The physics teacher, Howard Dax, dismissed the class. He picked up a felt-covered block and erased the diagrams he had drawn on the blackboard. He noticed with annoyance that the lines were shaky, and in one place was an irregular star where the chalk had broken because of his exasperation at his pupils—or more exactly, one particular pupil.
When the blackboard was clean to the corners—Howard Dax was a very precise man—he turned around and saw that the particular pupil was still sitting at his desk. He was a thin boy of fifteen, called Mallison, whose dark, wavy hair was too long. It rose in a kind of breaker over his forehead, and he had sideburns cut to a point. His expression was neither sullen nor impertinent, but Dax had always had the feeling that Mallison was concealing intense boredom and only listened to him perforce. He was sure that the narrow, rather handsome face was on the verge of sneering. But there had never been quite anything that he could put his finger on. The boy was definitely not good at physics, yet he wasn't at the bottom of the class. The thing was that he gave the impression of being above average intelligence. He obviously could do very much better if he wanted to. Dax was convinced that he despised physics, and school in general.
"Yes?" Dax said. "What is it?" He tried to make his voice sound natural and casual.
Mallison stared at him impassively for a moment. Then he said, "You don't like me, Mr. Dax, do you?"
"My dear boy, I neither like you nor dislike you," Dax said. He could feel his hands beginning again to tremble slightly. Damn adrenalin! "I am merely trying to teach you elementary physics. Why do you ask?"
"Why do you give me such low grades?" Mallison said, but with no sense of urgent curiosity.
Howard Dax thought that the boy's manner was altogether too adult. He didn't expect deference from a modern teenager, but neither did he like to be spoken to in such a man-to-man way. No; come to think of it, man-to-man wasn't quite the phrase. It was off-hand. And yet it was artificial: Mallison never spoke in this way to his contemporaries. He usually talked like a ... what was it? Hipster?
"I give students the grades that in my opinion they deserve," Dax said. "In your case they are low because I don't think you're trying."
"I am trying," Mallison said, then added, "sir."
"You are," Dax said. "Very." He thought the remark was rather neat, but the boy looked at him without any change of expression. Why was he here? What did he want to say? "I must confess," Dax went on, "that I am surprised at your interest in grades. I should have thought that rock-and-roll was more your style. That and ... er ... racing around at night in a fast car!" He felt that he was sneering, and made his face blank.
"I'm too young for a driver's license," Mallison said.
"But old enough to pull yourself together and do some real work. You could do much better in class. You're not stupid."
The boy said nothing and continued to stare at him without expression.
"When I see signs of an improved attitude," Dax said, "and a little more work, I shall mark you accordingly. One gets the impression usually that your mind is on other things. Things like jazz records."
"Didn't you listen to jazz when you were young, Mr. Dax?"
Howard Dax at thirty-nine hardly thought of himself as old. The boy was not being exactly fresh, but he had a sort of polite tactlessness. It was absurd, but he felt that Mallison had the upper hand, somehow.
Dax had an older brother who had been a lieutenant in World War II, and he had described to him an occasion on which he had interviewed an elderly staff sergeant. The staff sergeant in civilian life had been his brother's boss. Although his manner was scrupulously correct, there remained an atmosphere of his peacetime ascendancy. Howard Dax sympathized with his brother. There was nothing actually wrong with Mallison's manner, but the pupil had the master on the defensive.
He decided to ignore Mallison's question. He had no idea how the young nowadays felt about the subject of early Benny Goodman or the emergence of Barrel House. Why was he even bothering?
"The point at issue," he said with asperity, "is not whether I used to listen to jazz twenty-five years ago, but whether you are going to pay attention in class now. I admit you manage to scrape through in the tests, but this morning, for example, you acted as if you were half asleep!"
"I'm sorry. I was very tired." Mallison did look pale.
"I suppose you were up half the night—cutting a rug."
Mallison winced at the outdated jargon but he merely shook his head. There were firm steps in the corridor, and the school principal marched in.
Mallison stood up; Dax was still standing. The principal had a small piece of folded paper in his hand, and did not immediately notice the boy, whose desk was near the back row and next the open windows. He went straight to the platform and put the folded paper on Dax's desk. He nodded curtly and glanced towards the windows, and saw Mallison sitting there for the first time.
"I thought you were alone," he said, turning to Dax.
"You may go," Dax said to the boy. "That will be all. Remember what I said." He looked at the folded paper and then at the principal questioningly. "Yes, Mr. Lightstone?"
The principal was a short white-haired man with a dogged expression. He turned again to make sure the boy had left and said. "I want you to look at this, Dax." He tapped the folded paper, which had been made into a sort of envelope, with its ends tucked in. Dax bent to examine it.
"Pick it up, man! Open it," the principal said, and came around and sat in the teacher's chair. "Be careful not to spill it!"
Dax picked up the little packet and opened it. Inside was a teaspoonful of white powder. "What is it?" he asked.
"That," said the principal, "is something for our friends upstairs in the chemistry department to determine. I found it myself, in the flowerbed right outside these windows!"
Howard Dax looked puzzled. "I don't think I understand—"
"If I don't miss my bet," said the principal, "that's heroin!" He jerked his head towards the windows. "And somebody threw it out of this classroom!"
"Oh, I don't think it's heroin, Mr. Lightstone," Dax said. "Heroin has a distinct glitter, and this seems—"
"I had the impression you were a physicist, not a chemist," the principal said. "Besides, the police told us last week that they believe a gang of narcotics pushers—I think they called them—are operating in the neighborhood! What else could it be? I've been on the lookout for something of this sort."
There was a silence. Dax didn't know what to say.
He himself was very tired, he had been working late every evening. He had three different tasks that occupied every minute of his waking hours: his job as teacher being the least important although the most essential. The other two were perhaps visionary, but they might lead to something more exciting than retiring on a pension.
"Well?" Mr. Lightstone was impatient—his usual condition. "Have you any ideas? It has been my experience that drug-taking and juvenile delinquency go together." This was not strictly true as Mr. Lightstone had never knowingly seen a drug-taker, but he did read the papers.
"I suppose there is a certain amount of delinquency here............