The Man Without a Face by ALEXANDER_

night in late August, fell into three stages. The next few weeks, when nothing too much seemed to happen except my going to McLeod’s house every day and lugging back homework, was the first stage.
    It was all very quiet. Even Gloria didn’t give me her usual flak, being, at the time, occupied with her new boyfriend, Percy Minton (if you would believe the name), and was arrayed on the beach or down at the dinghy pier every day during those crucial hours of homework till I was sprung for the day at about three thirty.
    Mother maintained a kind of hostile silence. She didn’t know where I was, of course, in the early mornings. And for the first time in my life I was grateful that, if the world is divided into larks and nightingales as Barry Rumble Seat says, then Mother is definitely a nightingale. She may be up, that is, her body may be in a vertical position, as early as seven or eight, but she doesn’t get assembled before about eleven. So if she were in the kitchen having some coffee or puttering in a vague way when I came back into the house from McLeod’s, she’d probably say nothing at all, assuming I had been out on the beach or pier with the kids. When she did ask, I’d simply say, “Around,” and she’d usually accept that, because one of the good things about today is that we have the older generation thoroughly housebroken.
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    If they get too nosy you can drag in words like “authoritarian” and “over-compensatory” and they’re so well trained by TV and all those articles in magazines about adolescents and Dr. Spock that they immediately begin to feel inadequate. They know right away they’re doing something wrong.
    Every now and then, of course, some deep instinct in Mother wells to the surface and she forgets all her good training and says, “Where?”
    That’s when I say, “Down at the pier,” or “At the boathouse,” or something like that.
    Once, out of some atavistic impulse, she pointed to the books under my arm and said, “With those books?”
    “Is there any reason why I can’t have quiet and fresh air the same time as I study?” I asked, putting a lot of “wronged victim” in my voice. I saw then that if I went upstairs and stayed for three hours in the unfresh air she’d figure something was fishy, so I moved immediately onto the offensive. “Gosh,” I said, heading towards the back stairs, “you can see why kids take to drugs, it’s about the only place they can get away from being asked questions like it’s the FBI on your tail,” and I absently scratched the inside of one elbow.
    “Let me see your arm.” There was so much panic in Mother’s voice that I wanted to laugh, but I also felt a bit sorry.
    “I’m clean!” I shoved up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. “Okay?”
    She stared and slowly let out her breath. Then she did a funny thing. She put her hands on my shoulders. “Chuck, I’m so frightened for you. How can I make you understand that whatever is the matter, taking a pill or a shot or anything like that will only make it worse. Please don’t. Please.”
    I was hot and uncomfortable and wanted to get away.
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    “Look, what’s the big deal about? Why all the drama? I’m not planning to turn on.’’
    Suddenly she sat down. “All right.’’
    For a minute there, I almost went back to the table. But sooner or later Gloria would come in, and whatever was going on between Mother and me she’d break up. Also, and this finally moved me upstairs, Mother is like me, not too bright, but Gloria would take one look at my books and I’d be fighting a rearguard action all the way up to my room. The answers that I could intimidate Mother into swallowing wouldn’t go over with Sister Gloria for one second.
    Of course Meg knew where I was going, but I was, tentatively of course, beginning to trust her. Once, when we passed each other on the beach and there was no danger of anyone overhearing, she asked me, “How’s The Man Without a