Greenie's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Greenie stood on the preschool step and watched the light shift behind the curtain. A shadow moved past the window, tall and unhurried. Whoever was inside was not looking for a way out. Two hundred and ten green bodies lay on the cots one wall away. If the shadow opened the classroom door, the whole plan ended before sunrise. Greenie stepped off the stoop and slipped around to the side latch. He pushed it up an inch and looked through. A man in a white coat stood at the teacher's desk, flipping through a roll book. Doctor Jerry. Greenie had seen him at the parade, clapping in the second row. The doctor set the book down and turned toward the classroom hall, the one that led to the cots. Greenie's hand closed on something on the floor by the coat rack. A blue bouncy ball, forgotten under a child's cubby. He rolled it hard down the tile hallway, away from the cots. It cracked against a metal cabinet and pinged off a wall. The footsteps stopped, then turned toward the noise. While the doctor followed the sound, Greenie waddled into the classroom. The cots stood in four neat rows. Two hundred and ten hats, two hundred and ten sets of spikes. Against the back wall sat a wooden chest as tall as he was, its lid carved with painted blocks and dolls. Greenie had passed it a hundred times and never opened it. He lifted the lid. Inside, the space went deeper than the chest was tall. The wood hummed under his palm. He worked fast. He carried the plushes two at a time and laid them in the chest. The chest took them. It took ten, then fifty, then a hundred, and the pile inside never rose. Down the hall, the doctor's steps came back. Greenie moved faster. Daisy would have counted. He counted for her. Two hundred and eight. Two hundred and nine. Two hundred and ten. He closed the lid as the classroom door opened. Doctor Jerry stood in the doorway. He looked at the empty cots. He looked at the chest. He looked at Greenie on the floor beside it, catalog under one arm. "You're the mascot," he said. Greenie did not move. "There were supposed to be beds made up." The doctor's eyes went slow around the room. "Someone told me the preschool was ready." Greenie stared back with painted eyes. The doctor crouched. He picked up the blue ball from the hallway floor and set it on a cot. "Whoever laid the beds," he said, "tell them the delivery is Thursday. Twenty at a time. I need the room cleared by then." He walked out the front door and did not lock it. Greenie sat with his back against the chest. Thursday. Twenty children. The cots were meant for them. He opened the catalog and wrote one line: he is bringing them here.