Carrie Chapter Thirteen

She had d whiz it that was enough she was satisfied.( maybe hell fall in lamb with her)She looked up as if someone had spoken from the hallway, a startled smile curving her lips. That would be a fairy-tale ending, all proper. The Prince bends over the Sleeping Beauty, touches his lips to hers.Sue, I dont make love how to tell you this scarceThe smile faded.Her period was late. Almost a hebdomad late. And she had perpetually been as regular as an almanac.The record changer clicked a nonher(prenominal) record dropped pull down. In the sudden, brief put away, she heard something within her turn over. perchance only her soul.It was nine-fifteen. billy club drove to the far end of the parking crapper and pulled into a stall that faced the asphalt ramp leading to the highway. Chris started to agitate bug expose and he jerked her back. His eyes glowed ferally in the dark.What? she said with angry nervousness.They manipulation a P.A. system to announce the King and Queen, he sai d. Then one of the streaks go forth play the school mental strain. That means theyre sitting on that point in those thrones, on tar take turned.I distinguish all that. Let go of me. Youre hurting.He squeezed her wrist tighter still and mat small bones grind. It gave him a grungy pleasure. bland, she didnt cry protrude She was pretty good.You listen to me. I want you to know what youre getting into. Pull the rope when the song is playing. Pull it wakeless. There will be a smaller slack between the pulleys, tho non much. When you pull it and belief those buckets go, run. You dont stick around to hear the grouses or anything else. This is away of the cute-little-joke league. This is criminal assault, you know? They dont fine you. They put you in jail and stimulate the key over their shoulder.It was an enormous speech for him.Her eyes only glared at him, full of defiant anger.Dig it?Yes.All right. When the-buckets go, Im red to run. When I get to the car, Im going to d rive away. If youre there, you bathroom come. If youre not, Ill leave you. If I leave you and you upchuck your guts, Ill kill you. Do you believe meYes. Take your fucking hand off me.He did. An unwilling shadow-grin touched his face. May. Its going to be good.They got aside of the car.It was close nine-thirty.Vic Mooney, President of the Senior Class, was calling jovially into the mike.. All right, ladies and gennelmen. Take your seats, please. Ifs time for the voting. Were going to select for the King and Queen.This contest insults women Myra Crewes called with uneasy good nature.It insults men, as well as George Dawson called back, and there was general laughter. Myra was silent. She had made her token protest.take your seats, please Vic was jolly into the mike, and blushing furiously, fingering a pimple on his chin. The huge Venetian boatman behind him looked dreamily over Vics shoulder. Time to vote.Carrie and Tommy sat down. Tina Blake and Norma Watson were go around mimeographed bal piles, and when Norma dropped one at their table and breathed Good LUCK Carrie picked up the ballot and studied it. Her mouth popped open.Tommy, were on hereYeah, I byword that, he said. The school votes for single candidates and their dates get sort of shanghaied into it. Welcome aboard. Shall we decay?She bit her lip and looked at him. Do you want to decline?Hell, no, he said cheerfully. If you win, an you do is sit up there for the school song and one dance and wave a sceptre and look like a goddam idiot. They take your picture for the yearbook so everyone can master you look want a goddam idiot.Who do we vote for? She looked doubtfully from the ballot to the tiny pencil by her boatful of nuts. Theyre more your company than mine. A chuckle escaped her. In fact, I dont really create a crowd.He shrugged. Lets vote for ourselves. To the devil with false modesty.She laughed out loud, whence clapped a hand over her mouth. The leaden was almost entirely unus ual to her. Before she could think, she circled their tell aparts, third from the top. The tiny pencil broke in her hand, and she gasped. A splinter had scratched the pad of one finger, and a small bead of source welled.You hurt yourself?No. She smiled, scarce curtly it was difficult to smile. The sight of the blood was resistant to her. She blotted it away with her napkin. But I broke the pencil and it was a souvenir. gooselike me.Theres your boat, he said, and pushed it toward her. Toot, in additiont. Her throat closed, and she felt sure she would weep and then be ashamed. She did not, but her eyes glimmered like prisms and she lowered her head so he would not see.The band was playing catchy fill-in music go the Honour alliance ushers collected the folded-over ballots. They were taken to the chaperones table by the door, where Vic and Mr Stephens and the Lublins counted them. scat Geer surveyed it all with grim gim permit eyes.Carrie felt an unwilling tension rick into her, tightening muscles in her stomach and back. She held Tommys hand tightly. It was absurd, of course. No one was going to vote for them. The stallion, perhaps, but not when harnessed in tandem with a she-ox. It would be Frank and Jessica or maybe Don Farnham and Helen Shyres. Or sinfulnessTwo piles were growing larger than the others. Mr Stephens finished dividing the slips and all quad of them took turns at counting the large piles, which looked about the same. They put their heads together, conferred, and counted once more. Mr Stephens, nodded, bring inchhike the ballots once more like a man about to weed a hand of poker, and gave them back to Vic. He climbed back on coif and approached the mike. The he-goat Bosman Band contend a flourish. Vic smiled nervously, harrumphed into the mike, and blinked at the sudden feedback whine. He nearly dropped the ballots to the floor, which was covered with heavy electrical cables, and somebody snickered.Weve sort of hit a snag, Vic said artlessly. Mr Lublin says this is the first time in the history of the border Ball- How far does he go back? someone behind Tommy mumbled. cardinal hundred?Weve got a tie.This got a murmer from the crowd. Polka dots or striped? George Dawson called, and there was some laughter. Vic gave a twitchy smile and almost dropped the ballots again.Sixty-three votes for Frank Grier and Jessica MacLean, and 63 votes for Thomas Ross and Carrie White.This was followed by a moment of silence, and then sudden, swelling sycophancy. Tommy looked across at his date. Her head was lowered, as if in shame, but he had a sudden speck.(carrie carrie carrie)not unlike the one he had had when he asked her to the prom. His opinion felt as if something alien was moving in there, calling Carries name over and over again. As ifAttention Vic was calling. If I could have your attention, please. The flattery quieted. Were going to have a run-off ballot. When the people passing out the slips of news re port get to you, please write the couple you favour on it.He left the mike, looking relieved.The ballots were circulated they had been hastily torn from leftover prom programmes. The band played unnoticed and people talked excitedly. They werent applauding for us, Carrie said, looking up The thing he had felt (or thought he had felt) was gone It couldnt have been for us. peradventure it was for you.She looked at him, mute.Whats taking it so long? she hissed at him. I beard them clap. Maybe that was it. If you fucked up- The length of jute cord hung between them limply, untouched since Billy had poked a screwdriver by dint of the vent and lifted it out.Dont worry, he said calmly. Theyll play the school song. They always do.But-Shut up. You talk too fucking much. The tip of his cigarette winked peacefully in the dark.She shut. But(oh when this is over youre going to get it buddy maybe youll go to bed with lovers nuts tonight)her mind ran furiously over his words, storing them. mount ain did not speak to her in such a manner. Her father was a lawyer.It was seven minutes to ten.He was holding the broken pencil in his hand, ready to write, when she touched his wrist lightly, tentatively.Dont . .What?Dont vote for us, she said finally.He raised his eyebrows quizzically. Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. Thats what my perplex always says.( mystify)A picture blush in her mind instantly, her mother droning endless prayers to a towering, faceless, columnar God who prowled roadhouse parking lots with a sword of fire in one hand. Terror rose in her blackly, and she had to fight with all her spirit to hold it back. She could not formulate her dread, her sense of premonition. She could only smile helplessly and repeat Dont. Please.The Honour Society ushers were coming back, collecting folded slips. He hesitated a moment longer, then suddenly scrawled Tommy and Carrie on the ragged slip of paper. For you, he said. Tonight you go first-class.She could not reply, f or the premonition was on her. her mothers face.The knife slipped from the whetstone, and in an instant it had sliced the instill of her palm below the thumb.She looked at the cut. It bled slowly, thickly, from the open lips of the wound running out of her hand and spotting the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. Good, then. It was good. The blade had tasted flesh and let blood. She did not bandage it but tipped the flow over the slice edge, letting the blood dull the blades edge, then she began to sharpen again, heedless of the droplets which spattered her garment.If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it outIf it was a hard scripture, it was also sweet and good. A fitting scripture for those who lurked in the entry shadows of one-night hotels and in the weeds behind bowling alleys.Pluck it out(oh and the c shivered music they play)Pluck it(the girls show their belowwear how it sweats how it sweats blood)outThe Black Forest cuckoo began to strike ten and(cut her guts out on th e floor)if thine right eye offend thee, pluck it outThe dress was done and she could not watch the television or take out her books or call Nancy on the phone. There was nothing to do but sit on the sofa facing the blackness of the kitchen window and feel some nameless sort of fear growing in her like an infant coming to dreadful term.With a sigh she began to massage her armor absently. They were cold and prickly. It was twelve after ten and there was no reason, really no reason, to feel that the world was coming to an end.The stacks were higher this time, but they still looked exactly the same. Again, three counts were taken to make sure. Then Vic Mooney went to the mike again. He paused a moment, relishing the blue feel of tension in the air, and then announced simplyTommy and Carrie win. By one vote.Dead silence for a moment, then applause filled the hall again, some of it not without satiric overtones. Carrie drew in a startled, smothered gasp, and Tommy again felt (but for onl y a second) that weird vertigo in his mind(carrie carrie carrie carrie)that seemed to blank shell out all thought but the name and image of this contrary girl he was with. For a fleeting second he was literally scared shitless.Something fell on the floor with a clink, and at the same instant the candle between them whiffed out.Then Josie and the Moonglows were playing a rock version of Pomp and Circumstance, the ushers appeared at their table (almost magically all this had been rehearsed meticulously by devolve Geer who, according to rumour, ate slow and clumsy ushers for lunch), a sceptre wrapped in aluminium foil was thrust into Tommys hand, a robe with a lush dog-fur collar was thrown over Carries shoulders, and they were organism led down the centre aisle by a boy and a girl in white blazers. The band blared. The audience applauded. Miss Geer looked vindicated. Tommy Ross was grinning bemusedly.They were ushered up the steps to the apron, led across to the thrones, and seate d. Still the applause swelled. The sarcasm in it was lost now it was honest and deep, a little frightening. Carrie was glad to sit down. It was all happening too fast. Her legs were trembling under her and suddenly, even with the comparatively high neck of her gown, her breasts(dirtypillows)felt dreadfully exposed. The sound of the applause in her ears made her feel woozy, almost punch-drunk. Part of her was in reality convinced that all this was a dream from which she would wake with mixed feeling of loss and relief.Vic boomed into the mike The King and Queen of the 1979 Spring Ball Tommy ROSS and Carrie WHITEStill applause, swelling and booming and crackling. Tommy Ross in the fading moments of his life now, took Carries hand and grinned at her, thinking that Suzies intuition had been very right. Somehow she grinned back. TOMMY(she was right and i love her well i love this one too this carrie she is beautiful and its right and i love all of them the light the light in her eyes)a nd Carrie(cant see them the lights are too bright i can hear them but cant see them the shower remember the shower o momma its too high i think i want to get down o are they laughing and ready to throw things to point and scream with laughter i cant see them i cant see them its all too bright)and the beam above them.Both bands, in a sudden and lucky coalition of rock and brass, swung into the school song. The audience rose to its feet and began to sing, still applauding.It was ten-o-seven.Billy had just flexed his knees to make the Joints pop. Chris Hargensen stood next to him with increasing aura of nervousness. Her hands played aimlessly along the seams of the jeans she had worn and she was biting the softness of her lower lip, grind at it, making it a little ragged.You think theyll vote for them?, Billy said softly.