Dancing on the Walls, Dancing on the Ceiling

I remember it was back in aught-three, first month or so of school began, or maybe it was aught-four but I can’t quite be sure, the way time drags on just like. It was way back when ol’ Miss Hendricks was Miss Hendricks and she wasn’t going by Mrs. Hendricks like she is now, and ol’ Miss Hendricks had the same stiff switch on the wall as she does now, or so they say.

But it was way back when that I saw someone dancing on the walls for the first time, me being a boy and he being Christian Neely of the Neely house on Fourth. I come in one day before the bell rings so as not to be late, and Christian Neely of the Neely house, he’s dancing on the walls like you’d see anyone dancing on the ground, just a-dancing and a-stepping like they do each summer and each spring, when it’s not too cold to go out much.

I saw Christian Neely dancing on the walls in the old schoolhouse, a-tip-toeing and a-capering like he had no mind to what he was doing at all, and then he smiled and turned to me and told me to come on up and join him. He was leaving prints on the walls the way he was carrying on and I said to Christian Neely that I didn’t want to be switched by Miss Hendricks. He laughed then and kept on dancing on the walls, dancing on the ceiling, and then the clock struck eight o’clock or thereabouts and he hopped down to take his seat. Christian Neely sat in front of me back then, and he was sweet with just about all the girls in the class and friends with most the boys.

I didn’t much take a shining to that Christian Neely, and him dancing on the walls didn’t sit right with me, down in my guts mayhaps, or mayhaps I just didn’t care to clean them marks he left behind. But Miss Hendricks, she paid no mind to them prints and carried on with the lessons like always, ready with the switch in case one of us made a ruckus or got to bothering.

Well, a few days go by and I come to school again nice and early so as not to be late and not to get a switching, and that Christian Neely of the Neely house was dancing on the walls again, dancing on the ceiling like it was his. But that day he had others dancing with him, and they were all on the walls and capering just like he was. He had Sarah Jane Hatchard, and old Clem Valentine, but he wasn’t old Clem back then, just Clem. He had Posie White and Emma Brown and the two Clayton twins and Jim McConnell and they was making a ruckus and getting to bothering up there where they shouldn’t.

That Christian Neely, he looked at me again and he smiled, and he told me to come on up and dance with him. He told me he was going to get everyone to dance. I don’t know what else he wanted for everyone to do.

I said to him I didn’t want to get switched, and I said to him he’d better get on down before Miss Hendricks come in and switched everyone for dancing up there. He didn’t pay no mind. He just kept dancing with everyone, saying he was going to get the rest of the children dancing and whooping and smiling like he was always, that Christian Neely.

But I’d seen them prints he left on the walls, them marks that Miss Hendricks didn’t mind much and never switched him for. Them marks were like as you’d see from one of the goats down by the Harper mill.

So one day, I come in before most everyone else and that Christian Neely was dancing on the ceiling like he lived there. I remember I said to him, “You’d best stop this dancing afore you catch it, Christian Neely. You best stop this dancing and come on down now.” But he just kept carrying on like he did, and he didn’t pay me no mind.

I didn’t much take a shining to what that boy was doing. He never got the switch, and he always had the rest of the children dancing with him and smiling with him, and they never said what for or why. He just kept on and made them marks where he went, and they followed right after.

Now maybe it was them marks on the walls or something else that gave me the fixing, but when that boy kept dancing like he did, I was fixing to stop it. So’s I took up some chalk from Miss Hendricks’ blackboard and I threw it up at that Christian Neely, and I hollered out loud, “Get out from him, devil, get ye out!”

I don’t know why I did just that. Mayhaps it was Sunday schooling with Miss Pratchett, she being found not a week later and hanged in her house, her table still set for eating and her bible tore up something horrible. Or mayhaps it was just instinct, like when you wake up blind in the middle of the night and you stay still and quiet, just listening and hoping that your angels start singing again. Mine are awful quiet these days.

I don’t know why I did it, but I know what for. And I know from way up there on the ceiling that Christian Neely came crashing down.

Christian Neely, he wasn’t laughing or smiling no more once he fell. He was a-crying and a hollering, and he broke something of his but I didn’t know what. He broke something when he tumbled down to the floor and he was calling for his mother. Seemed as like he didn’t know how he got there. I said I just saved him from a switching, but he didn’t pay no mind. He just wanted to go home.

Well, Miss Hendricks, she did pay mind. She come in around eight or thereabouts before the bell, and she saw the other children crowded around Christian Neely like. She didn’t give nobody a switching before, when they was all dancing on the walls and hooting and hollering. But then, boy, then she gave us a switching or two. She gave a switching to everyone but me, who got something ‘round a dozen or so instead. I said to her why Christian Neely got hurt, and she said I oughtn’t be spinning yarns and lying. She said the boy’s father would tar me soon. That Miss Hendricks, she tarred me plenty.

Miss Hendricks switched me good and then my kin switched me good for getting switched at the schoolhouse, then just ‘bout everyone in town fixed to give me the switch or give me the business for hurting that Christian Neely. When they all found out I was the one who hurt that boy, they all went and turned awful cold around me. But I never aimed to hurt him. I just aimed to get him to stop his dancing. Wasn’t for me he’d have the whole town dancing and capering on, following them goat prints like the rest of the class.

Christian Neely, he come back to school later like nothing happened, and not a soul says nothing about how he learned the children how to dance. But they says plenty about me, and Miss Hendricks always took a shine to switching me more’n the rest of the boys and girls.

Makes me wonder, nowadays. Mayhaps I oughta let them dance, let them keep their carrying on and take the whole world with them. I been switched and hated, and hated more’n the rest of the folks around here, all for what I did to that Christian Neely. I say if I see another person dancing on the walls, dancing on the ceiling, and just capering on and smiling, another boy with goat’s feet and an aim to get the rest of the world dancing, next up I’d go right on and join him. Ain’t no good from folk otherwise.