The Education of Bet Read online

  Sundays were always peculiar days at the Betterman Academy, everything feeling slightly off from the strict routine of the other six days. Those who didn't have to hurry out of bed early to dress before their roommates saw them had the luxury of lying in bed late. Then there was often an informal cricket match on the playing fields, or perhaps a round of boxing, or even a walk into town for kidney pie and muffins or sausages and scones before the prayer bell rang for chapel at eleven. After chapel, where the headmaster, Dr. Hunter, did have a tendency to go on, there was more free time at our disposal. It was on one such Sunday that I accepted an offer from Little to go fishing.

  There was a small river that ran beyond the wooded area on the far side of the playing fields, and supposedly the fishing there was good. Fishing was not something I'd ever done before, but I knew that a lot of the other boys did and I figured it was safe enough for my first time out to go with Little. I'd noticed that Little could be somewhat oblivious to what went on around him, so occupied was he all the time with simply keeping himself as safe as he could from Hamish and Mercy. Little would never notice that I had no clue as to what to do with my fishing gear, that for once someone was watching him in order to learn something.

  Though I didn't want to be uncharitable, as we sat on the bank side by side, waiting for something to happen, I could see where Little did present something of a problem. He was certainly kind, compared with most of the other boys, but there was also a vacancy to him. Old Man Peters hadn't much patience with Little's inability to grasp whatever subject was under discussion, and Little earned frequent raps on the knuckles or even a cane over the head. And while I could not condone Old Man Peters's chosen method of showing his displeasure, I could understand his exasperation.

  With the possible exception of James, the students at the Betterman Academy were divided into two categories: despots—or bullies—and slaves, the latter category made up of the nervous and the sensitive, the small and the feminine.

  I could not bring myself to pursue what was obviously the most lofty goal in the school: to be feared by everybody, as Hamish clearly was, though again with the possible exception of James. But while Little seemed resigned to his lot in the category of the nervous and the sensitive, the small and the feminine, I was determined not to be perceived as any of those things.

  "Do you have anything else we might try as bait?" Little asked me.

  "Such as what?" I asked. We'd been using worms we'd found on the banks.

  "I don't know. I thought maybe you'd thought to bring some bread along or something."

  I set aside my fishing gear and rose, turning my trouser pockets inside out. The key to my wardrobe fell to the ground. With a blush and a hasty move, I scooped it up and put it away without a word.

  "Sorry," I said, resuming my seat. "'Fraid I didn't think of that. You?"

  He shook his head, dejected by the hopelessness of it all. "No."

  After a long moment, he said, "Did you know that there was a headmaster here before Dr. Hunter?"

  "I assumed as much," I said, "the school being so old."

  "And did you know that the previous headmaster is buried under the altar in the chapel?"

  "I don't believe I had heard about that."

  "It's true." He nodded vehemently, as though I'd told him it was false. "The old headmaster had no family and loved this place so much, he was buried there when he died." He shuddered. "How gruesome!"

  I said that there might be worse places to be buried than somewhere one had loved.

  "And do you know what's even more horrible?" Little asked as though I'd said nothing.

  "No, what?"

  "When no one else is around, Hamish makes me go stand near the altar. He says he's sure the old headmaster's head is right under where I'm standing." Little shuddered again. "It gives me nightmares."

  Poor Little. Sometimes it was impossible to know just what to say to allay his multitude of fears—not that he didn't have good reason for many of those fears, given how often Hamish tormented him, boxed his ears or cuffed him, kicked him or twisted his arms for the mere sport of it.

  Still, Little was mostly inoffensive, and in the absence of any other company, he suited me just fine. At least I knew he was never going to try to put me in a blanket and toss me.

  And so we passed a pleasantly lazy Sunday afternoon; pleasant, at least, until late in the day. No fish had taken our bait, and I was just thinking it might be time to start heading back when I heard a threatening sound of rustling leaves coming from deep in the woods behind us.

  It was Mercy's voice I heard first.

  "I'm sure this is where Stephens said he always goes." His speech sounded slightly slurred. I knew from experience that many of the boys took advantage of the long Sundays to indulge in beer or gin punch.

  Stephens often tried to get in good with Hamish and Mercy by telling them things about the other boys.

  Hamish's speech sounded equally slurred as he mockingly replied, "How can this be where Stephens says he always goes? We're still in the bloody woods, aren't we? I don't see how even Little can be fishing in the bloody woods."

  "Oh no," Little whispered, true anguish in his face. "They'll throw me in the river when they find me."

  "Then we must run away," I said back, not worrying about being overheard by Hamish and Mercy—they were tramping around so loudly and talking at such volume, they couldn't possibly hear anything but themselves.

  "There's no point," Little said. "We can never outrun them. Have you ever seen them at cricket? And besides, it's only worse in the end if you try to run."

  How awful it must be, I thought, to know such constant fear. I examined my own feelings. Was I happy that at any moment Little and I might be confronted by Hamish and Mercy, with no other students or masters around to temper their behavior? I couldn't say I looked forward to the conflict, but I was not going to literally quake in fear, as Little was now doing.

  I remembered thinking earlier that I never wanted to be perceived as nervous and sensitive, small and feminine, and I decided that if swagger was what it took to survive here, even mental swagger, then I would swagger with the best of them.

  "Hamish! Mercy!" I shouted in a taunting voice. "Over here!"

  "What are you doing?" Little squealed, looking at me as though I'd gone mad.

  "You said there was no use, that they'd only catch us sooner or later." I shrugged. "Why not make it sooner, then, and get it over with?"

  As the thrashing footsteps came nearer, I grabbed Little's hand and pulled him toward a young tree near the river.

  "Come on." I hurried him along, then pointed at the tree and instructed: "Climb."

  "But I can't—"

  "Climb!"

  So used to obeying the commands of others, Little grabbed the lower limbs of the tree and scurried up. As Hamish and Mercy broke through the clearing behind us, I hurried after him, doing my best to avoid the dangers presented by Little's wildly scrambling feet.

  We climbed as high as we could, until the tree became too precariously thin near the top.

  "Well, that's not very sporting of them." I looked down to see Mercy staring up at us dumbly. "How are we supposed to chase them up a tree?" Mercy looked at Hamish. "We can't run up a tree, can we?"

  "Get down from there!" Hamish commanded.

  "No," I said simply.

  "No?" Hamish hiccupped. "Then I suppose we'll just have to come up."

  Hamish grabbed the base of the tree.

  "I wouldn't try that if I were you," I advised.

  "You wouldn't—"

  "No. You're too big. By the time you reach where we are, the weight of you will snap the top off. And while it's true that that might cause us to fall to our deaths, it's entirely possible that the dead one could turn out to be you."

  Despite my warning, Hamish did come a ways up, the tree bending back and forth wildly all the while. I don't know what stopped him, if it was that furious shaking—which couldn't have been mu
ch fun in his pixilated state, I was certain, having been pixilated myself once before—or if it finally sank in that he could get himself hurt. Whatever the case, he let go of the tree and dropped to earth with a thud.

  "We could try to shake them out," Mercy suggested.

  Which they tried to do for several long minutes, and which was no fun for Little and me as we hung on for dear life.

  But when it became apparent we would not be dislodged, they got tired of that occupation.

  I wondered what means they might try next.

  Near the river were several stones, some small, some quite large. It occurred to me to worry that—

  "Here!" Mercy cried to Hamish, catching sight of the same potential weapons I'd been looking at.

  Mercy and Hamish both seized stones and took aim. Soon I felt the tree sway in concert with Little's own fearful shaking, causing me to hold on tighter—honestly, in that moment it felt as though Little presented the greater danger! But he needn't have been so scared. The two boys below us were so drunk, their shots went wide of the mark, which only made them that much more determined, that much more angry.

  With each missed shot, the stones grew bigger, the anger more obvious. Then Mercy did get off a throw that might have done real damage, only it struck against a knot in the tree, ricocheted off, and went straight at Mercy's forehead.

  "Ouch!" Mercy cried, one hand going instinctively to his wound while he shook the fist of the other hand at me, as though it had all been my fault. Then he turned to Hamish. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all?"

  "Well, we did tree them," Hamish proclaimed manfully.

  "We should just wait here," Mercy said, still rubbing his forehead. "Eventually, they'll have to come down."

  "Don't count on it," I said cheerily.

  Ignoring me, they settled on the ground beneath the tree, seemingly content to wait us out.

  So that was how an hour or more passed, the four of us locked in a stalemate as the day disappeared.

  Then the first warning bell for calling-over came.

  Calling-over was the ritual that ended each day proper at the Betterman Academy. Prior to dinner, we were all required to appear in the chapel, where the masters would walk up and down the middle aisle yelling, "Silence! Silence!" Then each boy was called by name and was expected to respond "Here!" Missing calling-over was a grave offense, and there was only a quarter of an hour to assume one's position between the first calling-over bell and the last.

  "You'd better go," I taunted Hamish and Mercy. "You don't want to be late."

  "The rules apply to you too," Mercy pointed out.

  "Rules are made by the masters as challenges," I said blithely. "It would be bad form not to try to break them. It's almost what they want us to do."

  "Yes," Hamish said, "but getting caught breaking the rules leads to punishment. So now you have no choice but to come down."

  "Of course we have a choice," I countered calmly. "And today, Christopher and I choose to be late."

  "Christopher?" Hamish was confused.

  "Little," I said. "His name's Christopher."

  There was a hurried consultation as Hamish and Mercy debated what to do: wait for us to get down—eventually, we would have to go to the privy, they decided—in which case we'd all get in trouble, or run for it.

  "You probably only have ten minutes now," I said. "Are you sure you can run that fast in your condition?"

  Hamish gave the tree one last great shake.

  "Thanks for stopping by!" I yelled after them as they took off through the woods.

  Little looked at me then as though I was either the craziest person he'd ever met or his own personal hero, perhaps both.

  "You do realize, don't you," he said, "that we're going to get in very big trouble for this and that Hamish will hate you forever?"

  "Yes, well," I replied, with a bluff confidence I was no longer certain I felt, "but wasn't it worth it?"

  Chapter seven

  October 1, 18—

  Dear Will,

  It has come to my attention that the letter you wrote me was peppered with lies. I suppose I could return the favor—or the insult—by telling you lies as well, telling you that everything is wonderful here, that the food is the finest of cuisines and the boys the most capital of fellows. But you, having been at school if not at this particular school, would see right through that, would you not? And so, I will instead say...

  You might have warned me what school was really like! Yes, you did tell me about the food; I will grant you that. But you might have told me how the boys are more interested in terrorizing one another than in pursuing anything lofty, like, say, the reason we are all supposed to be here—you know, education? You might have said how hard it is to keep one's eyes on that goal when all around, one is distracted by the constant inanity of boys tossing each other in blankets, persecuting one another for poor singing, getting treed by the river—yes, all three have already happened to me—and otherwise jockeying for superior position.

  The truth of the matter is, I do love the learning aspect of being here. I love Shakespeare even more than I did when I read to your great-uncle—in particular I love all the plays that deal with women masquerading as men, for obvious reasons—and I have grown to love Dickens, with all his coincidences; how something you think does not matter in chapter 1 turns out to be quite critical before the author rings down the curtain with his "finis." I love the Greek and Latin, although it took me quite some time to master the different characters of the former. I even love the vulgus! But no sooner do I immerse myself in one of those things I have developed such a passion for than some new idiocy presents itself to draw me away. Who would have guessed that one of the chief barriers to getting a good education is being at an actual school? Still, I suppose the opportunity is the key. And I would never have thought of the need to master Greek so that I could read works in the original if I had never come here.

  My roommate, an annoyingly self-sufficient—dare I say self-absorbed?—boy named James Tyler, is also a great distraction.

  Despite the lies in your letter, I do hope that wherever you are, you are being treated well and that you are happy.

  Oh, before I close, I have one last bone to pick with you:

  I SHOULD THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE WARNED ME ABOUT COMPULSORY SPORTS!!!

  Your sister in spirit, despite all your lies about where you are and pertinent omissions about school,

  Bet

  ***

  It was full dark by the time Little and I made our way back to Proctor Hall that night, dragging our fishing gear behind us. At Little's insistence, we'd waited in the tree a long time after Hamish and Mercy had left us, to ensure that they did not lie in wait; it was Little's great fear that they might change their minds and decide that getting punished for the crime of missing calling-over was a price worth paying if it meant the opportunity to torment us some more. I personally thought Little insane for thinking this. As far as I could tell, Hamish and Mercy were too drunk for such a complex weighing of options, never mind that I suspected that both were sound and fury, signifying nothing, and would never risk their own necks if it could be avoided. But Little refused to accept my reasoning. Little, in his fear, refused to leave the tree.

  And I refused to leave Little.

  So it was that, by the time we made it back to Proctor Hall, final calling-over had long since passed, and the others were no doubt nearly done with supper. Mr. Winter, having had to stay behind to wait for us, thus missing his own supper, did not look happy.

  "Dr. Hunter says that you are to go up to the house and wait for him," Mr. Winter informed us. "As soon as supper is over, he will deal with you directly."

  We were at the door when Mr. Winter's next words stopped us. "I do hope your backsides can withstand the beating."

  I had never been in a headmaster's house before. I had never even exchanged words with Dr. Hunter though I had been at school for over a month.

  The
headmaster's residence, even with its round tower and its flag flying proudly above it, was not at all impressive when taken in comparison with Grangefield Hall, but it was certainly far grander than Proctor Hall. I suppose a combination of formal and cozy would be the best way to describe it. The lines of the furniture in the room we were led to were severe, as though to discourage visitors from staying long, and yet on those same pieces of furniture one occasionally glimpsed a needlepoint pillow bearing some sort of cheery legend. The combination of severe lines and comfortable cushions delivered a contradictory message. I suspected the needlepoint was the handiwork of Mrs. Hunter, a handsome woman of about thirty years of age whom I'd only ever seen during chapel; Mrs. Hunter was apparently wise enough to avoid the chaos that characterized every dining experience in Marchand Hall.

  As we waited for Dr. Hunter to arrive, Little quaked in fear and I tried to get Little to stop quaking in fear.

  "I don't think they've ever actually killed anyone here for being late to supper," I joked.

  For some reason, that failed to help.

  Seeing the headmaster as he entered, his open black robe flowing behind him, his don's cap firmly on his head, I thought that Dr. Hunter had much in common with the appointments of that room.

  He was about a decade older than his wife, had black hair graying at the temples, and was easily the tallest man I'd ever met. He was also extraordinarily lean, that leanness giving him an air of severity that was consonant with the furniture about us, and his jaw looked as strong as a mallet. But his eyes ... They were very dark, almost black, yet a light danced in them, and as he greeted us with two brisk nods—"Warren; Gardener"—I could have sworn I saw a smile tugging at the edges of that mouth, the teeth beyond those lips strong and white.