of metal and an electronic tube. The breeze from the open windowgathered them languidly into a kind of huddle above the door.
The bell rang as Miss Gerkin began to scream. Elvin fought to hold on tohis own sanity as he tried to help her, but a degree of her hysteriatransferred itself to him. His mind became a patchwork of yawning blankspaces interspersed with uncoordinated episodes of reality.
He remembered hearing the bell and the rush of the class out of theroom. He remembered the piercing screams of Miss Gerkin's terror echoingthrough the suddenly crowded halls. Beyond one of his black gulfs ofno-memory, he was in the nurse's office helping to hold Miss Gerkin onthe lounge while the school doctor administered a sedative.
Slowly the integrated pattern of his thinking returned when he wasdriving back toward the Schermerhorn ranch. It was late in theafternoon; the sun was setting redly beyond the ridge of mountains. AsElvin's fear receded, he was able to think with a kind of hazy clarity.He had seen a metal Bunsen burner that had been turned into gold; he hadseen the crusty principal of the school break into a rumba, and three ofhis colleagues driven to hysteria; he had seen a tenth grade classfloating unsupported in the air. All of it manifestly absurd andimpossible.
But it had happened. Elvin could visualize only two plausibleexplanations: mass insanity or mass hypnosis. Hypnosis! A sluggish relayclicked in his mind. He remembered a book. One of the tenth graders hadbeen reading it--_Hypnotism in Theory and Practice_.
Everything seemed clear after that. The tenth grade was an obstreperousbunch of unsocial adolescents. Somehow they had stumbled upon hypnotismand learned how to use it.
The time for an accounting had come. Because of where Elvin lived, hewas admirably situated to break the Schermerhorn twins first; and theywere, perhaps, the weakest members of the group. He would have themalone, without the support of their peers. It would be easy. After all,he was a mature adult; they were still children. Once he had aconfession from them, it would only be a minor operation to clear up thewhole mess.
When he reached the Schermerhorn ranch, dinner was on the table. He hadno time to talk to the twins until afterward. Both David and Donaldbolted the meal and rushed back to their workshop behind the garage.Their usual bad manners, Elvin realized, but what else could beexpected?
* * * * *
Elvin finished a leisurely pipe in the living room, and then saunteredout to the boys' workshop. Surprisingly, the door was locked, thewindows thickly curtained; they had never taken such precautions before.He knocked and, after a long wait, both David and Donald came outside totalk to him. They were naked to the waist and their husky, tanned bodiesgleamed with sweat. A smudge of grease was smeared over David's unkemptblond hair.
"Working on your car, boys?" Elvin inquired indulgently. He knew thetechnique. Put them at their ease, first; then come to the point whentheir guard was down.
"Well, not exactly, Mr. Elvin." Donald said.
"Mind if I watch? I always say I can learn as much about motors from youtwo as you learn from me about grammar."
Neither of the twins said anything. After an uncomfortable silence,Elvin cleared his throat pointedly. He had never met with suchdisrespect. If they were his kids, they would long ago have been taughtproper courtesy for their superiors! To fill the lengthening void, heasked.
"What did you think of the little test I gave this morning?"
"It was all right," Donald said.
"You both did pretty well; I'm proud of you."
"We had everything right," David pointed out without a flicker ofexpression.
Elvin couldn't seem to engineer the dialogue as he used to. In thatcase, this was as appropriate a time as any for the question he had cometo ask. He spoke slowly, with a tone of disinterest. "Do either of youknow anything about hypnotism?" As a shocker, Elvin realized, it leftmuch to be desired; their faces told him nothing.
"A little," David volunteered.
"We read eight or nine books on it over the weekend," Donald added.
"That's a lot of reading. It must have taken a great deal of time."
"Oh, a couple of hours."
Elvin clenched his fists in futile anger, but he kept his voice steady."Is anybody else in the tenth grade reading up on hypnotism?"
"I suppose so," Donald admitted. "I'm not sure. Why don't you ask inclass tomorrow?"
"It occurs to me that a clever hypnotist could be responsible for whathappened at school today."
"Some of it; isn't that rather obvious? We'd like to go on talking, Mr.Elvin, honest. But we have a lot of work to finish. It'll be bedtimesoon enough."
"But you know about hypnotism, don't you?"
"We know how it's done, yes, and its limitations so far as genuinetelepathy--"
"Who created that ridiculous scene in the auditorium?" Elvin's voicerose as he tried to put on pressure.
"I wouldn't worry about the principal, Mr. Elvin, if I were you. He'salways been a neurotic."
"Mighty big words you're using these days, Donald. Where'd you hearthem?"
"The principal is a little man--mentally, I mean. He's afraid of peoplebecause he isn't sure of himself. So he makes himself a tin god, adictator, just to show the rest of us--"
"I want to know where you picked all this up!"
Patiently the twins began to talk, taking turns at delivering animprovised lecture in psychology, shot through with an array of highlytechnical terms. As Elvin listened to their monotonous voices, he slowlyfelt very tired. His head began to ache as his anger ebbed. More thananything else, he wanted a long night's sleep. Yawning wearily, hethanked the boys--for what, he wasn't quite sure--and went up to hisroom.
* * * * *
Some time before dawn Elvin awoke for a moment. He thought he heard thesound of a motor in the driveway, but he was too sleepy to get up to seewhat it was. Two hours later he awoke to chaos.
Mrs. Schermerhorn was shaking his shoulder. He looked up into her white,terrified face. Her hand trembled as she clutched her quilted robe closeto her throat.
"Mr. Elvin, they'll need your help. Mr. Schermerhorn's waiting for you."
He shook sleep out of his mind sluggishly. "Why? What's happened?"
"The bank's gone. Just--just gone!"
He blinked and shook his head again. "I--I don't think I heard youright, Mrs. Schermerhorn."
"There's a jungle where the bank used to be. With tigers in it." Shelaughed wildly for a moment, but the laughter dissolved into tears andshe reached for the bottle of smelling salts in the pocket of her robe."Most of them have been shot by this time, I think. The tigers. Think ofit, Mr. Elvin--tigers in San Benedicto!" She began to laugh again.
When Elvin joined Pop Schermerhorn and the twins in the station wagon,Mrs. Schermerhorn followed him out of the house with a thermos of hotcoffee. As she put it in the car, she saw the rifles they were takingwith them. She began to weep again, clinging desperately to the side ofthe car. Suddenly the twins knelt beside her, and threw their armsaround her neck.
"We're sorry, Mom," David whispered. "Terribly sorry."
"You've nothing to be sorry about," she replied. "It's not your fault."
"Better get back inside," Pop Schermerhorn told her. "Mind, keep thedoors locked. Things ain't safe no more around here."
As they drove into San Benedicto, Elvin was considerably puzzled by theattitude of the twins. Normally talkative to the point of nausea, theywere now strangely quiet. And this was exactly the sort of thing thatshould have inspired their most adolescent repartee.
The sun was rising as they stopped the station wagon among the clutterof cars filling Main Street. Elvin stared in disbelief at the neatsquare of tropical jungle rising cleanly in the heart of San Benedicto.Not only the bank but a whole block of business houses was gone. Thiscould be written off neither as insanity nor hypnotism; it was a madnessexisting in actual fact. Elvin gave up trying to discover any logic inwhat was happening. Both reason and natural law seemed to havea
bdicated.
The periphery of jungle was surrounded by armed men. At intervals theyshot at shadows lurking among the trees and, as the sun brightened, theaccuracy of their aim increased. They were not worrying about causes,either; they were responding with excellent self-discipline to theemergency of tigers roaming the streets of San Benedicto. Afterwards, attheir leisure, they could speculate on how the jungle had come to bethere.
There was only one fatality. A tiger sprang out of the jungle and mauleda man who had pressed too close. It happened directly in front of theSchermerhorn twins. They turned their rifles on the tiger and killed itinstantly; but the man was dead, too.
* * * *