One morning Morgan ran farther than usual and came to the open field that rose gradually to the redstone Catholic girls' school.
Buses were letting out students before the flagpole in front of the main entrance.
The students wore maroon knee socks and maroon plaid miniskirts and white long-sleeved blouses and they held their books against their breasts.
Morgan did not go to work but in the afternoon drove to the shopping center, where he saw students of that same school sitting at the counter in the Ice Cream Shoppe.
Through the window he saw them in their various sprawling poses as they licked their ice-cream cones.
Three of them were coming across the parking lot. He noticed that their skirts were held together with a large decorative pin, so that if the pin were removed the skirt would come undone like a bandage.
The blouse of one had come out in the back and the knee sock of another had slipped down the calf.
As they entered the Ice Cream Shoppe the tallest of them glanced back at Morgan as if he were of absolutely no interest.
The sound of chattering girls rushed like heat out of the Ice Cream Shoppe in the moment the door was open.
He imagined schoolgirls did not keep themselves scrupulously clean. He thought their thighs might smell of urine.