Properties
- end_line
- 5057
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:18:35.111Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5009
- text
- 4796 I was still sweating, but not so bad any more. I went over to the stairs and sat
4797 down on the first step and took out the pad and pencil I'd bought. The stairs had the same
4798 smell they used to have when I went there. Like somebody'd just taken a leak on them.
4799 School stairs always smell like that. Anyway, I sat there and wrote this note:
4800 DEAR PHOEBE,
4801 I can't wait around till Wednesday any more so I will
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4802 probably hitch hike out west this afternoon. Meet me at the
4803 Museum of art near the door at quarter past 12 if you can and I
4804 will give you your Christmas dough back. I didn't spend much.
4805 Love,
4806 HOLDEN
4807 Her school was practically right near the museum, and she had to pass it on her
4808 way home for lunch anyway, so I knew she could meet me all right.
4809 Then I started walking up the stairs to the principal's office so I could give the
4810 note to somebody that would bring it to her in her classroom. I folded it about ten times
4811 so nobody'd open it. You can't trust anybody in a goddam school. But I knew they'd give
4812 it to her if I was her brother and all.
4813 While I was walking up the stairs, though, all of a sudden I thought I was going to
4814 puke again. Only, I didn't. I sat down for a second, and then I felt better. But while I was
4815 sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody'd written "Fuck you" on
4816 the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids
4817 would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty
4818 kid would tell them--all cockeyed, naturally--what it meant, and how they'd all think
4819 about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill
4820 whoever'd written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the school late
4821 at night to take a leak or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself
4822 catching him at it, and how I'd smash his head on the stone steps till he was good and
4823 goddam dead and bloody. But I knew, too, I wouldn't have the guts to do it. I knew that.
4824 That made me even more depressed. I hardly even had the guts to rub it off the wall with
4825 my hand, if you want to know the truth. I was afraid some teacher would catch me
4826 rubbing it off and would think I'd written it. But I rubbed it out anyway, finally. Then I
4827 went on up to the principal's office.
4828 The principal didn't seem to be around, but some old lady around a hundred years
4829 old was sitting at a typewriter. I told her I was Phoebe Caulfield's brother, in 4B-1, and I
4830 asked her to please give Phoebe the note. I said it was very important because my mother
4831 was sick and wouldn't have lunch ready for Phoebe and that she'd have to meet me and
4832 have lunch in a drugstore. She was very nice about it, the old lady. She took the note off
4833 me and called some other lady, from the next office, and the other lady went to give it to
4834 Phoebe. Then the old lady that was around a hundred years old and I shot the breeze for a
4835 while, She was pretty nice, and I told her how I'd gone there to school, too, and my
4836 brothers. She asked me where I went to school now, and I told her Pencey, and she said
4837 Pencey was a very good school. Even if I'd wanted to, I wouldn't have had the strength to
4838 straighten her out. Besides, if she thought Pencey was a very good school, let her think it.
4839 You hate to tell new stuff to somebody around a hundred years old. They don't like to
4840 hear it. Then, after a while, I left. It was funny. She yelled "Good luck!" at me the same
4841 way old Spencer did when I left Pencey. God, how I hate it when somebody yells "Good
4842 luck!" at me when I'm leaving somewhere. It's depressing.
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