Properties
- end_line
- 5093
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:41:20.747Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5038
- text
- goddam dead and bloody. But I knew, too, I wouldn't have the guts to do it. I knew that.
That made me even more depressed. I hardly even had the guts to rub it off the wall with
my hand, if you want to know the truth. I was afraid some teacher would catch me
rubbing it off and would think I'd written it. But I rubbed it out anyway, finally. Then I
went on up to the principal's office.
The principal didn't seem to be around, but some old lady around a hundred years
old was sitting at a typewriter. I told her I was Phoebe Caulfield's brother, in 4B-1, and I
asked her to please give Phoebe the note. I said it was very important because my mother
was sick and wouldn't have lunch ready for Phoebe and that she'd have to meet me and
have lunch in a drugstore. She was very nice about it, the old lady. She took the note off
me and called some other lady, from the next office, and the other lady went to give it to
Phoebe. Then the old lady that was around a hundred years old and I shot the breeze for a
while, She was pretty nice, and I told her how I'd gone there to school, too, and my
brothers. She asked me where I went to school now, and I told her Pencey, and she said
Pencey was a very good school. Even if I'd wanted to, I wouldn't have had the strength to
straighten her out. Besides, if she thought Pencey was a very good school, let her think it.
You hate to tell new stuff to somebody around a hundred years old. They don't like to
hear it. Then, after a while, I left. It was funny. She yelled "Good luck!" at me the same
way old Spencer did when I left Pencey. God, how I hate it when somebody yells "Good
luck!" at me when I'm leaving somewhere. It's depressing.
I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another "Fuck you" on the wall. I
tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or
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something. It wouldn't come off. It's hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it
in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible.
I looked at the clock in the recess yard, and it was only twenty to twelve, so I had
quite a lot of time to kill before I met old Phoebe. But I just walked over to the museum
anyway. There wasn't anyplace else to go. I thought maybe I might stop in a phone booth
and give old Jane Gallagher a buzz before I started bumming my way west, but I wasn't
in the mood. For one thing, I wasn't even sure she was home for vacation yet. So I just
went over to the museum, and hung around.
While I was waiting around for Phoebe in the museum, right inside the doors and
all, these two little kids came up to me and asked me if I knew where the mummies were.
The one little kid, the one that asked me, had his pants open. I told him about it. So he
buttoned them up right where he was standing talking to me--he didn't even bother to go
behind a post or anything. He killed me. I would've laughed, but I was afraid I'd feel like
vomiting again, so I didn't. "Where're the mummies, fella?" the kid said again. "Ya
know?"
I horsed around with the two of them a little bit. "The mummies? What're they?" I
asked the one kid.
"You know. The mummies--them dead guys. That get buried in them toons and
all."
Toons. That killed me. He meant tombs.
"How come you two guys aren't in school?" I said.
"No school t'day," the kid that did all the talking said. He was lying, sure as I'm
alive, the little bastard. I didn't have anything to do, though, till old Phoebe showed up, so
I helped them find the place where the mummies were. Boy, I used to know exactly
where they were, but I hadn't been in that museum in years.
"You two guys so interested in mummies?" I said.
"Yeah."
"Can't your friend talk?" I said.
"He ain't my friend. He's my brudda."
"Can't he talk?" I looked at the one that wasn't doing any talking. "Can't you talk
at all?" I asked him.
"Yeah," he said. "I don't feel like it."
- title
- Chunk 5