Bless Me, Ultima(61)

“Places! Places!” Miss Violet shouted. “Joseph?” she called and I stepped forward. “Mary? Who is Mary?”

“Horse!” Red answered.

“No! No! No!” Horse cried. We chased him down on the stage and knocked over a lot of the props, but we finally got the beautiful blue robe on him.

“Horse is a virgin!” Bones called.

“¡Aghhhhh! ¡Cabrón!” Horse started up the rope but we pulled him down.

“Horse! Horse!” Miss Violet tried to subdue him. “It’s only for a little while. And no one will know. Here.” She put a heavy veil on his head and tied it around his face so that it covered all except his eyes.

“¡Naggggggh!” Horse screamed. It was awful to hear him cry, like he was in pain.

“I’ll give you an A,” Miss Violet said in exasperation. That made Horse think. He had never gotten an A in anything in his life.

“An A,” he muttered, his large horse jaws working as he weighed the disgrace of his role for the grade. “Okay,” he said finally, “okay. But remember, you said an A!”

“I’ll be your witness,” Lloyd said from behind the cow.

“Horse is a virgin!” Bones sang, and Horse quit the job and we had to persuade him all over again.

“Bones is just jealous,” Red convinced him.

“Come down!” Miss Violet yelled at Bones.

“Gimme an A,” Bones growled.

“All right,” she agreed.

He thought awhile then yelled, “No, gimme two A’s!”

“Go to—” She stopped herself and said, “Stay up there. But if you fall and break your neck it’s not my fault!”

“You could be sued by his family for saying that,” Lloyd said. He wiped his mouth and the chocolate spread all over his face.

“I got to pee—” Abel groaned.

“Horse, kneel here.” Horse was to kneel by the manger and I stood at his side, with one hand on his shoulder. When I put my arm around his shoulder Horse’s lips sputtered and I thought he would bolt. His big horse-eyes looked up at me nervously. One of the cardboard donkeys kept tipping over and hitting Horse, this only served to make him more nervous. Some of the kids were stationed behind the cardboard animals to keep them up, and they giggled and kept looking around the edges at each other. They started a spit-wad game and that really made Miss Violet angry.

“Please behave!” she shouted. “Pleeeeeeee-z!” The Vitamin Kid had recovered and was running around the stage. She collared him and made him stand in one spot. “Kings here,” she said. I guess someone had put the robe on the Kid when he was knocked out, because otherwise no one could have held him long enough to slip the robe on.

“Does everybody have copies of the play?” Red shouted. “If you have to look at the lines, keep the script hidden so the audience doesn’t see—”

“I can seeeeee—” It was Bones. He leaned to look down at Florence’s copy of the play and almost fell off the rafter. We all gasped, but he recovered. Then he bragged, “Tarzuuuuuuun, king of the jungle!” And he started calling elephants like Tarzan does in the movie, “Aghhh-uhhhh-uhhhh-uhhhhhhhhh—”

“¡Cabrón!” “¡Chingada!” Everyone was laughing.

“Bones,” Miss Violet pleaded. I thought she was going to cry. “Please come down.”

“I ain’t no sissy!” he snarled.

“You know, I’m going to have to report you to the principal—”

Bones laughed. He had been spanked so many times by the principal that it didn’t mean anything anymore. They had become almost like friends, or like enemies that respected each other. Now when Bones was sent in for misbehaving he said the principal just made him sit. Then, Bones said, the principal very slowly lit a cigarette and smoked it, blowing rings of smoke in Bones’ face all the while. Bones liked it. I guess they both got a satisfaction out of it. When the cigarette was gone and its light crushed in the ashtray Bones was excused. Then Bones went back to the room and told the teacher he had really gotten it this time and he promised to be a good boy and not break any rules. But five minutes later he broke a rule, and of course he couldn’t help it because they said his brother who worked in the meat market had brought Bones up on raw meat.

“I ain’t got page five,” Abel cried. His face was red and he looked sick.

“You don’t need page five, your lines are on page two,” Red told him. He was very good about helping Miss Violet; I only wished I could help more. But the kids wouldn’t listen to me because I wasn’t big like Red, and besides, there I was stuck with my arm around Horse.