The Hound of Rowan (17 page)

“Nice save!” cheered Omar from midfield.

Suddenly, the ground began to shift and bubble. Small hills and depressions started to form on the field; entire sections rose or lowered several feet to form ridges and plateaus. The children stopped and shot M. Renard a frightened look.

“It is all right,” he assured them from the sideline. “Keep playing!”

The game ended in a 0–0 tie. Rolf 's team would have scored if a sizable mound, rising like a sudden blister, had not deflected the ball to the side just as Rolf split two defenders and aimed a shot. M. Renard blew a whistle, and the field promptly settled to a flat plane.

“That game is impossible,” complained Rolf, dribbling the ball to the sideline. “We should have won.”

“You will have to struggle, adjust, and adapt,” M. Renard said, shrugging. “That is the entire point. You played the game today on its lowest setting. Come see the older students play on a weekend; you will not think you have it so hard.”

Back in the locker room, cupping cold water over his eye, Max's spirits fell at the thought of all he had to do that evening. He had to feed Nick, study the Greek alphabet, draw a land map of Europe, and practice kindling small blazes in his hearth. His eye throbbed. Trudging toward the Manse, all he wanted was to crawl into bed, gaze at the constellations, and sleep for a week.

                  
9                  

A G
OLDEN
A
PPLE IN THE
O
RCHARD

T
en letters lay in a little pile on Max's bed. They were from his father, and Max had read them several times. It was a late weekend morning in early October, and Max had been at Rowan over five weeks.

Things at home sounded busy. Mr. McDaniels was traveling frequently on business, determined that his efforts would convince Mr. Lukens to assign him more accounts. Max was preparing to write a letter back when David came into the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Hey,” he muttered, flopping onto his bed across the way and kicking his shoes off.

“How was it?” asked Max without looking up.

“Stunk. Miss Kraken yelled at me for not paying enough attention. Ms. Richter came in and watched for the last half. She never says anything, she just watches. It's annoying.”

After the first day, David had been removed from their Mystics class and was taking private lessons every day from Miss Kraken. The damage he had inflicted on the classroom had been repaired immediately.

“Are you excited to go into town?” Max asked, beginning his letter. What he really wanted to know were further details of David's lessons in Mystics, but David never shared them.

“Yeah, I guess,” came David's reply, muffled by the pillow he had pulled over his face.

Max frowned as he wrote to his father; there were so many fascinating things about the new school and so little he could actually share. Practical considerations limited his letters to chronicling his academic struggles and assuring his father he was making new friends. Max made no mention of vegetarian ogres or talking geese.

         

Mr. Vincenti, Miss Boon, and the other advisors were already waiting for the First Years by the fountain when Max and David walked out the Manse's front door. Most students had abandoned their school uniforms in favor of blue jeans. Mr. Vincenti spoke up as they set out for the campus gate and the world outside.

“Ha! Exciting stuff—first trip to town and a beautiful fall day to enjoy it! Did everyone bring some spending money and an appetite?”

“Yes!” screamed the group, causing him to cover his ears and chuckle.

“Good. Now listen up—we have reservations for dinner at the Grove at seven, and the food is excellent so don't fill up on sweets! Make a point to introduce yourselves to the residents and shopkeepers. They're well aware of what Rowan's all about—in fact, many are former students or family of the faculty. Be on your best behavior and make Sir Wesley proud, eh?”

The students cheered and Max hurried along with them as they crossed the lawns and entered the forest, which was ablaze with the brilliant colors of autumn. The breeze off the ocean was crisp, and Max rejoiced in the unprecedented sum of money in his pocket—his hoarded allowances for the past two months. He chatted with Rolf and Lucia as they walked the scenic, meandering mile to the gate.

As the great gate closed behind them, Max and Connor dashed away with the others, arriving a few hundred yards later at the long stretch of quaint shops and businesses radiating from the village green. Older students milled about, ducking in and out of the nearby pizza parlor, café, and bookstore.

“Where to?” asked Connor, hopping up and down and looking in all directions.

“Let's wait for David,” said Max, peering back down the road, where his roommate looked to be getting an earful from Miss Boon. Finally, David nodded and hurried toward them up the road, arriving in an annoyed fit of coughing.

“What was that all about?” asked Connor.

“Oh, nothing special. She wants me to ‘be careful'—she's been on my case ever since Miss Kraken started teaching me Mystics. I don't think she likes it.”

“Why would she care?” asked Max.

“She's really young,” said David. “She's only, like, twenty-five. I think she's worried Miss Kraken doesn't have confidence in her.”

“Kraken thinks you're going to blow up Boonie!” said Connor with a laugh.

David started walking toward a patisserie, coughing hard into his jacket sleeve. As they got closer, they heard a chorus of excited voices. A few steps later, Max understood why.

In the window, Max saw a marvelous seascape crafted entirely of sweets. There were sand castles of white chocolate, thick beds of licorice anemones, and brilliantly colored fish and sea creatures made of taffy, hard candies, and peppermints.

“Come in! Come in!” said a friendly voice from inside.

A stout man with a black beard and rosy cheeks was methodically braiding strands of bread dough. He stopped to greet them at the counter, wiping his hands on his apron.

“You must be First Years. I'm Charlie Babel—I believe my wife is your Languages teacher.”

Ten minutes later, having settled on some wedges of toffee and a handful of chocolate sand dollars, the three peered into the windows of a café and saw a number of older students having coffee and pastries inside. Jason Barrett was in a corner, flirting with a very pretty Fifth Year whom Max had once seen him kissing behind Old Tom. Jason saw them staring and waved them inside.

In one swift motion, Connor mooned them.

“Hope you brought your runners!” he yelled, pressing his bare bottom against the window a second time before dashing after Max and David.

They ran for two blocks, finally coming to a sudden stop, where they gasped for breath and plundered Max's sweets. David looked reborn; his cheeks flushed pink, and Max thought it was the first time he had ever seen David so happy.

Glancing at the store window behind them, Max spied a small set of paints on display. It occurred to him that it had been some time since he'd had the chance to really draw or paint like he used to with his mother. He squinted at the price. They were expensive, but they were very nice; they looked like something a real artist would use.

“We better go hide somewhere,” laughed David, rubbing his hands and glancing back up the street.

“Yeah,” said Connor, looking about. “I don't want my bum picked out of a lineup. They could do it, too—they got two good looks at it!”

Connor and David dissolved into giggles again while Max tapped his finger thoughtfully against the store window, studying the set's clean little tubes of color.

“Hey, I'm going in here,” said Max. “I'll catch up.”

When the shopkeeper set the paints before him, Max began counting out his money almost immediately. The set had more colors than he'd ever used, and even its box was fancy with its delicate brass hinge. He sorted his bills and change on the counter but was two dollars short. The woman smiled and took his money, sliding the set into a small bag.

“I can spare two dollars for a young man who wants them that badly. You go enjoy them—maybe bring me something that you paint!”

“I will,” said Max, beaming as she pushed the bag into his hands.

The trees were casting long shadows as Max, carrying his bags of sweets and paints, strolled toward the theater. Just as he passed Luigi's, the pizza parlor, he heard a voice call out behind him. Alex had emerged from Luigi's, trailed by Sasha and Anna.

“Hey, Max,” Alex called out in a friendly voice. “How you doing?”

Max said nothing and watched them.

“What's the matter?” said Alex, walking toward him. “What do you have to worry about after you ran and cried to Jason Barrett?”

“I didn't tell Jason anything,” Max said, glowering, switching the bags from his right to his left hand.

“Sure you didn't,” Alex said sarcastically. “Just remember, Max. Jason graduates this year and I won't forget.”

Alex walked past him and swatted Max's bags onto the street. The chocolates and toffees spilled out onto the pavement, but those weren't what concerned him. The case for his paints had broken and the little tubes of paint littered the sidewalk.

“Hey, I
wanted
that candy!” moaned Sasha, trotting after Alex.

Max bent to gather his things when Anna walked slowly toward him, a thin smile on her face.

“You know, that was a nice picture in the paper. You should have heard us laughing. I thought Julie Teller was going to pass out!”

Her pretty features twisted into a tight little smirk as she walked methodically over the candy and paints, grinding them with her heel. Max's heart sank as he looked at the resulting smears. Anna gave a satisfied smile and rejoined Alex and Sasha, who howled with laughter as the three continued down the sidewalk.

Max watched them go and began to shake with rage. It took all his control to smother a predatory urge that rose up within him. He could not go after them; Mr. Vincenti had threatened grave consequences for Max if he got into another fight.

He tried to clean up the mess, using the broken case to scoop up the crushed candies and splattered tubes of paint and throwing it all into a nearby wastebasket. Storming off to the theater, he had walked several blocks when he heard voices call out from above.

“Hey, Max! Up here.”

He stopped near a bench at the entrance to the green. Connor and David were grinning at him from up in the branches of a gnarled tree. Connor's mouth was smeared with chocolate.

“There're lots of names and initials carved up here,” said David excitedly. “I think I found one by Mr. Morrow. It says ‘Byron loves Elaine '46.'”

“I can't picture old Byron as a kid,” mused Connor. “Imagine a wrinkly kid with a pipe snogging in this tree a hundred years ago.”

Max laughed, happy to resume the good time he had been having. With a quick step, he caught a branch and hoisted himself up to join them.

“Hey, can I try one of those sand dollars you bought?” asked David, tracing the carved lines of a limerick with his finger.

“Oh, I dropped mine on the street and they got smooshed,” Max said quickly. “I threw them out.”

“You should have kept them!” moaned Connor. “We could have used them for an Etiquette scenario!” His imitation of Sir Wesley's voice was perfect.
“Scenario Number Twenty: Salvaging the Mangled Sweets of the World.”

“They're in the garbage can at the corner if you want them,” sighed Max. Connor seemed to think it over a moment before letting the matter drop.

They spent the next two hours exploring the village green, climbing a bronze statue of a man on horseback and perusing the names on the granite headstones in a small cemetery. It was getting dark when they finally ran back along the cobblestones, weaving their way through old-fashioned streetlamps and converging with other First Years at the foot of the high hill.

The Grove was a sprawling, well-appointed house whose lower floor had been converted to several large dining rooms. Max followed Mr. Vincenti and a hostess down a hallway lined with maps of early New England and frayed etchings of whaling scenes. Max's section of First Years was seated in a candlelit dining room whose table was decorated with Indian corn and short sheaves of wheat bound with copper wire. Mr. Vincenti rearranged the seating to alternate the boys and girls. Max found himself sitting between Sarah and Miss Boon.