The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

administration.”
    “Join the crowd,” Barney said. “I think the four of us have all crossed the line that society has drawn in the sand from time to time.”
    “We’re freedom fighters,” Ed said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for your father, Sylvia. He realizes that society has to change. Everybody should be treated equally. He has had the guts to act on his convictions.”
    “He quit the Communist party years ago,” Sylvia said.
    “Of course he had to appear to bow to the dictates of society. Although society sometimes has a long memory. But the idea of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ makes sense. And it’s fair.”
    “Coerced giving isn’t freedom,” Barney said.
    “Under socialism, I’d goof off,” I said, partly as a joke. I hadn’t won any medals for hard work.
    “It isn’t fair for some people to be rich and others poor,” Ed said.
    “My father figured out that communism doesn’t work,” Sylvia said. “And not just because of the murders of millions of people. An ideal state of socialism, which is what communism claims to be, can’t exist. Some people will always be more equal than others. My father understands the value of a free society. One without unnecessary wars or restrictions.”
    “Cheer up,” Barney said to Ed. “In the United States, everybody has the opportunity to get rich, which is more than you can say about the USSR. At least we will if the government doesn’t arrest us all for being communists.”
    “Given the circumstances, getting rich is exactly what I intend to do,” Ed said, with a bite in his voice.
    “Let’s not fight,” Sylvia said. “I want to thank you guys for your support. I notice that no girls have rushed to my defense.”
    I had noticed it, too. Were they all under the sway of Natalie and the cheerleader mentality? Suddenly Natalie was no longer the most beautiful girl in the world. In fact, she had become rather ugly.
    “We need some humor,” Sylvia said. “Gary, write a limerick about Barney.”
    “A what?” Barney asked. “A limerick? Oh no, anything but that.”
    He put up his hands to shield himself from me.
    That was enough of a provocation to get me going. I came up with this:
    “ There is a young fellow named Barney,
    Who certainly is full of the blarney.
    He beats us at nim,
    With vigor and vim.
    Perhaps he should work at a carney.”
    Ed laughed and said, “I haven’t seen you playing nim recently, Barney my boy. What’s the matter? Can’t take getting beaten by a cheerleader?”
    Barney didn’t smile. He said, “It’s Ed’s turn in the barrel. Gary, what have you got for him?”
    Inspiration didn’t shine down on me. But Ed was the only overweight member of our little group. I struggled for a couple of minutes and said:
    “ There was a young fellow named Ed,
    Who dreamt he was eating some bread,
    And pickles and ham,
    And ice cream and jam,
    And when he woke up he was dead.”
    Ed grimaced. “Since we’re being skewered,” he said, “what about Sylvia?”
    “Gary’s already done me,” Sylvia said, quickly standing up and lifting her lunch tray. “And it’s time to go to class.”
    ***
    I wanted to do something more to show support for Sylvia, so I camped outside Mr. Plover’s room near the end of sixth period, using a hall pass I had obtained with tactics learned from her.
    When the bell rang at the end of the period, I collared the first two boys who came out of the room and started asking them questions about Mr. Plover’s teaching techniques. They were surprisingly open and told me the same things Sylvia had. He worked from an old outline of the textbook that was fill-in-the-blanks stuff, very dry, and bare-bones teaching at its most extreme. They appeared to be royally bored with the class and questioned whether they were learning very much.
    As I was finishing up with them, a hand tapped me on the shoulder. Turning, I saw Willie Rice, the sophomore who had been drunk at the sock hop. Sober, he looked quite handsome, his long hair neatly combed and wearing a clean shirt with the top few buttons unbuttoned.
    “Howzit going?” he asked.
    “Good,” I said, ungrammatically. “How are things with you?”
    “Super. Glad to see you survived the dance.”
    I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to bring up what he had done to me. Let bygones be bygones. We chatted about inconsequential things for a minute, and then he said, “There’s going to be a party