"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The New Adam" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

definitely dividing themselves from the others. How-ever, there were many newcomers like Edmond who
stood at a loss; some of them cried, and some waited aimlessly for the assignment of seats.
And that stage passed. The strange child refused association with others; he came and left alone, and
spent his recesses wandering by himself about the school-yard. He did not seem unusually bright. The
goad of competition simply slipped off his hide; he flatly and definitely refused to compete. Questions put
by the teacher were answered with unvarying correctness, but he never volunteered. On the other hand,
his memory was faultless, and his grasp of explanations rather remarkable. And so the strange child
moved in a world as frictionless as he could contrive and the grades slipped by with the lengthy seasons
of childhood. He seemed to learn with accept-able facility. He was never late, seldom early, and still
pursued as solitary a course as conditions per-mitted.
In fourth grade he encountered a physical training instructress who had taken a summer course in the
psychology of morbid children. She singled Edmond out; here, she thought, is both a good specimen and
an opportunity to help. Introverted, repressed, feeling of inferiorityтАФthese were the tags she applied to
him.
She arranged games during the gymnasium hour, and attempted to arouse Edmond to compete. She
paired him with one or another of the children in races, jumping contests, competitions of various sorts.
She appointed him to drop the handkerchief when that game was in progress, and in various ways
tried to direct him in paths she thought proper from her three-months study of the subject.
Edmond realized the situation with some disfavor. He promptly and coolly obtained an excuse from
physical training, displaying his curious hands as a reason. In some ways he paid for his privilege; the
excuse drew the attention of his classmates to his manual deformity. They commented on it in the blunt
manner of ten-year-olds, and were continually asking to see the questionable fingers. Edmond oblig-ingly
wriggled them for their amusement; he saw in this the easiest attainment of the privacy he desired. And
after a while interest did fade; he was permitted again to come and go alone.
He was not, of course, spared entirely in the fierce savagery of childhood. Often enough he was the
butt of gibes, the recipient of challenges to fight, or the bearer of a derisive, though usually short-lived,
sobri-quet. He faced all of these ordeals with a stony indif-ference. He came and went as he had always
doneтАФalone. If he held any resentment, he never showed it, with but possibly one exception.
He was in the sixth grade, and just twelve years old. In every grade, as he had noticed, there had
been one leader, one boy who assumed mastery, and whom the others obeyed with a sort of loose
disci-pline. For two years this leader had been PaulтАФPaul Varney, son of an English professor at nearby
North-western University, a fine blond youngster, clean-featured, large for his age, intelligent, and
imagina-tive. Very grown up was Paul; he dated with little Evanne Marten in the fifth grade in Platonic
imita-tion of his elders. It was his custom and his privilege to walk home each afternoon with Vanny, who
had the blackest hair in school. And it was Paul who coined the sobriquet "Snake-fingers," which
pursued Edmond most of a week. At the beginning the name gave Edmond a day of torment not that he
minded the epithet, but he hated with a fierce intensity the attention it centered on him. He stalked icily
out of the door that afternoon. The nick-name followed him, taken up by others in the cruel hunting-pack
of chil-dren. A group trailed him, headed by Paul
At the sidewalk he encountered little black-haired Vanny of the fifth; she took in the situation instantly,
and seized his arm.
"Walk with me, Edmond."
There was a cessation of sound from behind him; this situation was up to Paul. And Paul strode up to
Edmond; he was a head taller than his slight op-ponent.
"Nanny's walking with me!" he said.
"I'll walk with whom I please, Paul Varney!" Vanny cut in.
"This guy won't be able to walk in a minute!" He advanced toward Edmond.
"All right," said the latter coldly, with a curious intense light in his amber eyes. He doubled the
trou-blesome fingers into curious fists.
"Sure, you're bigger'n Edmond. Bully!" Vanny taunted Paul. He stopped; whether Vanny's gibe or