Schwilk tried without success to quiet the class. He told Marya that she was being ridiculous, she must know she was being ridiculous; and Marya said, drawling, that the mountain climber was the ridiculous one: she’d never gotten stuck up in the mountains, and never would.

Schwilk told her to shut her mouth and keep it shut.

Marya said, “You asked if we had questions and I asked a question and I still want to know—how many mountain climbers made the jump?—how many made it, and how many fell?—seeing as how they had faith—”

One of the boys in the back of the room called out, inspired, “Helicopter! Send out a helicopter!”

Now the class roared with laughter—wave upon wave of wild adolescent laughter—imbecilic, uncontrollable, splendid in its volume: and there was Schwilk, poor hapless Schwilk, the butt of it all, trapped at the front of the room.

When the bell finally rang Marya threw her books together and made her way out of the room with the pack, not troubling to glance back at Schwilk, or to hear his feeble protest, “You haven’t understood!—you’ve distorted everything!—you’re no better than savages—savage beasts—”

WHY DID IT happen, the eighth-graders were asked, afterward.

Why did you hate Mr. Schwilk so much . . . ?

They tried to explain that they hadn’t hated him. He was all right, really. He was strict, and a hard grader, and he made fun of some kids, but he was funny, and probably he made them learn things . . . and he hadn’t ever hit anyone. . . . (It wasn’t uncommon in Innisfail for teachers to strike offensive students in class, or to send them to the principal’s office for punishment.) But Schwilk was just—Schwilk: and things got out of control.

After the pandemonium in March, after the spectacle of Schwilk, perspiring and red-faced at the front of the classroom, a kind of collective harassment began, not only in eighth grade but in all the grades: until, near the end, not even the worst troublemakers seemed to be in control of what was happening. Why do you hate Schwilk, why do you give him such a hard time? students from the high school asked, but there never was a coherent explanation. Lester Hughey said, without pity: “That fairy bastard cocksucker—ask him.”

A FEW DAYS later Mr. Schwilk made the strategic error of punishing his eighth-graders for their general “rowdiness” by springing a surprise grammar test on them: but, as if by agreement, only about a quarter of the class handed it in. (Marya, newly emboldened, ripped her paper in two—and was gratified to see a few other students, seated near her, following suit. Poor Schwilk, hunched over his desk and pretending to be deeply absorbed in a book, never so much as glanced up.) Outside class they were exhilarated, fired with a delicious sort of energy. After all, what could Schwilk do?—could he really fail them all?—the very best students along with the worst?