'Sloat!' the Etheridge-thing yelled up. 'Where's your tie?'
A spasm of guilt contracted Richard's face; his hands jerked toward the open neck of his shirt.
'We'll let it go this time, if you send out your passenger, Sloat!' the Etheridge-thing yelled up. 'If you send him out, everything can go back to the way it was! You want that, don't you?'
Richard was staring down at the Etheridge-thing, nodding - Jack was sure of it - quite unconsciously. His face was a knotted rag of misery, his eyes bright with unshed tears. He wanted everything to go back to the way it had been, oh yes.
'Don't you love this school, Sloat?' the Etheridge-thing bellowed up at Albert's window.
'Yes,' Richard muttered, and gulped down a sob. 'Yes, of course I love it.'
'You know what we do to little punks who don't love this school? Give him to us! It'll be like he was never here!'
Richard turned slowly and looked at Jack with dreadfully blank eyes.
'You decide, Richie-boy,' Jack said softly.
'He's carrying drugs, Richard!' the Etheridge-thing called up. 'Four or five different kinds! Coke, hash, angel-dust! He's been selling all of that stuff to finance his trip west! Where do you think he got that nice coat he was wearing when he showed up on your doorstep?'
'Drugs,' Richard said with great, shuddery relief. 'I knew it.'
'But you don't believe it,' Jack said. 'Drugs didn't change your school, Richard. And the dogs - '
'Send him out, Sl . . .' the Etheridge-thing's voice was fading, fading.
When the two boys looked down again, it was gone.
'Where did your father go, do you think?' Jack asked softly. 'Where do you think he went when he didn't come out of the closet, Richard?'
Richard turned slowly to look at him, and Richard's face, usually so calm and intelligent and serene, now began to shiver into pieces. His chest began to hitch irregularly. Richard suddenly fell into Jack's arms, clutching at him with a blind, panicky urgency. 'It t-t-touched muh-me-eeee!' he screamed at Jack. His body trembled under Jack's hands like a winchwire under a near-breaking strain. 'It touched me, it t-touched m-me, something in there t-t-touched me AND I DON'T NUH-NUH-KNOW WHAT IT WAS!'
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