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Further questions were asked, ranging from the smallest of issues—a broken desk in a classroom—to the philosophical—hadn’t Freud been generally discredited? But behind them all lay the concerns about time and how the students could be controlled. Ted Wrigley, the other language teacher, was worried about what he called the ethical dimension of increased student surveillance. Wasn’t it a form of spying?

“Our job,” said Hawthorne, “is to help prepare these youngsters for the adult world, to educate them in a variety of areas all the way from mathematics to how to interact with one another. Let’s say a girl comes to class with cuts on her arm or stops eating or refuses to brush her teeth. Surely you wouldn’t ignore symptoms like that. If we pay more attention to students’ behavior, we can do much to prevent these kinds of problems from developing, or at least keep them to a minimum.”

“Will these be one-hour meetings?” asked Roger Bennett, getting to his feet and smoothing back his blond hair. The fact that his wife was chaplain gave him a degree of unspoken authority, as if he were dean or associate headmaster. “Many of us have already committed our afternoons. What will be gained by making our busy schedules even busier?”

Kate again turned her attention to the playing fields. The shadows were longer; the girl was gone. But the man was still splitting wood—setting a log on the chopping block, then stepping back with his ax. His movements had a machinelike refinement, as if he could easily split logs all day. Kate wondered if he, too, would be included in these meetings, if he would be called upon to say how a girl had watched him splitting wood and what this might signify. Kate almost smiled. Couldn’t one say that everything had bearing on something? Really, it was impossible to provide for every contingency. If kids wanted to get in trouble, it would be hard to stop them. But wasn’t that the very attitude Hawthorne was arguing against?

The questions continued. Could students still be sent to the headmaster’s office if they acted up? Could bad behavior be punished with failing grades? The questions were as much about allaying the anxieties of the faculty as about looking for specific direction. “But it sounds like a treatment center, doesn’t it?” asked Herb Frankfurter, one of the two science teachers. The librarian, Bill Dolittle, seemed to agree. “Do you really think this will make them better?”

“You’re right,” said Hawthorne, “we don’t want to run a treatment center. The students haven’t been sent here by psychologists, nor have they been mandated here by the court. Their parents pay a lot of money for the privilege of enrolling them at Bishop’s Hill. But some of their conditions are similar, though perhaps not as severe. I don’t expect we can solve any huge problems, but, yes, I feel the students can be helped.”

“Without a demerit system,” said Tom Hastings, “I’ll become an even greater victim of their verbal abuse. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I get called.” Hastings, the other science teacher, was about Kate’s age. Whenever he got nervous, he stuttered, and the students teased him.

“I bet I’ve been called the same,” said Hawthorne. “However, they can’t abuse you.”

“Isn’t being called m-m-motherfucker a form of abuse?”

“As long as you can walk away, you can’t be abused. They’re stuck here, you’re not. And don’t get caught up in the meaning of the words. These are damaged kids. If you were a doctor and a kid came in with a broken arm, you wouldn’t take offense. For a boy to call you motherfucker is like a broken arm. And if a boy or girl is disturbing the class, you can make them take a time out or send them to my office. You can do all sorts of things, but to punish them is to avoid the problem. Basically, it’s a form of irresponsibility. And, let me tell you, it doesn’t do any good.”

There was a note of impatience in Hawthorne’s voice. Kate’s colleagues glanced at one another. The new headmaster’s tone had unsettled them.

Hamilton Burke got to his feet and put a hand on Hawthorne’s shoulder. “These issues will be worked out over the next weeks and I’m sure nobody will have anything of which to complain. In the meantime, it’s getting late. The board of trustees is hosting a little reception across the hall in the Peabody Room so we can continue our chat more informally. I hope you’ll all join us for a drink and a snack.”

Skander began applauding again to signify that the meeting was over. This time the applause was very brief. Chairs were pushed back.

“Welcome to Hawthorne’s gulag,” said Chip. “I’m sure not going to let any student of mine call me a motherfucker, no matter what this guy says or where he comes from.”

Alice Beech turned abruptly toward Chip and her white uniform seemed to hiss. “Then it’s clear you heard very little of what he had to say.”

Bill Dolittle joined them. Besides being librarian, he taught two sections of English. He was portly, balding, and reminded Kate of a friar—a rather sexless middle-aged man who liked his wine and comforts. “I’m impressed by his seriousness. It’s certainly a new idea to try to actually help out students.”

“Sounds like Do . . . little likes the new headmaster,” said Chip, mockingly. “Is that right, Do . . . little? Have you found yourself a friend?”

“I wish you’d stop that joke,” said Dolittle, pursing his lips. “I work as hard as anyone else around here and much harder than some.”

Roger Bennett came up behind Chip. “So what do you think?” Bennett raised his eyebrows ironically, as if answering his own question.

“All I know,” said Kate, “is that I’d like a glass of wine.”

—

Jessica Weaver sat in her bunk, writing a letter. It was the lower bunk she had chased her roommate out of, the jerk. If possible, she would have chased her from the room altogether, but she didn’t want to call too much attention to herself. It would be dumb to wreck her plans by being foolish. After all, that’s what had happened last time and that’s why she was at Bishop’s Hill.

Jessica had tucked two blankets under the mattress of the top bunk, letting them hang down and enclose the lower bunk so she felt like an Arab in a tent. Two of her biggest schoolbooks were piled to make a small table and on them burned a red candle in a saucer she had swiped from the dining hall. The candle gave enough light to see by and even warmed the small space, making it cozy. Leaning against the books was her stuffed bear, Harold, whose one eye was focused fondly upon her. Jessica was listening to her Walkman—
Beyond the Missouri Sky
again, programmed to play the last song, “Spiritual,” over and over. So arranged, Jessica could imagine she was almost anyplace and not at Bishop’s Hill in the few minutes dividing Friday night from Saturday morning. She wore blue flannel pajamas and sometimes she paused in her writing and chewed the black plastic tip of her pen.

She was writing to her ten-year-old brother, Jason, but she wasn’t going to mail the letter to their home for fear that Tremblay would intercept it. That would be a disaster. No, she would send it to Jason in care of a friend of his in school as she had done before. She tried to write three times a week, telling Jason the news and how their plans were progressing. She described how the headmaster had spoken to the students that morning, saying all the stuff he would do for them. Jessica hadn’t believed it but at least Hawthorne hadn’t talked down to them. And when some of the students acted silly, Hawthorne hadn’t gotten mad but just waited for them to finish.

And now she was telling Jason about her intentions. “There’s a man here who I think will help us. I’ve only talked to him a little but I’ve been watching him. He works in the kitchen but he’s not like that. Not like a kitchen person, if you know what I mean. I like him. After all, I’ll be paying him $2,000 and he doesn’t have to do much. Just get you out of the house and I’ll do the rest.”

She considered what “the rest” might be. Her father’s younger half brother, Matthew, lived in Washington and worked for the government, something in the Department of Labor, although she didn’t know what. He wasn’t in charge, she knew that much. She hadn’t seen Matthew since her father’s funeral, but she’d talked to him on the phone and had written to him. Now, however, she meant to appear on his doorstep with Jason. Surely if Matthew knew what Tremblay had done, he would protect them. He’d probably kill Tremblay, smash him with an ax, so she knew that she shouldn’t tell Matthew just yet. He certainly knew that her mother wasn’t good for much. Even if Dolly was sober and not taking pills, she was still frightened. A sodden chipmunk, that’s what she was. She wouldn’t stop Tremblay. She didn’t care what he had done. And though that wasn’t completely true, it was at least true that Dolly was too scared to protect them.

Again Jessica thought of how Tremblay would come to her room at night. She didn’t mean to think of it but the pictures seemed trapped in her head. Now he said he’d do the same to Jason unless she stayed at Bishop’s Hill and kept quiet. And she knew he would; he wasn’t scared. Jessica thought of how she used to hear him getting up to go to the bathroom, how she would count his steps—one, two, three—it was twelve steps from his bedroom to the bathroom, and if there was a thirteenth step, then her whole stomach felt nauseous because it meant he was coming to her room. Four, five, six—she could tell by his steps how much he’d been drinking and sometimes she knew there would be a thirteenth step even before she heard it.

She’d kill him if she could, and if he touched Jason, she would kill him for sure. When Jessica was smaller, she would think of spraying bug spray in Tremblay’s mouth when he was passed out. Now she would use a knife from the kitchen, one of those expensive butcher knives he liked to brag about. He’d promised he wouldn’t touch Jason as long as she stayed at Bishop’s Hill, but he had always promised her things and then come to her room anyway. Seven, eight, nine—hearing him stumble into the wall, sometimes knocking down a picture. Then Tremblay would pause and Jessica would listen to him breathe heavily, already knowing what he wanted, that he wouldn’t stop at the bathroom but would continue down the hall. Ten, eleven, twelve. And she would look at the light under her door and wait to see his shadow fall across it.

“Just make sure you don’t make Tremblay suspicious,” she wrote. “It would be best to do it when he is away on a business trip, so you need to find out about his schedule. Don’t ask him about it. Maybe Dolly knows.”

Jessica had stopped referring to her as “mother” when she married Tremblay. She’d become Dolly—a stupid big sister with whom Jessica was obliged to live. The candle flickered and she stared at the page. LeBrun could fuck her if that’s what he wanted; she’d do anything to get him to help. But the thought of sex was awful to her. Men’s moist, fat hands, their awful knees; their underwear that smelled of pee. At the club men would wiggle their tongues at her to show how much they wanted her, as if that would make her excited and dance even wilder rather than make her sick and want to puke on them. With LeBrun, she hoped the money would be enough—four thousand saved from table dancing, from pushing her small breasts into the faces of drunken men. Two thousand for LeBrun and two thousand for her and Jason to get to Washington and maybe beyond.

She hadn’t asked LeBrun yet. She had to be sure. Yet the more she waited, the more dangerous it was for her brother. Even if Matthew wouldn’t hide them, she could still go back to the titty bars. She had her fake ID. They would go to the West Coast, someplace warm. In December she’d be sixteen. Then she’d have five years until she came into her trust fund. She and Jason each had one and they had to be twenty-one before they got the money. And then Tremblay would have nothing because Dolly would no longer get an allowance or be paid child support. Jessica hoped Tremblay would be dead by that time. How brilliant if she could get LeBrun to kill him. But she was letting her fantasies get in the way. It would be hard enough to get him to rescue Jason, much less kill someone.

“Unless he’s going on a business trip, the best time to get you out of the house is between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” wrote Jessica. “Both Tremblay and Dolly drink more then. A few days before, you need to put a bag with some of your stuff over at Chuckie’s. You can’t take too much. No trucks or stuffed animals.”

What she liked about her Uncle Matthew was that he looked like her father, even though he was only a half brother. There was another half brother, Eddie, in Tucson, but he never wrote or showed any interest. Even here at Bishop’s Hill, Jessica had already gotten a letter from Matthew, a note really, saying he was glad she was safe and he hoped to see her sometime during the year but he was very busy right at the time.

“A few people here aren’t bad. I like my Spanish teacher but my English teacher is a dope. He’s also the librarian and he reads us dumb books. The kids are absolute nothings. My roommate cuts her arm with a razor blade. I don’t know if she thinks it’s cool or what. Some kids try to talk to me but I ignore them. They’re all babies. But the woods are pretty and the trees right now are really beautiful. A couple of times I’ve gone for long walks by myself. People say there are moose and black bears, I haven’t seen any, but LeBrun said they can’t leave the garbage cans outside because the bears will get them and make a mess—”

The blanket curtain was suddenly pulled aside. Jessica looked up and saw the upside-down head of her roommate, her brown hair hanging down. She almost yelled she was so startled. Helen was talking but Jessica couldn’t hear over the Walkman. She took off her earphones.

“. . . completely crazy,” Helen was saying. “You could start a fire with that candle. We could burn up. I knew I smelled something. If you don’t put it out immediately, I’ll tell Miss Standish. I’ll go down there right now. What’s wrong with you?”

Jessica leaned forward and blew out the candle, leaving Helen in the dark. Then she put on the earphones again so the bass repetitions of the song filled her ears. “Bitch,” she said, but even she couldn’t hear the word, it was so soft with her earphones on, almost a kiss. The song “Spiritual” had again reached the part that she liked—Dut-dut-dut-dut . . .

—