Here There Be Tygers Read online

  Here There Be Tygers

  by Stephen King

  Charles needed to go to the bathroom very badly.

  There was no longer any use in trying to fool himself that he could wait for recess. His bladder was screaming at him, and Miss Bird had caught him squirming.

  There were three third-grade teachers in the Acorn Street Grammar School. Miss Kinney was young and blond and bouncy and had a boyfriend who picked her up after school in a blue Camaro. Mrs. Trask was shaped like a Moorish pillow and did her hair in braids and laughed boomingly. And there was Miss Bird.

  Charles had known he would end up with Miss Bird. He had known that. It had been inevitable. Because Miss Bird obviously wanted to destroy him. She did not allow children to go to the basement. The basement, Miss Bird said, was where the boilers were kept, and well-groomed ladies and gentlemen would never go down there, because basements were nasty, sooty old things. Young ladies and gentlemen do not go to the basement, she said. They go to the bathroom.

  Charles squirmed again.

  Miss Bird cocked an eye at him. "Charles," she said clearly, still pointing her pointer at Bolivia, "do you need to go to the bathroom?''

  Cathy Scott in the seat ahead of him giggled, wisely cover­ing her mouth.

  Kenny Griffen sniggered and kicked Charles under his desk.

  Charles went bright red.

  "Speak up, Charles," Miss Bird said brightly. "Do you need to -- " (urinate she'll say urinate she always does).

  "Yes, Miss Bird."

  "Yes, what?"

  "I have to go to the base -- to the bathroom."

  Miss Bird smiled. "Very well, Charles. You may go to the bathroom and urinate. Is that what you need to do? Urinate?"

  Charles hung his head, convicted.

  "Very well, Charles. You may do so. And next time kindly don't wait to be asked."

  General giggles. Miss Bird rapped the board with her pointer.

  Charles trudged up the row toward the door, thirty pairs of eyes boring into his back, and every one of those kids, including Cathy Scott, knew that he was going into the bathroom to urinate. The door was at least a football field's length away. Miss Bird did not go on with the lesson but kept her silence until he had opened the door, entered the blessedly empty hall, and shut the door again.

  He walked down toward the boys' bathroom

  (basement basement basement IF I WANT)

  dragging his fingers along the cool tile of the wall, letting them bounce over the thumbtack-stippled bulletin board and slide lightly across the red

  (BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY)

  fire-alarm box.

  Miss Bird liked it. Miss Bird liked making him have a red face. In front of Cathy Scott -- who never needed to go to the basement, was that fair? -- and everybody else.

  Old b-i-t-c-h, he thought. He spelled because he had de­cided last year God didn't say it was a sin if you spelled.

  He went into the boys' bathroom.

  It was very cool inside, with a faint, not unpleasant smell of chlorine hanging pungently in the air. Now, in the middle of the morning, it was clean and deserted, peaceful and quite pleasant, not at all like the smoky, stinky cubicle at the Star Theatre downtown.

  The bathroom

  (!basement!)

  was built like an L, the short side lined with tiny square mirrors and white porcelain washbowls and a paper towel dispenser,

  (NIBROC)

  the longer side with two urinals and three toilet cubicles.

  Charles went around the corner after glancing morosely at his thin, rather pallid face in one of the mirrors.

  The tiger was lying down at the far end, just underneath the pebbly-white window. It was a large tiger, with tawny Vene­tian blinds and dark stripes laid across its pelt. It looked up alertly at Charles, and its green eyes narrowed. A kind of silky, purring grunt issued from its mouth. Smooth muscles flexed, and the tiger got to its feet. Its tail switched, making little chinking sounds against the porcelain side of the last urinal.

  The tiger looked quite hungry and very vicious.

  Charles hurried back the way he had come. The door seemed to take forever to wheeze pneumatically closed be­hind him, but when it did, he considered himself safe. This door only swung in, and he could not remember ever reading or hearing that tigers are smart enough to open doors.

  Charles wiped the back of his hand across his nose. His heart was thumping so hard he could hear it. He still needed to go to the basement, worse than ever.

  He squirmed, winced, and pressed a hand against his belly. He really had to go to the basement. If he could only be sure no one would come, he could use the girls'. It was right across the hall. Charles looked at it longingly, knowing he would never dare, not in a million years. What if Cathy Scott should come? Or -- black horror! -- what if Miss Bird should come?

  Perhaps he had imagined the tiger.

  He opened the door wide enough for one eye and peeked in.

  The tiger was peeking back from around the angle of the L, its eye a sparkling green. Charles fancied he could see a tiny blue fleck in that deep brilliance, as if the tiger's eye had eaten one of his own. As if --

  A hand slid around his neck.

  Charles gave a stifled cry and felt his heart and stomach cram up into his throat. For one terrible moment he thought he was going to wet himself.

  It was Kenny Griffen, smiling complacently. "Miss Bird sent me after you 'cause you been gone six years. You're in trouble."

  "Yeah, but I can't go to the basement," Charles said, feeling faint with the fright Kenny had given him.

  "Yer constipated!" Kenny chortled gleefully. "Wait'll I tell Caaathy!"

  "You better not!" Charles said urgently. "Besides, I'm not. There's a tiger in there."

  "What's he doing?" Kenny asked. "Takin a piss?"

  "I don't know," Charles said, turning his face to the wall. "I just wish he'd go away." He began to weep.

  "Hey," Kenny said, bewildered and a little frightened. "Hey."

  "What if I have to go? What if I can't help it? Miss Bird'll say -- "

  "Come on," Kenny said, grabbing his arm in one hand and pushing the door open with the other. "You're making it up."

  They were inside before Charles, terrified, could break free and cower back against the door.

  "Tiger," Kenny said disgustedly. "Boy, Miss Bird's gonna kill you."

  "It's around the other side."

  Kenny began to walk past the washbowls. "Kitty-kitty-kitty? Kitty?"

  "Don't!" Charles hissed.

  Kenny disappeared around the corner. "Kitty-kitty? Kitty-kitty? Kit -- "

  Charles darted out the door again and pressed himself against the wall, waiting, his hands over his mouth and his eyes squinched shut, waiting, waiting for the scream.

  There was no scream.

  He had no idea how long he stood there, frozen, his bladder bursting. He looked at the door to the boys' base­ment. It told him nothing. It was just a door.

  He wouldn't.

  He couldn't.

  But at last he went in.

  The washbowls and the mirrors were neat, and the faint smell of chlorine was unchanged. But there seemed to be a smell under it. A faint, unpleasant smell, like freshly sheared copper.

  With groaning (but silent) trepidation, he went to the cor­ner of the L and peeped around.

  The tiger was sprawled on the floor, licking its large paws with a long pink tongue. It looked incuriously at Charles. There was a torn piece of shirt caught in one set of claws.

  But his need was a white agony now, and he couldn't help it. He had to. Charles tiptoed back to the white porcelain basin closest the door.

  Miss Bird slammed in just as he was zipp
ing his pants.

  "Why, you dirty, filthy little boy," she said almost reflectively.

  Charles was keeping a weather eye on the comer. "I'm sorry, Miss Bird... the tiger... I'm going to clean the sink... I'll use soap... I swear I will..."

  "Where's Kenneth?" Miss Bird asked calmly.

  "I don't know."

  He didn't, really.

  "Is he back there?"

  "No!" Charles cried.

  Miss Bird stalked to the place where the room bent. ' 'Come here, Kenneth. Right this moment."

  "Miss Bird -- "

  But Miss Bird was already around the corner. She meant to pounce. Charles thought Miss Bird was about to find out what pouncing was really all about.

  He went out the door again. He got a drink at the drinking fountain. He looked at the American flag hanging over the entrance to the gym. He looked at the bulletin board. Woodsy Owl said give a hoot, dont pollute. Officer Friendly said never ride with strangers. Charles read everything twice.

  Then he went back to the classroom, walked down his row to his seat with his eyes on the floor, and slid into his seat. It was a quarter to eleven. He took out Roads to Everywhere and began to read about Bill at the Rodeo.

 

 

  Stephen King, Here There Be Tygers

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