The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

morning. He’s got a meeting offsite.” She took a key out of her purse, unlocked the door, and opened it. “Would you like to leave him a message?”
    I had an idea. “It’s a little bit complicated. May I type it on his typewriter?”
    If she thought that was an odd request, she didn’t show it. I was glad I had been nice to her before.
    “Sure, go ahead,” she said. She unlocked his office, turned on the light, and waved me inside.
    The manual typewriter was big and black and sitting on a small table with rollers on the legs. Bond paper was stacked neatly on a shelf below the typewriter. I was glad Dr. Graves was so organized. I pulled the table close to his chair and sat down. I inserted a sheet of paper and rolled it around the platen. I typed, “A nosy young fellow named Gary.”
    That should be enough. I pulled the paper out of the machine, got up, and went out of the principal’s office. Carol was unlocking filing cabinets, getting read for a day’s work.
    I said to her, “I changed my mind. The message is too complicated. I’ll talk to Dr. Graves later.”
    “I’ll tell him you came by.”
    I wanted to say not to bother, but that wouldn’t sound right. I waved to Carol and went to the cafeteria.
    I worried about Sylvia all morning. At lunchtime, I carried my tray into the cafeteria and looked for her. At first I didn’t see her and thought she hadn’t arrived yet. Then I spotted her at the far end of the room, in the corner underneath the raised section reserved for teachers. She was sitting alone.
    I ran the gauntlet past a noisy sea of faces. It was easy to imagine that they were all looking at me to see if I was going to sit with Sylvia, although, of course, this wasn’t the case. Very few of them even knew who I was. Or cared. I climbed over the bench on the opposite side of the table from Sylvia and sat down. She looked very solemn, a far cry from her usual cheerful self. But she also looked very determined.
    I tried to think of something pleasant to say and failed. “How was your morning?”
    “Don’t ask.”
    “That bad, eh? And Natalie?”
    “Natalie ignored me, which is fine by me. Most people did. I suddenly feel like a new student in a strange school where I don’t know anybody.”
    “That’s how I felt a week ago. Until I met you. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still feel that way.”
    “And now the tables are turned. Thanks for sticking by me.”
    I saw Barney Weiss coming in our direction and remembered that he had been scornful of the standard reaction to the news about Mr. Doran, but I was still surprised when he worked his way along the narrow aisle between benches, placed his tray on the table beside Sylvia’s, and sat down. He was an independent thinker, but he and Sylvia had appeared to be enemies, at least during the nim incident with Natalie.
    After the three of us said hello, Barney said to Sylvia, “I’m glad to see you back. Don’t let the mob dictate what you can and can’t do.”
    “You certainly don’t,” Sylvia said.
    “No, I don’t. And I always thought you didn’t either. Stick it out. Things will get better.”
    “They couldn’t get much worse.”
    Ed Drucquer appeared on my side of the table and sat down next to me. I assumed he did it because I was there, but the first words out of his mouth were directed at Sylvia.
    “You’re a brave girl. But I just want you to know that you have friends. I learned about your Tom Jefferson in England, and I always thought he had guaranteed that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.”
    “Don’t get too close to me,” Sylvia said. “You might catch the black plague.”
    As if to emphasize that, a chant of “commie, commie” started on the other side of the center aisle of the cafeteria. The teachers had left; nobody would have dared to do this sort of thing while they were here. None of us even bothered to look in that direction, and the chant soon died down, perhaps because the chanters didn’t get the attention they sought.
    “I’m a newspaper reporter,” Ed said to Sylvia. “I’m immune to diseases. I go everywhere and talk to everyone. Sometimes I test the first amendment. Gary knows about that.” He looked at me. “Or wasn’t I supposed to say that?”
    “That’s all right,” I said. “Sylvia knows what happened. Barney might as well, too. To make a long story very short, I was expelled from Atherton for publishing a scandal sheet that was also critical of the school