The Catcher in the Rye | Page 6

DEAR MR. SPENCER [he read out loud]. That is all I know about
the Egyptians. I can't seem to get very interested in them
although your lectures are very interesting. It is all right
with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything
else except English anyway.
Respectfully yours, HOLDEN CAULFIELD.

He put my goddam paper down then and looked at me like he'd just beaten hell
out of me in ping-pong or something. I don't think I'll ever forgive him for reading me
that crap out loud. I wouldn't've read it out loud to him if he'd written it--I really wouldn't.
In the first place, I'd only written that damn note so that he wouldn't feel too bad about
flunking me.
"Do you blame me for flunking you, boy?" he said.
"No, sir! I certainly don't," I said. I wished to hell he'd stop calling me "boy" all
the time.
He tried chucking my exam paper on the bed when he was through with it. Only,
he missed again, naturally. I had to get up again and pick it up and put it o\
n top of the
Atlantic Monthly. It's boring to do that every two minutes.
"What would you have done in my place?" he said. "Tell the truth, boy."
Well, you could see he really felt pretty lousy about flunking me. So I shot the
bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff. I told him how I
would've done exactly the same thing if I'd been in his place, and how most people didn't
appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old \
bull.
The funny thing is, though, I was sort of thinking of something else while I shot
the bull. I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Cen\
tral Park, down
near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when\
I got home,
and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks w\
ent when the
lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them
away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.
I'm lucky, though. I mean I could shoot the old bull to old Spencer and think
about those ducks at the same time. It's funny. You don't have to think too hard when you
talk to a teacher. All of a sudden, though, he interrupted me while I was shooting the bull.
He was always interrupting you.
"How do you feel about all this, boy? I'd be very interested to know. Very
interested."
"You mean about my flunking out of Pencey and all?" I said. I sort of wished he'd
cover up his bumpy chest. It wasn't such a beautiful view.
"If I'm not mistaken, I believe you also had some difficulty at the Whooton
School and at Elkton Hills." He didn't say it just sarcastic, but sort of nasty, too.
"I didn't have too much difficulty at Elkton Hills," I told him. "I didn't exactly
flunk out or anything. I just quit, sort of."

"Why, may I ask?"
"Why? Oh, well it's a long story, sir. I mean it's pretty complicated." I didn't feel
like going into the whole thing with him. He wouldn't have understood it anyway. It
wasn't up his alley at all. One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was
surrounded by phonies. That's all. They were coming in the goddam window. For
instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in
my life. Ten times worse than old Thurmer. On Sundays, for instance, old Haas went
around shaking hands with everybody's parents when they drove up to school. He'd be
charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You
should've seen the way he did with my roommate's parents. I mean if a boy's mother was
sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys
that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white \
shoes, then old
Hans would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go
talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's