The Education of Bet Read online

  "Tyler," the hulking one said with a curt nod before tossing the boy ball to the string bean once again.

  "MacPherson." My roommate returned the nod, curtness and all, as we passed.

  "Looks like New Boy's almost as delicate as Little here," the one my roommate had referred to as MacPherson said. "It's amazing the trouble he had carrying his own trunk. I'll bet New Boy'd make a fine new ball for us."

  The string bean snickered.

  "I wouldn't try it if I were you," my roommate said cheerfully enough, not even bothering to turn around as he led me briskly back down the stairs.

  ***

  As James showed me around the grounds that afternoon, he spoke very little other than to name the buildings he pointed out and sometimes add a sentence about what each was for. He was neither friendly nor specifically unfriendly; he was merely there.

  Walking past the school gates with the oriel window soaring above, traversing the gravel walk to the side of the commons, I got the sense he was leading me on the tour more because he felt it was his duty rather than because he took any joy in my company. Indeed, something about him said that he almost always preferred being alone to being with others. Still, I was grateful at least to have someone to walk with—already I sensed that it could get lonely for me here at the Betterman Academy—and I sought to enliven our walk with a little conversation.

  "Those three back there," I said, with a nod at Proctor Hall. "Who are they?"

  "The large blond one is Hamish MacPherson, Proctor Hall's school prefect. The tall thin one is Johnny Mercy."

  "And the one they were, er, throwing?"

  "Christopher Warren. Everyone calls him Little. He hates it."

  "Except for that last bit," I said, trying on a laugh, "it doesn't really tell me much about them, does it?"

  He stopped walking to look at me. "Didn't what you saw back there tell you everything you need to know?" he said evenly. Then he started walking again. "Besides, you'll see plenty more at dinner."

  ***

  At dinnertime Marchand Hall rang with the sound of five hundred chairs scraping the hardwood floor as seats were pulled out, five hundred plates hitting the tables, five hundred glasses being set down, five hundred sets of silverware clinking as five hundred linen napkins were unrolled. Marchand Hall also rang with the sounds of, as Mr. Winter would have it, boys being boys.

  James and I sat side by side at a long table with Mr. Winter at one end and Hamish MacPherson at the other. I would have liked to sit almost anywhere else, but according to James it was the custom at the Betterman Academy for boys to sit at tables with their floor mates.

  "I keep telling you," Hamish said, addressing Johnny Mercy, "that the idea is to catch Little, not drop him."

  Little, I noted, was now sporting a large bandage over his right eye.

  "I would never have dropped him," Mercy returned, "if you could learn how to throw him."

  "Don't you two ever get tired of this game?" James said, sounding bored.

  I wanted to say I agreed with him—it seemed to me that this game they played did get tiresome quickly—but the scowl Hamish shot in James's direction was enough to keep my mouth shut.

  "Always think you're better than everyone else, don't you, Tyler?" Hamish said.

  To this, James gave no answer. I think it was because the answer was too obvious: James was better than everyone else. At least, he was better than Hamish.

  Hoping not to be noticed, I looked down at the plate that had been set before me. The small piece of meat on it was ... mysterious; mysterious and, I suppose, stringy would be the next appropriate word.

  Still, I was suddenly famished, not having had anything to eat since the meager breakfast I'd barely been able to consume at the inn that morning, so many hours ago now; my stomach at the time had been shaky after Will's and my adventures of the night before.

  I took up knife and fork, preparing to tuck in.

  "Don't you know anything, Gardener?" Hamish said.

  So caught up was I in my own hunger, I didn't really register the words as I attempted to cut the meat.

  "Hey! Gardener! I'm talking to you!"

  I felt something bounce against my forehead and looked up in time to see that it was a dinner roll.

  I realized then that I was going to have to start being more careful, pay closer attention. Hamish had somehow learned my name and had been addressing me, but I'd ignored him because I still wasn't used to my own name!

  Hoping to speak as little as possible—for in my hungry and tired state, I feared that I'd forget to speak like a boy—I simply looked at Hamish, the question in my eyes.

  "We wait for grace around here before we eat," Hamish informed me, causing me to drop my knife and fork as though they were hot coals when I realized my error. "Don't you know anything?"

  The room fell silent, as if on cue, as Reverend Parkhurst, standing at the head of the room, waited for us all to rise before saying grace over the meal.

  "Now you can eat," Hamish told me when the reverend had finished and five hundred chairs had been pulled out again, five hundred boys had sat down.

  I took up knife and fork once more.

  "My God," Hamish said. "You're worse than Little here. One would think you'd never been at school before. This your first time away from Mummy?"

  Much as I wanted to keep silent, I couldn't stop myself from speaking up.

  "My mother is dead," I said, straightening my spine as I spoke the truth for both Will and myself.

  "Yeah, well, whose isn't? I'll still bet anything this is your first time away at school."

  "Actually, it is my fifth," I said, adopting Will's biography with no small degree of pride.

  I felt James's eyes boring into me from the side, but I kept my eyes steadily on Hamish.

  "Your fifth?" His eyebrows rose up nearly to his hairline. "Why, even Mercy and me've only been at three, including here." He waved his fork at me. "What sorts of things were you sent down for?"

  I studied the ceiling, hoping to get the order right.

  "Let's see ... cheating, lying ... no, that's the wrong order. Lying, cheating, general mischief, and setting the headmaster's house on fire."

  Hamish stared at me. They all did. Then Hamish threw back his head and roared.

  "Well, at least you've got the lying part right," he said. "I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my life."

  "Ridiculous?"

  "Yes, ridiculous. Who'd ever believe someone like you capable of all that?"

  All right, so maybe I had appropriated someone else's record as my own, but Will Gardener had done all those things, and I felt unaccountably offended at this accusation.

  "If you don't believe me," I said, showing more steel than I knew I had, "then why don't you have Mr. Winter look into my history?"

  Hamish stared at me so long and hard, I thought my own eyes would fall out from the effort of staring back just as long, just as hard.

  "Never mind," he said, his gaze dropping before mine did. "No need to embarrass you by catching you out in a lie. I will say one thing, though."

  "And that is?" I asked.

  "You've got spirit."

  Little leaned across the table, and I heard him speak for the first time, in a voice that squeaked. "Hamish hates people with spirit," he whispered helpfully.

  ***

  As soon as dinner ended, Hamish asked with an inscrutable smile if James and I would like to join him and some of the others for a stroll. I confess that, given what had gone before, I was more than a little startled at this overture of friendship. But figuring that it would not do to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and not wanting to make an enemy of him, or more of an enemy than he already appeared to be, I opened my mouth to accept. Perhaps he wanted to start fresh?

  That's when my roommate, almost silent throughout dinner, spoke up to decline. For both of us.

  "Thank you for the kind offer, MacPherson," he said evenly. "But I'm afraid Ga
rdener and I already have plans."

  Hamish's eyebrows shot up at this, as did my own.

  We had plans?

  "Fine," Hamish said at last, smiling as though not bothered in the slightest although the tightness of that smile and the firm set of his jaw said otherwise. "Suit yourselves."

  "We have plans?" I asked James, having followed him out of the dining hall and practically scampering to keep up as he strode briskly across the commons toward Proctor Hall.

  "Yes," he said, his tone matching his stride. "We have plans not to get caught up in any of MacPherson's idiocy on our first night here."

  "Oh." I hadn't imagined that there was going to be any idiocy. But now I was curious. "What sort of idiocy will there be?"

  "They will drink. They will smoke."

  "But isn't that what everyone does here?" I asked, remembering what Will had told me of school. "Why, I drink and smoke all the time," I bluffed. "Don't you do those things?"

  He stopped walking, eyed me with disbelief. "Sometimes," he finally allowed. "But when MacPherson and Mercy do it, someone always gets hurt. Usually it's Little who winds up with his head shoved in the privy hole down by the playing fields. But since it's your first night here and MacPherson has already warmed to you so much"—he barked a bitter laugh at this—"I thought this time they might choose to pick on you instead. Is that what you want?"

  I shook my head, although I doubted he could see the vehemence of that headshake in the gloom of the gathering night.

  "No, I didn't think so," he said, as though he had seen me. "Besides which, you seem like a good sort"—he paused, then added—"even if you don't appear to know what to do half the time."

  "What does that mean?" I demanded.

  "Back there." He indicated Marchand Hall. "You were about to accept Hamish's invitation, weren't you?"

  "Well, y-yes," I stammered. "I thought perhaps he wanted to start fresh."

  "Start fresh?" He laughed. "People like Hamish and Johnny don't start fresh. You do realize, don't you, that they are bullies?"

  I must confess that, while I'd recognized them as being somewhat cruel, I hadn't thought about them as actual bullies. Bullies were the sort of thing I'd only read about.

  "Are you scared of MacPherson?" I asked. It seemed a sensible enough question to me. Already, based on personal observation and experience, not to mention what James had just said, I was scared of MacPherson.

  "Don't be daft." James laughed. "But only a fool seeks out trouble if he can possibly avoid it."

  "And how should one behave around here if one wishes to avoid trouble?" I asked. Seeing the skeptical look on his face, I hastened to add, "I only ask in case it's different here than at the four other schools I've been to. My uncle will murder me if I get sent down again."

  "The usual." He shrugged. "Don't talk about home, or you'll be made fun of for being homesick. Answer questions straightforwardly, hold your head up, and you'll get on."

  "Sounds easy enough." I sighed my relief.

  "Oh, and one other thing."

  "Hmm?"

  "Be sure there's nothing odd about you."

  ***

  Back in our room, we passed the next few hours in companionable silence. James removed his tailcoat and tie and loosened his collar, then lay on his stomach across one of the beds, reading a book. I tried to make out the title but couldn't read it from my own position in one of the stiff chairs before one of the utilitarian desks. If anyone had asked what I was reading that night, I could not have said. My mind was too many things at once: exhausted by all that had happened since I'd left Grangefield Hall, just yesterday morning; nervous at the prospect of all the new things that were yet to come. So rather than actually read what was in front of me, I simply stared at the words, my fingers turning pages for no reason as my mind raced and stalled, stalled and raced.

  It was coming on eleven when James tossed his book to one side and gave a great, heaving yawn.

  "I think I will turn in," he said, the first words either of us had spoken in about three hours. "First day of classes tomorrow and I should like to be well rested for it. I suggest you do the same."

  Then he walked over to the twin basins that were kept in the room for convenience sake, washed his face with water from the first, and cleaned his teeth with water from the second.

  I suppose if I had not been so utterly exhausted by that point, I would have guessed what was coming next. But I was exhausted, and I had not guessed.

  Obviously without a thought in the world, James began removing his clothing.

  Too stunned to do anything else, I stared as article after article was shed until finally he stood there as God had made him. I thanked that same God that James was not paying any attention to me and thus did not catch me staring.

  Prior to this, I had seen many pictures in art books of naked people. But even Michelangelo had had only paints and stone to work with. This was a living and breathing boy, muscle and sinew and flesh. He was naked, and, I blush to confess, he was magnificent.

  Thankfully, before I could do something truly foolish—like reaching out to touch that skin to see if it felt as marvelous as it looked—James slipped a nightshirt over his head and climbed into his bed.

  "Are you going to stay up?" he asked, casting a meaningful look at the lamp on my desk.

  "Of course not." I blushed again.

  I too went to the basin and washed my face and teeth as he had done, then I unlocked the wardrobe and removed from my trunk the nightshirt Will had loaned me.

  My mind had been exhausted just a short time ago, but it was fully awake now.

  So many things I hadn't thought about before! So many things I hadn't planned on!

  I crossed the room to open the narrow window. It took some doing, for the window was jammed.

  "What are you doing?" James inquired, leaning up on one elbow. "Are you one of these sorts who need fresh air to sleep?"

  "No," I said. Having at last forced open the window, I reached out and pulled the outer shutters in so tight that not even the merest sliver of moonlight could penetrate into the room. "I'm one of these sorts who need total darkness to sleep."

  I shut the window, extinguished the lamp. Only when the room was pitch-black did I commence removing my own clothes, intensely aware with every button I undid that I had never been naked in front of anyone in my life, unless one counted when one was a baby, which I did not, and this first person I was naked in front of was a boy.

  Thank God he could not see me.

  I hurried out of the rest of my day clothes, hurried into my nightshirt, and practically dove between the sheets of my bed. Unfortunately, not being able to see anything, I barked my shin against the bedpost.

  "Ouch," James said in the darkness.

  "Yes," I agreed, wincing.

  "Shall I plan on you doing this routine every night?" James wondered.

  "Hopefully I won't bark my shin every night." I blushed in the dark before admitting, "But yes, pretty much."

  "Modest?" he inquired.

  "Hideous scar," I replied, praying he would accept that. "I don't like to make other people scream at the sight of it if I can help it."

  "It can't be all that bad," he said.

  "You have no idea."

  "Very well then. I suppose, when I remember, I can wait out in the hall and let you change first. That should save your shins a bit."

  I was startled at this kindness.

  "Thank you," I said simply.

  I heard him yawn again.

  "You are an odd one, aren't you, Will?" Despite his words, which were less a question than a statement, and despite what he'd said earlier about how "odd" was to be avoided if one wanted to stay out of trouble, I heard no rancor. He was merely making an observation. And I did like that he, unlike Hamish and the others, used my given name, at least when we were alone together.

  "James," I said, using his name for the first time, enjoying the feel of the letters forming in my mouth, bef
ore I repeated the words I'd spoken just a moment ago, "you have no idea."

  Chapter six

  September 10, 18—

  Dear Bet,

  Well, I have done it! I am now officially a servant in Her Majesty's military! And I owe it all to you. You know, when you first came up with what I've always referred to as your harebrained scheme, I thought you were mad and said as much. But I don't think I have ever said—and now find that I must, now that I have at least embarked on the achievement of my life's ambition—how damned grateful I am to you for that harebrained scheme. After all, were it not for you, I would not be here.

  And where exactly is here? You may well ask. "Here" is with others of my kind, young men who, for whatever reason, wish to give their lives to military service.

  You will laugh to hear this, but enlisting was just as easy as I told you it would be. After leaving you at the inn early that morning, I made my way to the next town over, and, before the sun had even risen very high in the sky, I glimpsed a man setting up a stall right in the street, seeking fresh recruits. He did not ask my age, but having visually assessed me and decided I was "on the youngish side," he gave me a special appointment.

  I am to be a drummer boy! Now, do not keep laughing, for I am certain that once I have been with the regiment for enough time and had the chance to prove myself, I will be given even greater opportunities to show my value. In the meantime, I will just pound, pound, pound away on my drum for all I am worth. You know I have never played an instrument before, save for a few notes on the piano, but I am finding the drum to be rather easy to master. If one just pounds loudly and at regular intervals, others seem to be pleased enough with the efforts.

  I am also finding the men I serve with to be a most capital group of fellows—honestly, they are better in every way than anyone I ever knew at school. And the food! People will say that military food is the worst, but let me assure you, it is not half bad! My sleeping accommodations, in case you are worried about me, are also quite adequate. Really, I don't know why people fuss so about the hardships of the military, for I feel as though I am living like a prince!