Students' attack on Ted Jones

The attack on Ted Jones is the culminating event of the hostage crisis in Room 16, the moment when Charlie Decker's classmates, who have spent the morning confessing their own secrets and judging each other, turn their collective energy onto a single target. It is the final 'order of business' Decker has promised, and it transforms the classroom from a hostage scene into a kind of improvised tribunal, with Decker as judge and the rest as witnesses and executioners. The attack is not a spontaneous riot but a staged, almost ritualistic process, one that Decker himself initiates by asking who knows 'the final order of business' and then calling on Carol Granger to articulate it: 'We have to help show Ted where he has gone wrong.'

The Ritual of Accusation

The attack begins not with physical violence but with a cascade of accusations. Once Pig Pen raises his hand, the others follow—Susan Brooks, Sandra Cross, Grace Stanner, Irma Bates, and more—until all hands are raised except Ted's. Decker calls on Carol Granger, who states the group's purpose with a tasteful euphemism: 'We have to help show Ted where he has gone wrong.' Ted, realizing what is happening, tries to walk out, declaring that he will tell the authorities everyone is crazy. But Dick Keene collars him, and Pat Fitzgerald and George Yannick pin his arms. The accusations come fast: Ted cheats on French tests, he cheats on gym laps, he quit football because he 'dint have no sauce.' Grace Stanner testifies that she has seen him buying girlie magazines. Harmon Jackson asks if he masturbates. Sylvia Ragan asks Sandra Cross if Ted 'stunk in bed,' and Sandra confirms that it was 'over so quick.' Each accusation is a small blow, and together they form a narrative that dismantles Ted's carefully constructed image of superiority.

The Physical Assault

The verbal accusations quickly escalate into physical violence. Sandra Cross, with a 'sly, mocking devotion,' reaches inside Ted's shirt and pops the buttons open, one by one, while he spits in her face. Pig Pen, grinning, threatens to pop his eyes out 'just like olives.' Billy Sawyer pulls Ted's hair. Irma Bates pushes a ruler down the back of his pants. Anne Lasky rubs the bridge of his nose with an eraser. Corky Herald dumps Carter's ink in his hair, and hands rub it in briskly. Pat Fitzgerald whacks Ted's bare shoulders with a notebook in cadence, asking if he wants to be a 'soul brother.' Dick Keene raises his knee into the big muscle of Ted's thigh. Nancy Caskin stuffs a wad of notebook paper into his mouth, and when he tries to spit it out, Sandra rams it back in. Harmon Jackson pulls off one of Ted's shoes, rubs it in his inky hair, and slams the sole against his chest, leaving a 'huge, grotesque footprint.' Carol Granger steps on Ted's stockinged foot and twists her heel until something in his foot snaps. Pig Pen darts in and bites his nose. The attack is a coordinated, almost choreographed dismantling of Ted's body and dignity.

The Aftermath and Transformation

When the attack is over, Ted is no longer recognizable as the handsome, confident boy who had tried to take Decker's gun hours earlier. He is slumped against the wall, his shirt ripped off, ink running down his cheeks, his nose bleeding, paper protruding through his teeth. He breathes in 'great white snuffles of air' and makes mewling sounds. When Decker squats beside him and tells him he will forget this day ever happened, Ted does not respond; he looks past Decker into emptiness, drooling down his chin. The attack has broken him completely. The other students, their hands 'streaked with black ink,' walk out of the classroom and across the lawn, where they are enveloped by police and reporters. Ted is left behind, a 'drooling Tedthing,' and is later diagnosed as catatonic. The attack is the final act of the morning's 'getting it on,' and it leaves Ted a permanent casualty of the crisis, a boy who will never recover from what his classmates did to him.