Dead Poets Society

threw their
twigs and a log they’d found on the fire, and sat around the growing flames.
“Wonder how Knox is making out.” Pitts laughed.
    “Poor guy,” Neil
sighed. “He’s probably in for a big disappointment.”
     
    It was a
disappointed Knox who wandered through the huge Danburry house and ended up in
the butler’s pantry. Several kids stood talking while one couple was kissing
passionately. Knox tried not to look as the boy’s hands kept moving up the
girls skirt, and she kept pushing them away. Knox spotted Ginny Danburry, and they
exchanged embarrassed smiles.
    “You Mutt Sanders’s
brother?” a huge line-backer-type guy asked Knox as he mixed a drink.
    “No.” Knox shook his
head.
    “Bubba!” the
linebacker called to another huge, drunk jock who leaned against the
refrigerator.
    “This guy look like
Mutt Sanders?”
    “You his brother?”
Bubba asked.
    “No relation,” Knox
said. “Never heard of him. Sorry.”
    “Say, Steve,” Bubba
said to the linebacker, “where’s your manners? Here’s Mutt’s brother, and you
don’t offer him a drink? Want some bourbon?“
    “Actually I
don’t...” Steve didn’t even hear Knox. He pushed a glass into Knox’s hand and
filled it with bourbon, adding a tiny splash of coke.
    Bubba clicked
glasses with Knox. “To Mutt,” he said.
    “To Mutt,” Steve,
the linebacker, echoed. “To... Mutt,” Knox agreed. Bubba and Steve drained
their glasses in one swallow. Knox followed their lead and burst into a
coughing fit. Steve poured everyone more bourbon. Knox felt as if his whole
chest was on fire.
    “So what’s Mutt been
up to?” Bubba asked.
    “Actually,” Knox
said, still coughing, “I don’t really... know Mutt.”
    “To Mighty Mutt,”
Bubba said, holding up his glass.
    “To Mighty Mutt,”
Steve echoed.
    “Mighty... Mutt,”
Knox coughed as they drained their glasses again. Knox continued to cough, and
the linebacker knocked him on the back.
    “Take it easy there,
bud,” he laughed.
    “Well, I’d better
find Patsy,” Bubba hiccupped as he slapped Knox on the back. “Say hello to Mutt
me.”
    “Will do,” Knox
said. He turned to see Ginny smile at him as she wandered out of the pantry.
    “Gimme your glass,
bud,” Steve called, pouring Knox more bourbon. Knox felt his head begin to
swim.
     
    The fire blazed
inside the cave. The boys and Gloria and Tina sat closely around the woodpile,
mesmerized by the dancing flames. The candle on the head of the “cave god”
sputtered.
    “I heard you guys
were weird, but not this weird,” Tina said as she looked at the pitted statue.
She pulled out a pint of whiskey and offered some to Neil. He took it and
sipped, trying to act as if it were natural to take a swig. He handed it back
to Tina.
    “Go ahead, pass it
around,” she said. The fire and the warmth of the whiskey gave her plain face a
pretty, flushed glow.
    The bottle went
around the circle. Each of them tried to pretend he liked the bitter taste.
Unlike most of the others, Todd managed to keep from coughing as he swallowed
the whiskey down.
    “Yeah!” Gloria said,
impressed by Todd’s drinking. “Don’t you guys miss having girls here?” she
asked.
    “Miss it?” Charlie
said. “It drives us crazy! That part of what this club is about. In fact, I’d
like announce that I’ve published an article in the school paper, in the name
of the Dead Poets Society, demanding girls be admitted to Welton, so we can all
stop beating off.”
    “You what?” Neil
shouted, standing up. “How did you do that?”
    “I’m one of the
proofers,” Charlie boasted. “I slipped the article in.”
    “Oh God,” Pitts
moaned. “It’s over now!“
    “Why?” Charlie
asked. “Nobody knows who we are.”
    “Don’t you think
they’ll figure out who did it?” Cameron shouted. “Don’t you know they’ll come
to you and demand to know what the Dead Poets Society is? Charlie, you had no
right to do something like that!”
    “It’s Nuwanda,
Cameron.”
    “That’s right,”
Gloria cooed, putting her arm around Charlie. “It’s Nuwanda.”
    “Are we just playing
around out here or do we mean what we say? If all we do is come and read a
bunch of poems to each other, what the hell are we doing?” Charlie demanded.
    “You still shouldn’t
have done it,” Neil said, Pacing around the cave. “You don’t speak for the
club.”
    “Hey, would you stop
worrying about your precious little necks,” Charlie said. “If they