Blaze by Richard Bachman Read Free Book Online Page B

stropped, but it was bad. You had to stand in the corner of Room 7, face to the wall. You couldn’t look at the clock.
    Blaze considered John Cheltzman’s idea, then shook his head. “He’ll know. I’ll get called on to recite, and then he’ll know.”
    â€œYou just look around the room like you’re thinking,” John said. “I’ll take care of you.”
    And John did. He wrote down the homework answers and Blaze copied them in his own numbers that tried to look like the Palmer Method numbers over the blackboard but never did. Sometimes The Law called on him, and then Blaze would stand up and look around—anywhere but at Martin Coslaw, and that was all right, that was how just about everyone behaved when they were called on. During his looking-around, he’d look at Johnny Cheltzman, slumped in his seat by the door to the book closet with his hands on his desk. If the number The Law wanted was ten or under, the number of fingers showing would be the answer. If it was a fraction, John’s hands would be in fists. Then they’d open. He was very quick about it. The left hand was the top half of the fraction. The right hand was the bottom. If the bottom number was over five, Johnny went back to fists and then used both hands. Blaze had no trouble at all with these signals, which many would have found more complex than the fractions they represented.
    â€œWell, Clayton?” The Law would say. “We’re waiting.”
    And Blaze would say, “One-sixth.”
    He didn’t always have to be right. When he told George, George had nodded in approval. “A beautiful little con. When did it break down?”
    It broke down three weeks into the half, and when Blaze thought about it—he could think, it just took him time and it was hard work—he realized that The Law must have been suspicious about Blaze’s amazing mathematical turnaround all along. He just hadn’t let on. Had been paying out the rope Blaze needed to hang himself with.
    There was a surprise quiz. Blaze flunked with a grade of Zero. This was because the quiz was all fractions. The quiz had really been given for one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to catch Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. Below the Zero was a note scrawled in bright red letters. Blaze couldn’t make it out, so he took it to John.
    John read it. At first he didn’t say anything. Then he told Blaze, “This note says, ‘John Cheltzman is going to resume getting beat up.’”
    â€œWhat? Huh?”
    â€œIt says ‘Report to my office at four o’clock.’”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œBecause we forgot about the tests,” John said. Then he said, “No, you didn’t forget. I forgot. Because all I could think about was getting those overgrown Blutos to stop hurting me. Now you’re gonna beat me up and then The Law is gonna strop me and then the Blutos are gonna start in on me again. Jesus Christ, I wish I was dead.” And he did look like he wished it.
    â€œI’m not gonna beat you up.”
    â€œNo?” John looked at him with the eyes of one who wants to believe but can’t quite.
    â€œYou couldn’t take the test for me, could you?”

    Martin Coslaw’s office was a fairly large room with HEADMASTER on the door. There was a small blackboard in it, across from the window. The window looked out on Hetton House’s miserable schoolyard. The blackboard was dusted with chalk and—Blaze’s downfall—fractions. Coslaw was seated behind his desk when Blaze came in. He was frowning at nothing. Blaze gave him something else to frown at. “Knock,” he said.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œGo back and knock,” said The Law.
    â€œOh.” Blaze turned, went out, knocked, and came back in.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSure.”
    Coslaw frowned at Blaze. He picked up a pencil and began to tap it on his desk. It was a red