SCHWILK’S SUDDEN END came on a balmy May afternoon when the scent of lilac was heavy in the air and only five weeks of classes—only five weeks!—remained in the semester. In the midst of a conventional grammar lesson someone, for some inexplicable reason, began to hum loudly; and almost at once another student joined in; then another; and another. Even as Schwilk stared and blinked at his young tormentors the humming spread, grew bolder, more resonant, coming at him from all corners of the room. Who had thought of it, and why did the others so readily join in? The prank was totally unpremeditated but all the participants knew enough to hold their jaws rigid, purse their lips, maintain innocent neutral expressions as if nothing were wrong. “What is this? Why—?” Schwilk whispered. The eerie vibrating noise came at him from everywhere, it seemed, and nowhere; it was as anonymous as Nature itself. Though Marya felt uneasily that the persecution of Schwilk had gone far enough, she couldn’t resist joining in with the humming—its very ferocity, its pretense of innocence, seemed to draw her in. So she hummed along with the others, watching Schwilk covertly, feeling her jaws and teeth vibrate with the cruel melodic sensation.

I cross you off my list, she thought.

Within a few minutes the man retreated—simply retreated—went to sit quietly at his desk—hid his perspiring face in his hands. He’d dressed too warmly for this spring day in one of his well-worn tweed coats with leather elbow patches; his checked necktie was askew; his trousers looked as if they had been slept in. When the bell rang they all trooped out, somewhat more soberly than usual, but no one cared to pause at Schwilk’s desk and ask if he was all right; and by the time the next class arrived the man had slumped forward, unconscious.

SCHWILK WAS TAKEN by ambulance to the Innisfail General Hospital where, according to immediate rumor, he died—or almost died—of a heart attack; or a stroke; or something called “cerebral hemorrhage.”

In fact he didn’t die; he had merely collapsed. Innisfail’s eighth-graders, after all, hadn’t that much power.

EVENTUALLY MARYA AND her classmates learned that Mr. Schwilk had collapsed of strain, overwork, and exhaustion—total physical exhaustion. That he suffered from a particularly severe case of diabetes might have been related to his breakdown as well; and he’d been taking a variety of drugs for many months—some by prescription, others over the counter, unwisely mixed. (It was even thought that Schwilk’s nervous excitability—his curious attitude that classroom teaching mattered so much—was a consequence of drugs.)

Well, the eighth-graders said uneasily, guiltily, half resentfully, how could we have known? How is it our fault?