Author's note: Yep, it's chapter 5! Well, things are getting more creepy and violent. So be prepared to read about more cruelty against animals!

Chapter 5 - A macabre hobby   1954

===========================

1. Twelve year old Freddy is on his first day on the Springwood High School (which is a combined High School with grades from 7 to 12). Mrs. Parker, his English teacher, welcomes all students before asking each one to introduce themselves to the others. Freddy is lost in thoughts about his actual living situation, that is in his fourth foster family, namely with Mr. and Mrs. Underwood and their ten year old daughter Elizabeth (plus her cat Mr. Tinker). So he misses when Mrs. Parker calls his name and reacts not until another student shouts loud through the class that he is a freaky kook, making everybody except Freddy laugh. Mrs. Parker calls them to order first, and then she calls on Freddy to tell a little bit about himself. Thus Freddy tells that he is twelve and lives with a foster family, knowing that the other would find out this on their own anyway sooner or later. The rest of the lesson he remains silent then.

2. Same day, during break. Freddy accidentally bumps into a group of boys, which are Walter Lantz and his two friends, Michael Gray and Martin Thompson (the latter being the brother of Donald Thompson). They recognize Freddy as the "kook" from the English lesson before and starts to mock him at once. Freddy takes refuge in the toilets, but arrives too late at his next lesson, that is math. The teacher, Mr. Crawford, is a grim man who bawls at Freddy loud because of his delay, giving him a first foreboding of what to expect in math this year.

3. Freddy is summoned by Mrs. Underwood, who found a dead and decaying chipmunk with crushed guts in his room. She is quite disgusted and angry, not only because the dead animal was unhygienic and stinking but because Freddy didn't stand to the rules. Once again she reminds him not to bring any dead animal at home. But her expostulations don't impress Freddy at all. That's why Mrs. Underwood feels rather confused and helpless. The reformatory home told her before that Freddy was "kinda difficult in contact" and had "some noticeable behavior problems", but to hear this was one thing, to undergo it day by day was another. In fact nobody prepared her for a boy with a morbid preference for dead animals, who talks hardly and who gets furious if you come to close to him.

4. A few days later. Freddy already hates High School. Almost everyone in school calls him kook and mocks him because of his hamster-murder three years ago. If he had known that this silly rodent would haunt him for such a long time he probably wouldn't have killed it. During lunch break he flees once again from Walter into the toilets, but is captured by his friends which awaited him there already. Despite his resistance they put his head in a toilet bowl and press the flush, before they let him alone. With a wet head and shirt he finally leaves the toilets. On his way to the next class he just meets Mrs. Parker, who starts to be quite concerned about him.

5. Freddy is walking to the school bus stop in the morning. Before he reaches it he sees Martin and Michael already standing there waiting for the bus. Almost in an instinct Freddy hides behind a tree and, as a result, misses the school bus arriving in this moment. Although he is relieved not to be in the same bus with both boys he knows that he has to run the whole school way very fast in order to reach school in time. In fact he arrives with about fifteen minutes delay, thus receiving an admonition from Mrs. Parker.

6. Math. Mr. Crawford commands Freddy to calculate an arithmetic task in front of the class on the chalkboard. When he fails to solve the problem Mr. Crawford taunts him and calls him a blockhead. The other students are only grinning, showing no signs of compassion for him. The ringing of the school bell luckily puts Freddy out of his misery. In the following break he discovers the school basement on his repeated flight from Walter. Right from the beginning he feels a deep connection to this dark and mysterious place with all the pipes, boilers and other stuff. Unfortunately he overhears the end of the break while he sneaks around down there, so the janitor detects him and throws him out angrily.

7. Freddy returns late from school at home and kicks his school bag furious in the next corner. Mrs. Underwood, worried about his delay and aggression, asks him what's wrong with him. But Freddy yells at her that this is nothing to her. She isn't his mother solely because he is forced to live in this family, and he just wants to be let alone. Mrs. Underwood doesn't know to handle his permanent hostility and tries to calm him down by offering some sandwiches she made earlier. Her touching attempt makes it even worse, though. Freddy gets a terrible outburst, skids the tablet with the sandwiches through the air and screams so wild that Mrs. Underwood has no other choice than to actually leave him alone.

8. Freddy discovers a broken area in the fence around the schoolyard. Secretly he climbs out and skips the remaining school lessons. In the center park he finds a dead pigeon in a tiny, almost hidden almost place far beyond the path. He plays with the rotten cadaver for a while and remembers the excitement he had then with the dead rat and the other carcasses he found in the past. He also remembers how much more thrilling is was to kill that hamster in third grade. The delightful memory of that killing gives him the idea of slaying an animal again in order to relive this awesome and exciting satisfaction. But he isn't able to catch a living pigeon and finally gives up.

9. Saturday afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Underwood talk about Freddy. She tells her husband the last incidences with Freddy and the difficulties she has with him. She also asks him to speak with the boy about his weird behavior. Thus Mr. Underwood summons Freddy, who is just sneaking up to the cat with a thin wooden stick in his hand. They both walk to the garage, where Mr. Underwood asks him to help waxing the car while he attempts to talk with Freddy directly. Although he tries honestly he isn't more successful than his wife due to Freddy's obstinate silence and his lack of any feelings of guilt.

10. After a really boring history lesson Freddy runs to the school basement again and finds an empty rat trap (a 10 inch metal cage). He has the idea to catch a pigeon with it, therefore he steals the trap and hides it in his locker until the school ends this day. Wrapped in his anorak he brings it to the place in the park then and sets up the trap with the rest of his lunch sandwich.

11. Tomorrow afternoon Freddy returns to his 'pigeon place'. The trap really worked and there is a pigeon inside the cage. He abreacts all his frustration and hate by killing the pigeon with a pointed wood stick. In doing so he feels the same thrilling satisfaction as at his hamster-murder then, but even more intense and long running. The cruel kill makes him smile viciously.

12. Some days later Freddy steals a big knife from the kitchen, when Mrs. Underwood is busy with other housework. Hidden in his school bag he carries it to the school and places it in his locker, ready to take away when he wants to go to his pigeon place. During the rest of the school day he is rather distracted with brutal fantasies of killing not just pigeons but anyone he doesn't like with the sharp knife.

13. Freddy plays truant again and kills two pigeon with the knife instead. He returns to school before lunch break and is just putting the bloody knife back in his locker when Mrs. Parker addresses him. Appalled he spins around and slams his locker hastily, then noticing that his hand is bloody, too, and hiding it behind his back. Luckily Mrs. Parker doesn't see it and sends him only back to his class.

14. Freddy is rather annoyed of Elizabeth, his foster sister. She wants him to play with her dolls, what is the least thing on earth he wants to do. Irritated he barks at her not to bother him any longer, and when she doesn't stop he takes away her doll and pulls out the legs and arms while Elizabeth, desperately crying, tries to catch her doll back again and calls for her mother. Mrs. Underwood approaches almost immediately and is once again very irritated and worried about Freddy's aggressive behavior. Her greatest fear is that he could do the same to her daughter one day. Whereas Freddy is totally unimpressed by her reproaches as usual, he's not even listening to her and runs outside to the front yard.

15. Another math lesson. Freddy gets an F in his last math test he wrote two weeks ago. Although Mr. Crawford warns him that he will fail the course if his grades won't improve he remains unconcerned. Instead of going to his next history lesson he skips school, runs to the center park and kills another pigeon.

16. Once more Freddy sneaks in the school basement, snooping around in the janitors' office. There he finds a piece of poisoned rat bait in a box and picks it up. After the break he has to team up with a girl in biology class, but she isn't very happy to work with him together and frankly shows her disfavor.

17. While sitting in the bus back from school Freddy is mocked and taunted by several girls. When also Michael and Martin, which are sitting just behind him, start to hustle him he jumps up and runs ahead to the bus driver. But someone trips him up and he stumbles endwise to the ground, raising a laugh from almost every student. Though he puts himself together again and leaves the bus on the next stop, although it isn't his stop and he has to walk quite a distance to his home. On his way home he feeds the rat poison hidden in his sandwich left from lunch to a dog, which is tied in front of a shop waiting for his owner. Then he watches the dog painful shrugging and vomiting as the poison starts to take effect in less than fifteen minutes. Finally the owner of the dog, a young lady, comes back and picks up her obviously sick pet, so that Freddy can't watch it any further and see if it will die by the end.

18. After school. Freddy kills once more a pigeon in the park. As he washes his bloody hands in the great fountain in the middle of the park he meets William, the former college assistant of the reformatory. They talk for a while, and William notices his changed behavior, which is more aggressive and hostile than ever. Freddy however tells William that in some way he has to thank him, as it was William that made plain to him that he neither has nor needs any friends, because now he could do whatever he likes to. William is really worried about this and wants to know what he means, but Freddy just replies that he wouldn't understand it. Before William can ask any further questions Freddy jumps up and runs away.

19. Walter, Michael and Martin ambuscade Freddy as he just leaves his refuge in the school basement. They insult him as a coward and wimp and threaten to tattle him to the janitor. Luckily for Freddy Mrs. Parker comes by and prevents anything worse. Walter and his friends withdraw from Freddy, so that he can run to his next lesson.

20. Three weeks later. Freddy's truancy has increased vastly as he spends more and more time in the park killing pigeons. One morning he even kills a duck, before returning to school at lunch break. He succeeds to slink back to the school yard unnoticed, but then runs into Walter and his friends. Walter snatches away Freddy's lunch bag and throws his sandwiches in the mud, besides he splashes his cacao over Freddy's shirt. Freddy puts up with their taunts and insults without any reaction, so they finally let off from him.

21. Only a few days later Freddy's frequent truancy and his poor math test leaks out. Mrs. Underwood is more than angry with him. She thinks that Freddy has exploited her sympathetic and forgiving upbringing with his lies and wants to know the reason for his recurrent truancy. But Freddy is clever enough not to tell her what he actually did in this time, though making her even more furious. Even when she punishes him hard and gives him several weeks of house arrest he doesn't give away his "special hobby" in the park.

22. The following day there is an article in the newspaper that the park gardener found the rotten carcasses of sixteen pigeons and four ducks. The news is also discussed in school, where everybody (except Freddy of course) puzzles about the offender of this cruelty against animals. Freddy almost breaks his secret during English class as they discuss the motive of the offender and he tries to explain that a reason for the killings could be a kind of pleasure. The other students aren't able to understand how anyone could enjoy killing animals, but Mrs. Parker tells them that there are in fact people called sadists who enjoy the pain and suffer of others. Freddy is surprised to find out that he is such a sadist, a naming he even relishes. Unfortunately he can't continue with his favorite hobby, because he has no trap anymore. But he is sure that he will do it again some day, be it with pets or with something else.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Final note: Well, what do you think? Poor pigeons? Or poor Freddy? Psychological he is on the best way to become a sociopath (with a so-called antisocial personality disorder, diagnosis 301.7 in the DSM-IV). He has already shown the three major signs of sociopathy in childhood: bed-wetting, cruelty against animals and arson. And this is just the beginning of his "career".