Properties
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- 5042
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:41:20.747Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 4990
- text
- So all of a sudden, I ran like a madman across the street--I damn near got killed doing it,
if you want to know the truth--and went in this stationery store and bought a pad and
pencil. I figured I'd write her a note telling her where to meet me so I could say good-by
to her and give her back her Christmas dough, and then I'd take the note up to her school
and get somebody in the principal's office to give it to her. But I just put the pad and
pencil in my pocket and started walking fast as hell up to her school--I was too excited to
write the note right in the stationery store. I walked fast because I wanted her to get the
note before she went home for lunch, and I didn't have any too much time.
I knew where her school was, naturally, because I went there myself when I was a
kid. When I got there, it felt funny. I wasn't sure I'd remember what it was like inside, but
I did. It was exactly the same as it was when I went there. They had that same big yard
inside, that was always sort of dark, with those cages around the light bulbs so they
wouldn't break if they got hit with a ball. They had those same white circles painted all
over the floor, for games and stuff. And those same old basketball rings without any nets-
-just the backboards and the rings.
Nobody was around at all, probably because it wasn't recess period, and it wasn't
lunchtime yet. All I saw was one little kid, a colored kid, on his way to the bathroom. He
had one of those wooden passes sticking out of his hip pocket, the same way we used to
have, to show he had permission and all to go to the bathroom.
I was still sweating, but not so bad any more. I went over to the stairs and sat
down on the first step and took out the pad and pencil I'd bought. The stairs had the same
smell they used to have when I went there. Like somebody'd just taken a leak on them.
School stairs always smell like that. Anyway, I sat there and wrote this note:
DEAR PHOEBE,
I can't wait around till Wednesday any more so I will
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probably hitch hike out west this afternoon. Meet me at the
Museum of art near the door at quarter past 12 if you can and I
will give you your Christmas dough back. I didn't spend much.
Love,
HOLDEN
Her school was practically right near the museum, and she had to pass it on her
way home for lunch anyway, so I knew she could meet me all right.
Then I started walking up the stairs to the principal's office so I could give the
note to somebody that would bring it to her in her classroom. I folded it about ten times
so nobody'd open it. You can't trust anybody in a goddam school. But I knew they'd give
it to her if I was her brother and all.
While I was walking up the stairs, though, all of a sudden I thought I was going to
puke again. Only, I didn't. I sat down for a second, and then I felt better. But while I was
sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody'd written "Fuck you" on
the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids
would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty
kid would tell them--all cockeyed, naturally--what it meant, and how they'd all think
about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill
whoever'd written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the school late
at night to take a leak or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself
catching him at it, and how I'd smash his head on the stone steps till he was good and
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.
- title
- Chunk 4