"I'm watching a picture show," thought Robbie. The area framed by the front of the shelter shed was a screen, the footballers getting dirtier and dirtier were the characters of a film, and he was the solitary viewer, watching fascinated from the outside.
But Robbie soon found himself unwillingly involved in the action when the ball came through into the shed, shattering his imaginary screen. It was followed by a panting mob. The ball left a dirty mark on the seat near him and bounced across to the corner, ending up under the bench.
"Hey, Droopy, why didn't ya kick it back to us?"
Robbie looked up at the tall pimply boy who spoke to him.
"Leave 'im alone, Grover. He didn't do nothin'," said another.
"Yeah! That's just the trouble. He never does nothin'! Listen, Droop, if that ball comes in 'ere again, you chuck it out to us, see? Next time you'll get ya head belted in."
He gave Robbie's shoulder a sharp punch as he walked out with the other boys, back into Robbie's rectangular movie-screen.
Their victim finished his lunch in silence. The punch had not really hurt him. If it had, he might have cried, but he would not have hit back. That would just make it worse. The football scene gradually gave way to the scene where the children who had gone home for lunch walked past the shed as they returned to school and headed towards their classrooms.
He watched Barnsie pass. Barnsie was different from the boys who played football. Barnsie didn't call him "Droopy", which was a silly nickname. It didn't sound at all like his surname, "Drury". But Robbie did not hang around with John Barnes very much. He never really hung around with anyone. "I'll get my gang onto you!" was one of the standard threats he would hear, but he certainly never belonged to any of these "gangs".
On the whole he preferred girls to boys, but he would not like to admit it. Of course he never actually spoke to any of the girls he really liked, the ones he thought of as his girlfriends.
There was, however, one girl he did not like at all. Pamela Woodend, who had just walked across his movie screen, was irritatingly perfect. She always finished her schoolwork early, and got top marks for it. She had so many friends, but she looked at Robbie as if he didn't exist. The air of superiority she assumed grated on him so much that at times he felt an intense hatred for her.
What were those cards she was showing to her friends that morning? Some silly picture cards she had obtained from somewhere, a collection of famous explorers, perhaps, which the service stations were giving away with their petrol. Trust her to get a complete set from somewhere! Not that he had any interest in that sort of thing himself.
The warning bell rang. He stood up and walked out of the shelter shed, right through his imaginary screen, to a new movie in a different theatre.
Robbie was the first one into the classroom, where Mr Price was to give his Social Studies lesson. He had to go out again soon to get in line, and, according to the rules, he was not supposed to be in the room until after the final bell. But no one took much notice of that rule. Children often came in early to get their books out ready for the next lesson.
He opened the squeaky wooden lid of his desk and took out his Social Studies book, which he placed open on the scratched, scribbled-on, ink-blotted desk top. As he set his pen and pencils down in the black level groove at the top of the slope, his eyes came to rest upon a little pile of cards, held together by a black rubber band. They were waiting on the curved seat of Pam Woodend's desk, waiting for Robbie to take them.
He glanced up at the window, and when he looked down again the sharp, bright shapes of the glass panes remained in his eyes, obliterating the image of the heap of picture cards in the dull room. His mind whirled, and he knew he didn't really want them. But Pamela wanted them. It would serve her right if she lost them. His hand was hovering over the bundle, and an instant later they were clasped in his fingers. When he looked straight at them he could still hardly see them because of the squares of light. The next moment he was walking towards the classroom door with the cards in the pocket of his short pants, his skin feeling a little hot, and his head feeling a little strange ¡V as if he had done something he should not have done, something wrong. But it could not be wrong. It was done to punish Pamela. She deserved it.
The teacher had not yet come, so the queue forming outside was unruly, the boys pushing and shoving one another, and the girls giggling and chattering. Pamela chattered louder than any of them, although she never talked in class. Whenever Mr Price had to leave the room, it was always her who was given the job of writing on the board the names of any children who talked or got out of their seats. Once she wrote Robbie's name when he didn't do anything, but more often she didn't take any notice of him at all.
He thought about the cards for a while, until a small classmate suddenly pushed him out of line, an act which also pushed the cards temporarily out of his mind, more immediate thoughts of resentment having taken their place. Robbie did not try to regain his place. He merely went to the end of the queue and waited until the balding head of Mr Price appeared, and the grade walked into the old classroom, where they had their Social Studies lesson, after a short lecture on the correct way to behave while lining up.
After half an hour the boys went next door for handwork with Mr Gibson, and the girls of the class were joined by the girls from Mr Gibson's grade to do their needlework. For a long time Robbie sat in the front desk glueing matches to a board of masonite. This was the third match-tray he had made already. As there were other boys in the family, his mother was well-supplied with these essential articles. In any case, Robbie was quite content to continue making them. He had no desire to try something more ambitious or even just different. The work had become mechanical, freeing his mind for more interesting daydreaming. The incident which had worried him earlier was now closed, and his mind wandered elsewhere as he pasted matchsticks in squares horizontally and vertically on his board. His fingers were sticky and, inevitably, some of the glue stuck to his newly cleaned school jumper, but this did not concern him as he continued to place the matches evenly, side by side, all in their ordered spaces. When the lesson was over the boys washed their hands, put away their creations until the following week, and went back to their own classroom next door, the naughty ones making rude signs as they passed Mr Gibson's girls on the way. Robbie could never see the point of returning to class at this time, as recess was only ten minutes away.
Robbie noticed something different about Mr Price's face as he waited for the class to settle down. He didn't like the look of it. The forgotten cards immediately flashed back into his mind, and he realised he was sweating.
Mr Price told the class that a set of cards belonging to Pamela Woodend had disappeared. She had left them inside her desk at lunchtime, and, during the needlework lesson, had discovered they were missing. "I hope I'm wrong," he continued. "I would not like to think anyone here would steal from his or her classmates. Perhaps what happened is this - somebody might have opened the desk and seen the cards. Then perhaps this person might have thought the cards would be nice to have, and, just for a moment, forgot that it's wrong to take things from other people. I'm sure that whoever that person is must be feeling very sorry for what he or she did. I'm not going to say any more about it now. When the bell goes, you can go out to play. But, when we come back into the classroom, and Pamela opens her desk, I hope she will find the cards have been returned. If this doesn't happen, I'm afraid a search might be necessary, and this would be very embarassing for whoever has taken them, when they are found. You can not get away with stealing other people's property, no matter how small it might seem to be."
When the bell rang, Robbie was the first child outside the door. He didn't pack his books neatly in his desk as he usually did, but pushed them in untidily. The glare of the winter sun was bright but not hot. The heat he felt came from himself. His face was hot and all his feelings merged into one sense of fear. A search. To Robbie that meant Mr Price would literally look through everyone's desk, pockets and schoolbags and everywhere else in the room. Somehow he had to get rid of the cards. He had to hide them. If he did not have them on his person he could never be discovered as the thief. He said that word to himself ¡V "thief". It didn't fit the way he thought about himself. Only other boys got into this sort of trouble. How did it happen to him? The word "thief" seemed too clear, too definite. It didn't belong to him.
He found he was running, right past the shelter shed where he had pretended to watch the film at lunchtime, so long ago. Now he could no longer sit back and watch life roll by like a film. He was right in it himself, the main character, and he wanted desperately to escape back into the audience.
At the far end of the shelter shed, at the bottom of the outside wall, was a hole where the wood had broken and rotted away. Robbie had never noticed this little cranny before, and, after that day, he would probably never notice it again. It would no longer be a part of his life. But now it was the centre of his thoughts. It was a hiding-place, and that was all he needed. Perhaps it was not a very good hiding-place but it did not have to be. It did not matter to Robbie if the cards were found, provided they were not found on his person. While the cards were there in his pocket they were connected with him, a physical part of him, which would certainly be discovered in a thorough search. But soon they would no longer be a part of him, except in the privacy of his memory, which surely was beyond the reach of any search.
His hand felt the warm cotton lining of his side pocket, passed by the rough texture of a screwed-up handkerchief, and gripped the set of picture cards. He drew the bundle out from his pocket and looked at the top picture. No one was in sight in that part of the yard. He had been correct. They were indeed explorers. The first one was Captain Cook. He discovered Australia. No doubt that fact would be mentioned on the other side of the card. But the lives of explorers were of no immediate interest to Robbie.
The hand just fitted through the splintered gap, deposited the cards, and withdrew. He could see the bundle clearly; it was not completely concealed. He gave one hurried look behind him, to make sure no one had seen him. There wasn't a person in sight. He was free.
When he arrived back outside his classroom, pupils were still coming out. It was quite likely that nobody had noticed he had left. He must have been absent only a very short time. Barnsie, coming through the doorway of the other classroom, assumed Robbie had just come from his, and he joined him. The two boys walked along the asphalt path that led past the shelter shed. There was no particular reason to walk this way. They could have walked in any direction, but they just happened to choose this route.
The area was no longer deserted, and a group of boys were kicking a football around not far away. Barnsie was talking non-stop, but Robbie wasn't listening. They were standing some distance from the side of the shelter shed and Robbie could see the little gap at the base of the wall.
"Look!" he said suddenly. "Can you see that?" He had had no intention whatever of saying this to Barnsie.
"What?" asked Barnsie, interrupted in his monologue.
"Look! The cards! The lost cards!" Robbie looked at his companion's confused face and realised that he and Barnsie were in different grades. In his own confusion Robbie had the feeling that the whole world knew about the terrible robbery.
"I can't see nothing."
"They're Pamela's cards. She lost them at lunchtime," he said, running with Barnsie to the dark hole, where the little pack soon came into view. He could not possibly have seen them from where he had been standing, but he had known they were there, which was almost the same thing. In attempting to free himself from the burden of the theft, he was acting as he thought anyone should act who had accidentally discovered the missing bundle. When he had hidden the cards he had had no intention of returning them, but now there seemed to be no reason why he shouldn't. He had discovered stolen property and it would be dishonest not to return it.
He scooped the neat little pack from its enclosure and showed the cards to Barnsie. "See! They're the sort you get down at the service station. They're all right for girls, I suppose."
After a moment the two boys were running back to the classroom. It was almost time for the bell to ring, as afternoon recess was very short. They ran down the asphalt path, Robbie clasping the loot in his left hand, into the assembly square in front of the two adjacent classrooms.
"I've found the cards!" cried Robbie to a group of boys illegally hitting a tennis ball against the classroom wall.
"Liar!" said Grover. "I bet you pinched them!"
"Yeah, where'd ya find them? In ya pocket?"
Robbie flushed at the accuracy of the accusation. "They were in a hole under the shelter shed."
"Fibber! There's no holes under the shelter shed!"
"There is so!" protested Barnsie. "Go and have a look!"
"He's a bloody liar! I bet he pinched them!"
"He didn't pinch them! I seen him find them!"
Grover didn't really think that Robbie stole the cards. Such an act would make him too much like Grover. Not that Grover would steal anything as silly as a pack of cards. He only stole money, and not because he disliked the victim but because he liked what he could buy with the proceeds. He would steal from his best friends, but he would always offer them some of the sweets he bought with their money.
"Mr Price is in the room, at his desk," said another boy. "You'd better take them to him."
"Yeah! He'll know you're lying, Droopy," persisted Grover.
Robbie looked a bit worried, but ran up the wooden steps with Barnsie close behind him, not wishing to miss anything. Both faces were red with running, and Robbie seemed as excited as if he had recovered buried treasure. Mr Price, sitting at his cluttered table, lifted his eyes from his papers and observed the intruders with a questioning expression.
"I found the cards!" burst out Robbie.
"I seen him find them," said Barnsie.
"Saw, John!" replied the teacher. "And where were they?"
"They were in a crack in the shelter shed wall. Someone must have hidden them there!"
"Yes, we found them in the crack," added Barnsie helpfully.
Robbie held them out between his thumb and finger.
"Thank you, Robert," said the adult, taking the bundle from the little boy. "I'll see that Pamela has them back, and we won't say any more about it."
Robbie was relieved. "He doesn't know!" he thought. "He couldn't possibly know."
"You may go," said Mr Price. "The bell will be going soon."
Robbie left the room. Now it was all over. At last, it really was all over. Then for an instant he was worried. What if Mr Price still tried to find out who did it? His finding of the cards did connect him in some way with the robbery. But then, how could he know? Robbie didn't have the cards any more. They were nothing to do with him.
He went out of the door into the waning afternoon, and joined the queue which had begun to form already. Barnsie left to line up outside his own clasroom. The episode was completely over for him. His thoughts turned to billy-cart racing, which was much more exciting than a stolen pack of cards, even one depicting Captain Cook and those other strange people who roamed around Australia a long time ago in the time called "History".
As far as the teacher was concerned, Robbie's returning of the cards almost amounted to a confession, but a coward's confession. Mr Price did not doubt that Robbie was the thief. He knew, because he could read the faces of little boys who had not yet learnt to hide their feelings behind a mask. Robbie's experience of life so far had not often required him to control his facial expressions, and he thought that Mr Price could only take into account the concrete facts of the case.
In any case, Mr Price merely told the class that the cards had been returned and never mentioned the matter again.
As for Barnsie, if he thought about it at all, he wasn't sure who had actually seen the cards in the hole first, and he certainly did not suspect Robbie of putting them there.
Nature Study was the subject now being taught, and Robbie settled down to work again, with only a slight sense of uneasiness about the act which he was now amazed that he had committed. He soon convinced himself that Mr Price could not possibly suspect him of the crime. As for Grover and the other boys who had accused him, they were not important. They could not turn against him as they were already against him. So long as Barnsie believed in him, that was all that mattered. Barnsie wasn't a great friend, but he was not an enemy so his opinion was important.
Pamela's opinion didn't count because she was a girl, but Robbie disliked her now more than ever. He thought of her as he walked slowly home from school, swinging his schoolbag about by its frayed leather strap. It was all her fault, he thought. He would be more careful in the future. He would hate Pamela from a distance, and not let her triumph over him again. It was now quite clear that she had caused the whole incident, maybe even planned in it in some way. He swung the schoolbag too far and a ruler fell out. He stooped to pick it up from the green nature strip outside his home and then opened the rusty iron gate, behind which the concrete path to the open front door waited to receive his footsteps.
"Did you have a nice day at school, Robbie?" asked Mrs Drury, as he kissed her soft white cheek.
"Yes, Mummy," he said. "I've nearly finished another match-tray for you."