Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg Page B

across the table.
    I should have stopped then and there, but I couldn’t. I had to go on, and I said, “And the third time?” But now Branwell jerked his head up as hard as he had jerked it down. “Way to go, man,” I said, trying totease. And maybe if my mouth had not been so dry, that would have come out the way it should have. But it didn’t. Branwell’s jaw dropped, and he glared at me. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came. He sucked in his breath and tried again, and then he bolted up, overturning his chair, turned his back to me, and started to walk out.
    â€œBran!” I called. “Bran. Our time isn’t up. Don’t leave. Please,” I said. “Please don’t leave.” He stood still, his back to me. “I brought a copy of the tape with me,” I said. He turned his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He looked like a frightened puppy. And I was frightened, too. What had I triggered? “The 911 tape,” I said. He turned about three quarters of the way around, and I hurriedly took it from my backpack and put it on the table. “Here it is.”
    The guard came over and set his chair upright.
    â€œLet’s listen to the tape, Bran.” He was facing me now, and so was the guard. “Please sit down. Let’s listen to it together.”
    Bran sat down, and, nervous as I was, I managed to start the tape. As soon as the first words came on, he cocked his head and held his hand behind his ear to gather in the sound. Then when the tape got to the part where the operator said that she was transferringthe call to Fire and Rescue—the same part where he had reacted when Big Beacham had played it—he leaned his head down on the desk, the way we had been taught Native Americans kept their ears to the ground to hear a buffalo herd.
    When the tape finished playing, he sat up and made a whirling motion with his finger. He wanted me to play it again. And I did. This time he kept his ear low the whole time it played, and at that same point in the tape, he pounded with his fist—only once and not real hard—on the table. I knew there was something there that needed to be heard. I rewound the tape and asked him if he wanted me to play it again. He shook his head no.
    I took the pack of flash cards from my pocket and put it on the table. The one marked TAPE was on top, faceup. Branwell’s eyes fell on that card immediately, and he blinked twice very rapidly. Still nervous, still upset by his reaction to my mentioning the bathroom invasions, I asked, “The tape?” He blinked twice. “You want me to investigate the tape?” He blinked twice again, very rapidly. You could say he blinked in anger. “Good,” I said, but didn’t mean it.
    Trying to put the best face I could on a very bad session, I said, “The tape it will be. I’ll check on thetape.” I tumbled everything—cards, cassette, cassette player—back into my backpack and waved good-bye. Which Bran didn’t see, since he was already heading back to his quarters.
    I left the Behavioral Center with the tape and with a very bad feeling. I should have found out if it was God or the Devil who was in the details of Vivian’s deposition. But I had blown it. I couldn’t go back to that topic. Not yet. Maybe never.
    I had to do something with the tape. I knew that there were ways to improve the sound by bringing up the volume on the good parts and cutting out the static in other parts. I suspected that it was done on a computer, and if it was, Margaret would either know how to do it or where to get it done.
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    As I was leaving, the guard at the front desk asked me if I had made any progress. If you consider that I had gotten a violent response out of Branwell, you could say yes. But if you consider that he was still not speaking, and I still didn’t know why, you would have to say no.
    â€œToo soon