for
dances. Clever. A jukebox in the corner blasted out the Bill Haley
and the Comets version of “Rock Around the Clock.” Rock and roll
was still new, and some adults saw it as the latest form of teenage
depravity. There had been a jukebox in the Atherton cafeteria that
took nickels. Sylvia told me this one was free. Ralph had listened
to this jukebox.

At the far end of the room was the faculty
eating area, one step above the rest of the room. Where the
teachers could be separated from the rabble, but still watch us.
Sylvia led the way in that direction. I figured she was headed to
one of the empty tables just below the faculty area, which students
seemed to be shying away from.

However, she continued on up the step and set
her tray on an empty table, facing the rest of the room, and
motioned for me to sit beside her. Didn’t any of the rules apply to
this girl?

“We can see everybody from here,” Sylvia
said. “And I can tell you who’s who. I’ve prepared a list of kids
you need to get in good with.”

She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her
purse and handed it to me. I perused it quickly. There were about a
dozen names on it, mostly girls. She began pointing out students to
me, both on and off the list. I would never remember all their
names.

We could see everybody, but everybody could
see us, too, as I was uncomfortably aware. This didn’t help my low
profile. Sylvia didn’t seem to mind. I gathered she was used to
being the center of attention.

Several teachers stopped by our table and
said hello to Sylvia. She introduced each one to me, and I
struggled some more with names. After a few minutes, the teachers
left to return to the gladiatorial arena of teaching. At about the
same time, several boys came to the table right below us in the
main dining area. They ignored us and started setting up empty milk
cartons in some sort of a pattern.

I looked a question at Sylvia. She spoke to
me in a voice that they couldn’t hear over the general hubbub.

“The leader of that group is Barney Weiss.
He’s the one with the nice hair. He’s the school brain.”

Barney wasn’t a bad looking boy, and his dark
hair was perfectly combed. It wasn’t as long as that of the boys
who wore DA’s, but longer than mine. I preferred crew cuts. I
watched as he set up four rows, containing one, three, five, and
seven cartons.

The noise level at our end of the cafeteria
became more subdued as this transpired and we could hear Barney
when he spoke in a naturally loud voice.

“Well, who’s going to challenge me today?” He
and the members of his posse looked around the room. At first,
there were no takers.

Then a tall, athletic-looking boy with his
shirt collar turned up ambled down the aisle and said, “I’ll take
you on.”

Barney lost some of his confident demeanor.
He said, “Are you sure you want to, Joe?”

I remembered who Joe was. He was one of the
boys Sylvia had pointed out to me. He was the quarterback and
captain of the football team.

“Sure I’m sure,” Joe said, depositing himself
in the seat across the table from Barney with a thump. “Let’s see,
what shall we have you do if I win?”

Barney looked clearly uncomfortable. He
remained silent, which I gathered was uncharacteristic of him.

Joe drawled his words. “How about this? If I
win, you have to run around the school. Naked. At lunch time.”

There were scattered guffaws. I took a quick
glance at the faculty tables. All of the teachers had left. I
looked back at Barney. Surely he would refuse. But then a kind of
gleam came into his eye.

“All right,” he said.

Joe looked a little surprised, but he
recovered quickly and said, “What if I lose?”

Barney hesitated. Then he said slowly, “You
have to win Saturday’s game.”

“Is that all?” one of Barney’s friends
asked.

Barney nodded and said, “Go ahead, Joe. You
start.”

Joe removed one of the cartons from one of
the rows. Barney removed one from another row. I glanced at Sylvia.
She was paying rapt attention to the game.

I said to her, “Barney’s going to win.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s nim.”

She looked at me. “Do you know how to play
it?”

“Sure.” My uncle taught me. He was a
mathematician.

“Could you beat Barney?”

I hesitated. “I’m trying not to draw
attention to myself.”

Joe was forced to remove the last carton,
making him the loser. He pounded his fist on the table, making the
cartons dance. There were some good-natured jeers at his expense. I
suspected that nobody had beaten Barney.

One of the kids said to Joe, “Now you have to
win Saturday.”

Joe quickly recovered his composure and said,
“I guarantee it.”

He walked off with what I assumed was his
usual swagger.

“Can you teach me how to play nim?” Sylvia
asked.

“Yeah.”

“Class is about to start. I’ll tell you what.
How are you getting to school?”

“By car.” The 1949 Ford Ralph had been
driving. The first model with the Cyclopean “eye” in the middle of
the grill. It had a few years and a few miles on it, but it was a
good-looking car and infinitely better than riding long hours on
the bus.

“Do you mind very much coming in early, say
7:30, tomorrow morning?” Sylvia put her hands together in
supplication.

“Why not?” It wouldn’t hurt to do a favor for
Sylvia. She seemed to know everything that went on in the school.
She might have more information about how Ralph had died. My
curiosity was aroused, especially since Dr. Graves had shut me out.
I was used to having adults shut me out. My father was an expert at
it. As to Dr. Graves, it might give me a chance to get some of the
information he wanted. Which would help keep me in school.

“Meet me in the wings behind the stage, where
we were today.”

I looked at her in surprise.

“It’s okay. Nobody will bother you. And at
that hour there’s hardly anybody here, anyway.” As we walked out of
the cafeteria, she said, “What class do you have now?”

“Math,” I said, looking at my schedule. “I
think it’s on the second floor. Room 215.”

“Take the stairs to the right. It’s about
halfway down the corridor.”

“What do you have?”

“Gym. I can’t wait to get into my
bloomers.”

“I’m sure you look good in them.”

“I’m sure you’re a liar.”

***

I had a hard time sleeping that night, my
second at the farm. That’s what we called the home of Aunt Dorothy
and Uncle Jeff. It was a small farm, fifty-some acres, and they
didn’t farm it—they leased the farmable land to a neighbor—but its
fertile fields grew healthy crops of grain. It had a country lane
with a fence on each side, and it had woods. It had farm buildings,
including a big red barn. All in all, it looked like a farm.

My father and Aunt Dorothy owned the farm
together. It had been in the family for about seventy years. My
father preferred living in the suburbs of Atherton, but I had spent
a lot of time here as a child, especially during the summers.

I wondered what I was doing here now. I
wondered whether the fact that I had been kicked out of Atherton
High branded me for life as a bad person. From my father’s
reaction, I gathered that he might be thinking that. I wondered
whether I would get along with the students at Carter. Sylvia was
nice enough to me, but that was her job. I hadn’t really become
acquainted with anybody else yet, just said a few hellos.

I was still awake when the train lumbered
slowly past. The peanut railroad—that’s what the locals called it,
but I had no idea why. I heard the whistle—actually, it was a
diesel horn—as it approached the road crossing. My bedroom was on
the side of the house facing the tracks. I had heard the train the
night before, too. I wondered whether I was fated to hear it every
night. The track ran east and west along the southern boundary of
the farm, and the total distance it traveled twice each day was
about twenty miles.

It didn’t carry peanuts, of course. It was
much more likely to be carrying wallboard from the gypsum plant
down the line. The peanut train had been running for longer than
the farm had been in the family. At one time it had made more than
two trips a day and had even carried passengers.

This room had been Ralph’s. Ralph had heard
the train at night when he couldn’t sleep. That thought gave me an
eerie feeling. Was his ghost still lurking here, waiting for
somebody to find out the truth about how he had died? Or had it
been as simple as Dr. Graves—and my father and the newspapers—said.
I made a silent promise to Ralph to find out the truth.

CHAPTER 4

The morning air was crisp, but at least the
sun was shining. It would warm up, perhaps even into the sixties.
Fall days could be pleasant in Western New York. We had to enjoy
the warmth while we could. Winter was coming. And winter in this
part of the country was anything but pleasant.

The red brick school building looked clean
and new. Its solid rectangular surfaces exuded an aura of
stability. But I felt anything but stable. I had left all my
friends behind. And my parents, since it was too far for me to
commute from home. Even the fact that my aunt and uncle lived on a
farm where I had enjoyed playing in the past wasn’t appealing to me
at the moment. For the hundredth time, I rued the day I had gotten
myself into this mess.

There weren’t many cars in the parking lot
yet. I went into the building and walked toward the auditorium.
Nobody was in the corridor. I looked into the cafeteria as I
passed. It was my homeroom now. A couple of students were sitting
at the far end, doing homework. Otherwise, it was empty.

It was dark in the auditorium, but the stage
was lit up. Sylvia must already be here. I wondered if she had a
boyfriend. If so, would he approve of her meeting me like this? I
had better be careful. I looked up at the balcony. It wasn’t that
high above the seats on the main floor. A person falling from there
might break a leg or two. But get himself killed? And Ralph had
been very agile. I remembered how he could walk on his hands. But
my stomach turned as I pictured him crashing into the seats. What
in the world had he been doing?

I vaulted onto the stage and headed toward
the wing. As I approached the dressing room, I heard voices. Sylvia
wasn’t alone. From the pitch of the voices, I could tell that she
was with another girl. It was too early in the morning to be
meeting somebody new and I wasn’t sure I was up to it. I would be
meeting a lot of people during the next few weeks. I braced myself
and walked into the little room.

I stared for a few seconds until I realized
that my mouth was hanging open and I looked like an idiot. Sitting
beside Sylvia was the most beautiful girl in the world. I hadn’t
seen her yesterday and had almost given up on her, thinking she had
graduated. But here she was. The cheerleader who had hurt my
concentration at the Carter-Atherton basketball game last year.

She had short black hair with a bit of a
wave. Well, it probably was some shade of dark brown as few people
actually had black hair. I was trying to figure out her eyes, which
I think had both brown and some other color, when Sylvia spoke,
bringing me out of my trance.

“Gary Blanchard, Natalie Porter.”

Natalie said hi and smiled, melting me and
leaving me tongue-tied. I had to say something. Finally I croaked a
hello. Then I noticed her blouse, which was one of the transparent
ones in style at the time. Of course, the girls wore full slips
under them, but still, to a seventeen-year-old boy…