Текст книги "Boy in the Water"

Автор книги: Stephen Dobyns

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“And what if she couldn’t learn?” It was Kate’s habit to look at a person out of the corner of her eye when she spoke, only half turning her head and not facing the other person directly.

“Then I’d hire someone to work under her. I told her that this afternoon on the phone but she wouldn’t rethink her decision. She said the office was too small for two people. I’ll write the board. If she won’t change her mind, then perhaps they can give her a special tribute for her years of service as well as some improved retirement package, or at least a bonus.”

“Who’ll take her place?”

“Fritz says he knows of a person who might work out.”

Half a dozen crows seemed engaged in an argument among the pines. The maple leaves under their feet were bright yellows and oranges. Occasionally, Kate would pick one up, study it, and carry it a while before letting it flutter back to the ground.

“Did you ask Fritz about the photograph?” asked Kate.

“If he’d put it there, he would have told me. To tell the truth, I find the whole business incredible.” He was about to tell her about Ambrose Stark’s appearance, then decided not to. It already struck him as too peculiar, as if it had been a hallucination.

“Do you think it’s connected to whoever put those clippings in our mailboxes?”

“I don’t know.” Hawthorne took off his glasses and polished them on his tie. Without his glasses the colors of the trees became a spectacular blur.

“I felt bad calling you about George.” Kate laughed abruptly. “Especially since nothing’s happened.”

“I was glad that you felt comfortable enough to alert me. You still think he’ll call?”

“He could easily show up. If he’s drinking, there’s no telling what he might do. All of this should be terrific material for your book.”

Hawthorne stopped and put a hand on her arm. “Believe me, there is no book. I came here to keep Bishop’s Hill from going out of business, not to write anything.”

“Everyone’s talking about it. They think that’s why you took the job, to write about dysfunctional education. I was looking forward to it.”

Hawthorne began walking again. “Then you’ll have to be disappointed. I don’t belong to that world anymore.” Hawthorne worried that his tone had been unnecessarily harsh, and he tried to soften it. “By the way, I’ve taken over the coaching of the swim team, but I may not be able to make all of the practices. Is that something you might help me with? I could probably take you off some other stuff—mail room and lunch duty.”

Kate appeared to consider. “My son’s home in the afternoon. It would probably mean more baby-sitting, but I think I could manage it. I used to swim a lot. That’s where I met George. We both swam at UNH. He got booted off the team for drinking. I should have taken it as a warning.” Kate began to talk about her marriage and George’s jealousy. In part she wanted to show Hawthorne that she hadn’t telephoned him out of foolishness, that George could easily make a scene. She described his temper and his drinking and how she was forced to stay in this area because of his visiting rights.

As they walked and Hawthorne listened, he knew that shortly they would talk about his own marriage and the death of his wife and daughter. Not only was it the place where his thoughts always went, it was the place where all conversations sooner or later arrived, as if anyone’s pleasant remark or idle discussion of the weather was only a way of getting to what interested them most, the horrific deaths of Meg and Lily. It was like watching a ball roll down a hill: eventually this subject—the lowest part of all talk—would be reached. He could almost feel Meg and Lily waiting in the wings for their turn onstage. Yes, he too had been married. Yes, something awful had happened.

Yet, when he began to talk about Wyndham, it was almost with relief, as if his purpose in life was to tell that story over and over. To tell it until its last shard had been pulled from him. As he listened to himself, he realized that the story sounded practiced as it changed from event and recollection into language, as if each retelling were an attempt to scrub away the awfulness.

“The boy, Stanley Carpasso, had been at Wyndham for over three years. That may have been the problem. The usual stay at a treatment center is two. But he’d had a rough time. He was eleven when he came. He’d already been in four foster homes and was very destructive. He had no relatives and his father was unknown. His mother had been a prostitute and she’d died of AIDS. He became extremely fond of me. In fact, after the first six months or so, I was the only person who didn’t become a victim of his tantrums. So it appeared I was doing him some good. That in itself seemed reason enough to keep him there longer. At first he was friendly with my wife and daughter and the affection he had for me extended to them as well. But with puberty he began to change. Not that he obviously came to dislike Meg and Lily, but he was jealous of them. He concealed this as best as he could, but when I was late to an appointment or when I was simply busy with my own family he resented it. And those feelings increased.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t sufficiently aware of them. I was busy, and when I saw him, he seemed the same as ever. No, that’s not right; he’d sometimes complain about my family. He even asked why I didn’t adopt him, why he couldn’t live with us. His foster home experiences had been disasters, but he said that wouldn’t happen if I took him in. He promised to be an angel. That was his word, an angel. However, I couldn’t do it. Partly I was skeptical and partly it’s bad practice to take in a favorite. I mean, all the kids wanted a home—perhaps not a real home but some ideal impossibility of their imagination. And if I’d taken Stanley in, it would have created a series of damaging expectations and disappointments for the others.

“So I tried to wean him from me, having him talk to other psychologists and seeing him less often. I probably should have had him transferred to another facility altogether, but his conduct with me didn’t seem to change, at least on the surface. Because of his feelings for me, he couldn’t let himself think the fault was mine. He couldn’t believe that I had made a decision to reject him. So he blamed my wife and daughter. Not all at once, of course. But over a period of a few months he started believing that, without them in his path, I’d have no hesitation about adopting him. I see now it was a mistake to live at the school. I don’t mean that ironically. By living there I wanted to present an example of what a home could be. I didn’t realize it could make some of the children envious and bitter. With Stanley, it made him murderous. He thought he could set a fire that would kill Meg and Lily but that would also seem accidental, so he wouldn’t be blamed.”

“That’s awful,” said Kate.

“Yes,” said Hawthorne. He thought how in his many retellings of this story he had simplified it until it was just the bare bones of what had really happened. He wondered if he would ever tell Kate the more complete version and he looked at her quickly, her cheeks flushed from their walk, her black hair damp along the scalp line, her red coat unzipped and fluttering in the breeze. He found her very pretty, and his response to this was guilt.

“And how were you burned?”

Again Hawthorne presented the censored account. “Our quarters were separated from the rest of the school by a hallway. The fire started around ten at night. I’d been at a dinner meeting . . .” He paused, recalling Chip’s remark about “the cute psychologist.” Claire de Lune. Certainly Kate would realize that Claire was missing from the story. “Stanley knew that, of course. When I got back, the building was on fire. The hallway was burning. I tried to get through and . . .” Hawthorne raised his arm as if gesturing with the scar tissue itself. “But I couldn’t. Luckily, a fireman dragged me out.”

“How terrible.” They had stopped and Kate was staring at him.

For a moment it seemed that Hawthorne could see the flames, could even hear Meg’s screams. No, it wasn’t simply screaming, it was his name she was screaming.

“My wife and daughter died of smoke inhalation, mercifully, I expect.”

Another lie. Hawthorne looked at the multicolored leaves at his feet and thought he would fall, tumble out of sanity into a deep and benign unconsciousness. He took hold of himself. But he thought, Wouldn’t falling be better in the long run? Wouldn’t it stop all this thinking? And suddenly in his recollection he saw Meg and Lily as they had appeared in the picture on his desk—standing before the Christmas tree in their matching green robes. Who had put it there?

They were at the edge of the parking lot and began walking again. It was approaching five-thirty.

“If something ever happened to Todd,” said Kate, “I don’t think I’d get over it.”

Hawthorne nodded. Many people told him things like that.

“I don’t expect I have, at least not yet. Now I’m in a different place, a different part of the country. And time, you know, makes a difference, just like they say. You think it never will, but things fade. Their faces aren’t as clear to me now.” Hawthorne stopped. It wouldn’t do to weep. He watched two chipmunks pursuing each other around the base of an old oak. He heard chickadees. Ahead of him he saw the white bell tower on top of Emerson Hall. He had heard that the view from up there was breathtaking. They began passing between the parked cars. Hawthorne was still looking at the ground, while Kate was watching him, trying to read his expression. As a result, neither of them saw Chip Campbell until he was about six feet away. He wore an old leather jacket and he was swaying slightly.

“I forgot to give you something before I left,” said Chip. “It’s for your book.”

Hawthorne had just time enough to see that the other man was drunk before Chip hit him in the jaw, knocking him against a parked car so he banged his head on the door.

“Chip, don’t!” Kate screamed at the same time.

Hawthorne was on his hands and knees staring down at the asphalt. His glasses had fallen off. There was shouting that he couldn’t understand. Looking up into the unfocused blur, he thought he saw not Chip but Frank LeBrun in his white jacket. LeBrun was holding someone. There was a loud grunt. Hawthorne felt around for his glasses, then found them and put them on. Looking up again, he saw that LeBrun had grabbed Chip around the neck and was holding him tight, choking him.

“Stop it!” said Kate.

Hawthorne, still dazed, got to his feet, pulling himself up by grabbing the back bumper of a pickup. He couldn’t understand where LeBrun had come from.

LeBrun shook Chip, then, holding him with one hand, brought the other back in a fist.

“Stop it,” said Kate. “Jim, make him stop.”

Chip raised an arm to protect himself but LeBrun hit him in the nose. Hawthorne swayed toward LeBrun, wiping the blood from his face.

“Frank, stop!” he called. Hawthorne grabbed LeBrun and dragged him back.

Ferociously, LeBrun turned on him. There were splotches of blood on LeBrun’s white jacket.

“Are you going to beat me too, Frank?” Hawthorne managed to say, speaking as calmly as he could. He was close enough to smell the garlic on LeBrun’s breath.

LeBrun’s brow contorted with fierce intention. From somewhere out of sight, Chip was groaning.

“That’s enough, don’t you think, Frank?” asked Hawthorne.

LeBrun seemed about to say something, then abruptly turned away and stared off toward the woods with his back to them all.

Hawthorne put a hand on LeBrun’s shoulder. “That’s all right. You got excited.”

LeBrun jerked away and Hawthorne again put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

After a moment LeBrun said, “Dumb, you know? I just don’t catch on.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hawthorne. “You were trying to help. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“What d’you call a Canuck with an IQ of 167?”

Hawthorne didn’t answer and LeBrun said nothing else but kept staring at the woods. Kate had given Chip a handkerchief. He knelt on the asphalt and wiped the blood from his nose. The sleeve of his leather jacket was torn. “Jesus, Jesus,” he kept repeating.

PART TWO

Five

High against the sky the scaffolding of weathered two-by-fours around the bell tower of Emerson Hall formed a web of crisscrossing lines the same gray color as the overhanging clouds. At the corners of the rooftop, the crude alligatorlike gargoyles dribbled raindrops, and the scaffolding rose above the roof like a cage. Kevin Krueger, as he stood next to his State of New Hampshire Ford Taurus, found the scene oppressive. For Jim Hawthorne, however, the scaffolding was a source of celebration.

“I’ve spoken to groups from Plymouth down to Laconia,” he was saying. “Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions. And I’ve written to alumni. I hadn’t a hope of starting these repairs before spring, but then the gifts began to come in. Not a lot, but enough to get started.”

“I’m impressed,” said Krueger, trying to put enthusiasm into his voice.

“If we’d waited, there could have been water damage up in the attic rooms. Now it should be watertight before the snow starts, though we had flurries just the other day.”

It was midmorning on Monday, November 9, and Kevin Krueger had just driven up from Concord. Officially, he was here to look at the school for the Department of Education, but he also wanted to see his ex-teacher and friend, from whom his only communication had been a phone call in September, then a postcard at the beginning of October making an obscure reference to the successes of Sisyphus. It was nearly seven weeks since he had last seen Hawthorne, and in that time Hawthorne appeared to have lost about ten pounds and aged five years. His face was even more angular and the hollows in his cheeks were small pockets of shadow.

“So, you’ve been successful,” said Krueger, making it a statement.

“Not successful yet, I’m afraid. But we’re moving along.”

Hawthorne had come out to greet him when he saw Krueger get out of his car. Now they walked slowly toward the main entrance of Emerson Hall. It had been raining for nearly a week and the ground was muddy. This morning the rain had stopped but the sky remained slate-colored. Krueger stepped to avoid puddles. Everything seemed gray except for the gold spear points on the metal fence in front of the building. Krueger saw a few faces looking down at him from several windows, presumably students who were not paying attention to their teachers. The air was cold and raw. Hawthorne wore no coat but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. Krueger wore a thick brown overcoat, tweed cap, and brown leather gloves, while his bushy mustache and eyebrows seemed to provide additional protection against the weather. He was a man who buffered himself against the world with his comforts, his optimism, and his intellect. He liked soft things and worried about Hawthorne—whether he ate enough or slept enough. There was a wariness about him that Krueger had never noticed before, an agitation and suspicion of his surroundings.

Krueger had heard about Bishop’s Hill from a few other sources. For instance, he knew that Chip Campbell had been dismissed and that an injunction had been obtained against him to make sure he stayed off school property.

“And you remain hopeful?” he asked.

“Let’s say I refuse to admit defeat. There’ve been changes and many have been successful. The problem is that each change is met with a lot of grumbling. If you only knew how tired I am of grumbling.”

Most of the leaves had fallen and were heaped in sodden piles along the metal fence. The clouds were low enough that the hills seemed eaten up by them. Gray trees, gray clouds. A few crows were calling to one another—a rough, imperative squawking. It was the sort of day that always made Krueger tell himself that he was going to take his family south this winter for a week or two, though he never did.

They climbed the granite front steps of the building and Krueger held the door for Hawthorne. “I heard about that fellow Campbell. That must have been difficult for you.”

“Did you know him?”

“I never had the pleasure. But his record indicated he’d been fired from a school in Connecticut in 1985.” Krueger removed his cap and gloves and put them in his pockets.

“He has an unfortunate temper. It seemed simple, really—to have a rule that couldn’t be broken. How many times do you have to say it? Students May Not Be Hit. You know he came back and tried to beat me up? He got more than he bargained for, from the cook of all people. He happened to see Chip knock me down. That’s when I had an injunction taken out against him. Unfortunately, he’s become a martyr for some of the faculty. And the whole business has made everyone anxious—as if I were going to go on a firing spree and get rid of them all. All my gestures get magnified. I say something quietly and it gets turned into a shout.”

“That’s what it’s like to be boss.”

“But it hasn’t been that way at other places.”

“Schools are different from treatment centers. They’re more amateurish.”

“You know, they had this idea that the only reason I’d come here was to write a book, and they resented it, as if they were no more than parts of an experiment. It’s taken over a month to convince them that I’m not planning to write anything. Some of them still don’t believe me.”

“You spoke of writing a book when you went to Wyndham.”

Hawthorne turned back to Krueger. “I’m not that person anymore. That was part of my ambition. If I hadn’t been so ambitious, my wife and daughter would still be alive.”

The Emerson Hall rotunda rose up three stories to a dome beneath the bell tower. In the center of its marble floor was a blue-and-gold crest with the letters B and H superimposed. Here, too, there was scaffolding, with two workmen in paint-spotted coveralls plastering the first-floor ceiling along the rim of the open space. Above him, Krueger saw chest-high railings surrounding the rotunda at the second and third floors. In a public school, the rotunda would be considered unsafe. The insurance companies would protest and the second and third floors would be extended across the opening. It was on the tip of Krueger’s tongue to ask if they’d ever lost a student—some careless seventh grader tumbling down from the third floor—but he was trying to be upbeat.

Krueger wanted to argue with Hawthorne about Wyndham. He passionately believed that Hawthorne’s ambitions had nothing to do with the death of his family, but he didn’t feel ready to begin the discussion. “What’s Campbell doing now?”

“He’s got a lawyer. The school deals with him through Hamilton Burke, who’s our lawyer and a member of the board of trustees. I expect he’ll get some money and a noncommittal recommendation. Chip certainly won’t be coming back here. I’d resign first.”

“And his classes?”

“I hired a fellow to teach two. The others were picked up by people here. I’m teaching one in ancient and medieval history. We’re well into the Romans now. What an ill-mannered bunch they were. And I coach the swimming team with another teacher.”

“Where do you find the time?”

Hawthorne gave one of his sudden smiles. “It has to be found, that’s all.”

They were walking down the empty corridor. The floor was yellowish marble and the wainscoting rose to about four feet. Above the wainscoting were rows of photographs of Bishop’s Hill students going back to the school’s founding. Krueger felt they were an exceedingly glum lot.

“And what’s the feeling of the board in general?”

“Optimistic, I think, although even there I have my enemies, one or two who feel the school should close. But we’ve done quite a bit. The faculty meets twice a week to discuss students and now they’re mostly able to do that without carping at one another. The two mental health counselors are each in charge of four discussion sections—group therapy, basically—which have been a big hit. I go to two each week, as does the school psychologist, Mr. Evings. And other faculty go, too. It’s a place where the students can say how much they hate us without getting into trouble. But recently they’ve begun talking about their feelings more. You know, their fears and why they have them. And the board has authorized a search for another psychologist—an entry-level position, I’m afraid, but better than nothing. I’ve had two Sunday teas to which different groups of students have been invited. There’s a crisis hotline that the students try to operate eighteen hours a day. Mostly it works. We’ve put couches and chairs in one of the classrooms that was empty, and now it’s used for time-outs. If a kid acts up in class, he or she can be sent there. A staff member monitors the room but doesn’t interfere unless windows start getting broken, which has happened twice. Ten students have been enlisted as tutors in English, foreign languages, math, and science to help other students with their homework. We’ve been able to set aside a special room in the library and even supply cider and doughnuts, which is a draw. And we’re setting up a program to let students work with the grounds crew, in the kitchen, and in general cleanup. In return they get coupons they can redeem in the school store or at the Dugout, the student coffeehouse, or exchange for privileges like time in the gym or rides into town, even extra desserts.”

“That sounds fantastic.”

“Most of it’s pretty basic stuff. I don’t know why it hadn’t been done before. But the students seem happy with the changes. I’m also setting up a buddy system where the upper classmen help out the younger kids and look out for them in general. And we’re starting discussion groups on things like homosexuality, anorexia, self-mutilation, even overeating.”

“And the faculty, are they happy with the changes?”

“Less so, I’m afraid. One woman asked if I didn’t understand that the more I gave the students, the more they’d want. She suggested I was setting dangerous precedents. For years they’ve seen the students as the enemy and the students have reacted by being adversarial. Being bad has been the only power they’ve had. It will take time to change that.”

“What about the psychologist, Mr. Evings?

“He’s something of a disappointment. I’ve spoken to him a few times—really, only trying to help—but I seem to frighten him. At least he attends the meetings. Unfortunately, he tends to fall asleep. The students, well, he doesn’t have much credibility with them. Some are quite rude. Evings is gay, which is neither here nor there, but he feels that’s why he’s unpopular and it increases his anxiety. And of course some people do object to his gayness, which is one reason we’ve started these discussion groups. But the school nurse has helped a lot, as well as some of the faculty. The admissions office is perking up. And Bill Dolittle, the librarian, has been supportive.”

“Isn’t there a chaplain?” From the half-closed doors of a classroom, Krueger could hear talking and occasional laughter.

“Reverend Bennett, a woman. She rather disapproves of me. Early on she asked if I’d please refrain from engaging in athletic events with the students. I’d been playing basketball and scraped my knees. Actually, her husband knocked me down. He teaches math and is known for never flunking a student no matter how much the kid deserves it. He’s considered a character—very bouncy, for the most part. Anyway, the chaplain does her job well enough, giving sermons about vice and abstinence, though I don’t think many students would attend chapel if it weren’t required. Her husband was very apologetic when he hit me. It wasn’t on purpose. At least, I don’t think so.”

Krueger had taken off his overcoat and held it folded over one arm. “And what about Fritz Skander?”

“He’s been a big help, but it worries him that he’s had to mediate between me and the faculty. He’s always asking if I don’t think we’re moving ahead too quickly and he talks vaguely about ‘repercussions.’ But he means well, I believe. When I came here I thought of the faculty as a sort of unit—people who had been living and working together for years—but they’ve got all sort of dislikes and rivalries, even hatreds. Two teachers who in public strongly objected to Chip’s dismissal came to me privately to assure me that I’d done the right thing.”

“Certainly there are rivalries in treatment centers.”

“There they’re part of the fabric, basically superficial; here they’re part of the foundation. Sustaining timbers. In some cases, it’s all these people think about, as if the hatred were preexisting. And now a certain amount of their hatred has been redirected at me.” Hawthorne laughed. “But it’s hardly personal. They would have hated any headmaster.”

“You’ve been very active.”

“Yes. For many that’s a decided fault.”

A bell rang and within seconds the hall was filled with students moving from one class to the next. They seemed mostly congenial—noisy and good-natured, with backpacks and Walkmans. Two boys carried skateboards. A girl had a hockey stick. Krueger tried to look at them in the way that he expected the review board would look at them when its members visited in the spring to decide on accreditation. Krueger had visited schools all over the state. He had seen sullen schools and angry schools, even dangerous schools, but here the students seemed cordial, though there was a tension that Krueger couldn’t identify. A sort of vigilance. Quite a few greeted Hawthorne. In their dress, they seemed rather ragtag, as if their clothes had been obtained from a local thrift shop. Several had dyed their hair orange or scarlet, and one young man wore a Mohawk with three-inch purple spikes.

Hawthorne pointed him out to Krueger. “He’s sporting Bishop’s Hill’s first Mohawk and he’s terribly proud of it. Only conventional haircuts were allowed before this year. It seemed a pointless rule so I got rid of it. When I arrived, there was also a dress code. Boys were expected to wear coats and ties, girls had to wear skirts. It wasn’t very popular. So we had a vote and the coats and ties lost, nearly unanimously. Many of the faculty disliked the change. The fact that students wore coats and ties seemed proof that what the teachers were saying in class was important. Anyway, now the students are going to opposite extremes. When the rule was first dropped, one boy insisted on wearing a loincloth. So I said everyone had to be completely dressed—no bathing suits or leopard skins. It eventually got straightened out. When they come back after Christmas break, I expect they’ll be dressed more conventionally. Christmas is a good time for new clothes.”

The faculty weren’t so spirited. Some were friendly, others were cool or indifferent. They nodded to Hawthorne or said hello. They regarded Krueger with suspicion. Hawthorne introduced him to several, beginning with Herb Frankfurter and Tom Hastings, the two science teachers. Though Frankfurter was only in his forties, he walked with a cane; Hastings was younger and sharply dressed in a black shirt and a black tie. Hastings seemed cheerful enough but Frankfurter clearly objected to being stopped and introduced to strangers.

After they departed, Hawthorne said, “Mr. Frankfurter’s mad because I made him return an old Chevy he borrowed from the school last year. Since no one was using it, he didn’t see what the problem was. But the school was insuring the car and he was getting gas at the school pump some of the time. He’s one of those whose hatred seems preexisting. It’s what he does, like a hobby: hatred and football, hatred and hunting.”

“So what will you do with him?” asked Krueger.

“He’ll either come around or he won’t. The thing is, he feels ill-used. He still thinks he should be able to take the car.”

Next Hawthorne introduced him to Bill Dolittle, who had paused to speak to Hawthorne. After absentmindedly shaking Krueger’s hand, he asked Hawthorne, “Have you heard anything yet?”

“Nothing yet, I’m afraid. It’s unlikely that I’ll know anything before Christmas.”

“The waiting’s hard.”

“I know, I regret that, but as I told you before, it’s a matter of money.”

After Dolittle left, Hawthorne said, “He hopes to move to an apartment on campus. He asks about it twice a week. But he supports me in meetings—a loyal but vexing soldier.”

Next Krueger met Kate Sandler, who taught Italian and Spanish, an attractive woman with a white streak in her thick black hair that reached back from her left temple. Krueger could see she was fond of Hawthorne and he felt a twinge of jealousy. She had large dark eyes and looked at him quite candidly, as if to determine whether Krueger would be a supporter or a rival in her affection for Hawthorne.

“Kate’s also been helping me coach the swim team,” said Hawthorne as they walked away. “She’s a great swimmer.”

“She clearly likes you.”

“We’re friends, I think. There’s been a lot of gossip about us. Entirely without reason, I’m afraid. It’s made her ex-husband quite upset.”

A bulky student dressed in a blue sweatshirt and sweatpants jogged up, gave Hawthorne a high five, said, “Yo, boss!” and hurried down the corridor.

“That’s the president of the student body,” said Hawthorne. “His name’s Tank. He’s a little rough, but without his support I would have had a much harder time.”

Then Krueger met the art teacher, Betty Sherman, a theatrical middle-aged woman dressed all in black. And there were others—a music teacher, a history teacher, math, civics. Krueger felt they all had certain similarities: they seemed needy and lacking in confidence. And they had a watchful quality that disturbed him.

Hawthorne pointed up the hall. “See the man talking to the fellow in the white jacket? That’s Fritz Skander. The other’s the assistant cook, who’s also new. He’s the one who held off Campbell.”

There were fewer people in the halls as classes got ready to begin. Students were hurrying. Skander was smiling kindly at the cook, one hand resting on the other man’s shoulder, nodding and shaking his head as the cook talked to him rapidly, with a great amount of gesticulation. When Skander saw Hawthorne, he broke off his conversation and came toward them. The cook waved to Hawthorne, then rushed off in the opposite direction. Krueger noticed that even his walk was jerky, as if his legs came with several extra sets of joints.