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of them grabbed for their pockets. Sylvia Ragan, doing her lady-of-the-manor bit, fished a battered pack of Camels delicately out of her purse and lit up with leisurely elegance. She blew out a plume of smoke and dropped her match on the floor. She stretched out her legs, not bothering overmuch with the nuisance of her skirt. She looked comfy.
        There had to be more, though. I was getting along pretty well, but there had to be a thousand things I wasn't thinking of. Not that it mattered.
        "If you've got a friend you want to sit next to, go ahead and change around. But don't try to rush at me or run out the door, please."
        A couple of kids changed next to their buddies, walking quickly and softly, but most of them just sat quiet. Melvin Thomas had opened his algebra book but couldn't seem to concentrate on it. He was staring at me glassily.
        There was a faint metallic chink! from the upper corner of the room. Somebody had just opened the intercom system.
        "Hello," Denver said. "Hello, Room 16."
        "Hello," I said.
        "Who's that?"
        "Charlie Decker."
        Long pause. Finally: "What's going on down there, Decker?"
        I thought it over. "I guess I'm going berserk," I said.
        An even longer pause. Then, almost rhetorically: "What have you done?"
        I motioned at Ted Jones. He nodded back at me politely. "Mr. Denver?"
        "Who's that?"
        "Ted Jones, Mr. Denver. Charlie has a gun. He's holding us hostage. He's killed Mrs. Underwood. And I think he killed Mr. Vance, too."
        "I'm pretty sure I did," I said.
        "Oh," Mr. Denver said.
        Sarah Pasterne giggled again.
        "Ted Jones?"
        "I'm here," Ted told him. He sounded very competent, Ted did, but at the same time distant. Like a first lieutenant who has been to college. You had to admire him.
        "Who is in the classroom besides you and Decker?"
        "Just a sec," I said. "I'll call the roll. Hold on."
        I got Mrs. Underwood's green attendance book and opened it up. "Period two, right?"
        "Yeah," Corky said.
        "Okay. Here we go. Irma Bates?"
        "I want to go home! " Irma screamed defiantly.
        "She's here," I said. "Susan Brooks?"
        "Here. "
        "Nancy Caskin?"
        "Here. "
        I went through the rest of the roll. There were twenty-five names, and the only absentee was Peter Franklin.
        "Has Peter Franklin been shot?" Mr. Denver asked quietly.
        "He's got the measles," Don Lordi said. This brought on another attack of the giggles. Ted Jones frowned deeply.
        "Decker?"
        "Yes."
        "Will you let them go?"
        "Not right now," I said.
        "Why?" There was dreadful concern, a dreadful heaviness in his voice, and for a second I almost caught myself feeling sorry for him. I crushed that quickly. It's like being in a big poker game. Here is this guy who has been winning big all night, he's got a pile of chips that's a mile-high, and all at once he starts to lose. Not a little bit, but a lot, and you want to feel bad for him and his falling empire. But you cram that back and bust him, or you take it in the eye.
        So I said, "We haven't finished getting it on down here yet."
        "What does that mean?"
        "It means stick it," I said. Carol Granger's eyes got round.
        "Decker-"
        "Call me Charlie. All my friends call me Charlie."
        "Decker-"
        I held my hand up in front of the class and crossed the fingers in pairs. "If you don't call me Charlie, I'm going to shoot somebody."
        Pause.
        "Charlie?"
        "That's better." In the back row, Mike Gavin and Dick Keene were covering grins. Some of the others weren't bothering to cover them. "You call me Charlie, and I'll call you Tom. That okay, Tom?"
        Long, long pause.
        "When will you let them go, Charlie? They haven't hurt