Professor Darling looked up with alarmed eyes. “Right,” he said. “I’ve thought about it, and it really isn’t a good time —”
“Daddy, I really could use the money. And John, too . . . I know you think all the kids at Marlowe are over-the-top extravagant, but John could use some real friends this year.”
“He doesn’t need the kind of friends that require cash payment,” Professor Darling huffed, and looked away from his daughter. “That’s not what I’ve taught him.”
“It’s not them,” said Wendy. “They’re cool. It’s all in John’s head.”
“OK, Wendy, let me think about it some more. But this is a very busy year for you . . . with tougher classes . . . and the exhibit.”
“The exhibit?” Wendy tried not to yell, but this was exactly the kind of thing her father pulled all the time — ignore the issue and pretend you’ve won, until everyone forgets and you eventually do win by default. “I never said I’d do that!”
But Professor Darling was determined to plow through with his own point. “John should do it, too. I was supposed to get an assistant from the British Museum to help catalog all the items, but he was mugged by a street gang and then his flight was canceled. Or something like that. Anyway, he’s not here, and I’m swamped.”
“And what about my job?” said Wendy. “How am I supposed to do both things?”
Professor Darling shrugged.
“Daddy, you can’t fix it so it’s impossible for me to negotiate.”
“Sure, I can, honey. And you’d better get used to it. Minimum-wage laborers often find negotiation impossible.”
“No, they don’t!” Wendy huffed, gathering her backpack. “Stop being so elitist. I hope you don’t say that stuff in public.”
As Wendy ran back upstairs to get John, she overheard her father mumbling, “The big difference between intellectual snobbery and elitism, my dear, is that one is earned — though I suppose neither is very nice.”
When Wendy and John had set off for Marlowe, Professor Darling finished gathering his papers and packing his briefcase. Since the day Wendy had turned thirteen, she had insisted that she be allowed to walk to school alone. I’m old enough now, she had argued. I don’t need to be walked to school. Professor Darling encouraged his daughter’s independent streak. He enjoyed watching her try to take care of everyone and everything herself. It made him proud. So, despite the fact that they were headed for exactly the same building, at exactly the same school, Professor Darling felt obliged to wait a full fifteen minutes before setting off. He had promised Wendy, after all, and he usually kept his promises.
“It’s been more than fifteen minutes, I think,” he said confidently to himself five minutes later. He strolled out the door with thoughts of the Marlowe Egyptian exhibit swimming in his head. For a long time, he had suspected the importance of these particular pieces, mostly considered minor by his colleagues. He had worked so hard, called in so many favors, to have them in his care. Now he would finally get to study them up close, use them to teach the children something new, something undiscovered. If only they would show more interest. . . . George Darling knew why Wendy wanted to do so much on her own, why she was so adamant to have her way. She was determined to never again be left behind. He could see by the way she watched him, the way she watched everyone, that she was more careful now, more guarded. He felt sad for his daughter. I’ll ask for some funding, he decided. A paid job for Wendy at my exhibit — where she can learn something. He nodded, congratulating himself for the idea. He wanted to help his daughter in his own way. To make sure that she was happy. That she never had another heartbreak.
Never is a long time, he thought. But he could do it. He was the never-never man.
The front lawn of the Marlowe School was teeming with wired freshmen, sleep-deprived seniors, and sunburned teachers reminiscing about summer novels and comparing fall syllabi. John and Wendy lingered for a moment before entering the familiar crowd — even before Wendy had started at Marlowe, the two had always visited their father here on the first day of school. Now teachers said hello as they passed, and old friends waved Wendy over.
“Who’s that?” Wendy said, looking across the clusters of students toward the main building of Marlowe, where a mousy brown-haired woman, probably in her thirties, was waiting, silent and motionless. She didn’t look rushed or eager to speak to anyone. She just observed everyone (and no one) with her one good eye. From the distance, her left eye seemed somehow damaged. She didn’t bother to swat away the moths hovering around her dark blue sweater set. Twice, she coughed into her white lace handkerchief.
“If you don’t know her, she must be a new teacher,” said John. “Let’s go.”
Wendy turned for just a second and wondered if she should greet this woman. But when she turned back, the woman was gone. Or maybe she had blended into the crowd — she was so plain, so nondescript . . . exactly the type of person that spends her life blending in, watching, never really standing out.
John seemed to forget her instantly. He began pushing his way through the crowd, and Wendy followed. They cut across the lawn and around the main building, arriving at the lacrosse field only minutes before morning practice came to an end. Wendy could see John fidgeting with a mixture of excitement and nervousness, because now Connor was approaching them with two of his teammates. John was probably trying to think of just the right thing to say. Poor kid.
Though, now that she considered it, she should probably be thinking of the right thing to say, too. She and Connor had never talked at school — not really — and somehow everything felt different here. More official. These guys didn’t know her. They hadn’t come to Connor’s Fourth of July party or hung out with them all summer. In fact, Wendy and Connor had spent the summer in a bubble, since most of their classmates were off on summer adventures around the world. So what would Connor say now? Would he pretend it was all no big deal? That he wasn’t really dating the teacher’s kid? What would Connor’s lacrosse friends think?
“Hey,” she managed to mumble when Connor waved and then jogged up and slapped John on the back.
Then Connor threw a sweaty arm over Wendy’s shoulder and said, “This is my girlfriend, Wendy Darling.” The boys were saying hello when Connor added, “And you guys know John, right?” And then when they didn’t show the appropriate level of excitement, he said a bit more loudly, “They’re Darling’s kids. Remember?”
Wendy looked up, amazed, because the way Connor was rambling, it was as if he was embarrassed that his friends didn’t remember her — like he wanted her to think that he had already told all his friends about her and her whole family. He was giving his friends a look that said Stop being jerks in front of my girlfriend.
Wendy tried to play it cool, but she couldn’t help the giant smile that was spreading across her face. What a good guy, she thought. And then he leaned over and gave her a hard, sweaty kiss on the lips. Wendy wanted to pull away, because to be perfectly objective, it was really gross. But that didn’t matter now, because one thing was for sure: this was Wendy’s one opportunity to prove that she, Wendy Darling, was the kind of girl who would pick the nice guy whether or not he met some vague standard of fiery romance or fairy-tale chemistry. She, Wendy Darling, was sensible and good. She would never be anything like Mrs. Darling. And look at that, she thought. John’s loving this. Wait, what’s he doing?
John was digging into his backpack and pulling out a stack of cards. Oh, God, he didn’t . . .
“Here’s my info,” John said as he handed out solid black business cards to Connor’s friends. “I blog sometimes . . . you know, about underground stuff I learn on the streets: picking locks, getting clean in two weeks in your room . . . stuff you need.”
One of the guys rolled his eyes. Another chuckled. John looked deflated. Wendy nudged him and smiled, but he took a step away from her. Just as she was about to suggest that they leave, one of Connor’s friends turned toward the dorms across the playing field an
d said, “What do they want?” From the other side of the field, four senior boys were strutting toward them with that lazy lethargic swagger that said they’d just bought another case of unpolluted urine for the monthly Marlowe dorms drug test. Wendy felt sorry for the boarding kids. They were usually some of the richest ones — their parents were willing to pay the astronomical price of housing their children at Marlowe, not to mention the guilt money that lined all their designer pockets. Still, Wendy thought it was sad that they were forced to live away from home. Most of them were international, with homes in faraway places. Just looking at them, Wendy felt a little backwater, even though she’d lived in New York all her life. All those accents and fashion trends she’d never heard of — and all of them too street to give a second look to the unoriginally preppy day students. Of course, every year there were a few boarders whose parents lived in New York. Those were the worst ones. Or maybe they had the worst parents. Either way, they were the truest orphans, the ones that caused the most trouble.
Now the four boarding boys, all wearing the Marlowe gray-and-navy uniform, were approaching Connor and his two teammates. They stopped a few yards away and motioned for the lacrosse boys to go over. Connor told Wendy and John to wait while he and his friends went over to the boarders. After a few minutes of talking, Connor was looking more and more pissed off. “Be right back,” said Wendy, starting toward them. But of course, John followed one step behind. He was fascinated with all things Connor-related. As she approached, Wendy could hear them arguing about last week’s preseason game.
“Hey,” said one of the boarders, a kid whose parents were some sort of South Asian royalty, “your boy took the money, and now you’re trying to punk out. Pay up, bro.”
Connor’s face was growing pink. “Nobody on this team would agree to fix a game. Go sell your bullshit somewhere else.”
“Yeah, I get it,” said the kid in the fake street accent they all cultivated. “You’re sticking up for your boy. That’s cool. But he did agree, and now he owes us.”
“Relax, man,” said another one of the boarders. “It wasn’t like we asked him to lose. Just shave a couple of points to cover the spread.”
“Same thing,” said Connor, the anger rising in his voice. “He’d never do that.” He glanced at his friend with his blond eyebrows in a furious tangle.
“So we’re in agreement there,” said the Indian boy, trying to sound suave but coming off sleazy instead. “He didn’t do it. Now he has to pay for all the lost bets.”
Wendy wondered why these guys cared about a few lost dollars, anyway. It was probably nothing to them. Maybe they just wanted to bring Connor down a notch. People were always trying to do that. She felt a tingle of pride at the thought. Just as she was trying to decide whether she should approach Connor or keep hanging back, she saw someone running toward them from the direction of the dorms. He was tall, his brown hair bouncing as he dashed toward them with long, easy strides. He was wearing the dorm crew shirt, a white polo with the Marlowe crest.
“What’s going on here?” he asked with an air of authority that made even the lacrosse boys take notice.
“Who’re you?” asked Connor.
The handsome newcomer gave a friendly grin that made Wendy smile involuntarily. He held out his hand. “I’m Peter, the new resident adviser. Everything OK here?”
“This punk won’t pay up,” one of the boarders, a Chinese boy with a crew cut, blurted out.
Wendy noticed that all four boys were looking eagerly at Peter. One of them had on a smirk that revealed a large gap in his teeth. Wait, thought Wendy, glancing at the Chinese boy. Do they all have a missing . . . ?
But then her attention was diverted by Peter, who spoke with the cool confidence that had belonged to the Indian boy only a second before. Not uncomfortable adult authority, but the kind of confidence that Connor always had — the kind that only one person in every group can display. “Pay for what?” Peter said blandly, and Wendy thought she saw him warn the Chinese boy with his eyes. “Let’s go. Now.”
The four boarders fell in line in a way that Wendy had never seen any Marlowe kid do for an RA, or a teacher, or even the principal. From the corner of her eye, Wendy could see John staring with awe, his admiration finding a new target. Not again, she thought, since John’s hero roster was growing longer and longer with each passing day. And now that John’s plan to change his online image had totally failed with the lacrosse boys, he would be looking for a new group to admire — probably a group that didn’t care as much about image, a set of friends that didn’t have time for Facebook, who were more street, as John would put it, which was bad news because the boarding kids were big trouble.
Peter leading the way, the boys walked to the other side of the field, where a girl Wendy had never seen was waiting for them. She, too, was wearing the white crested polo shirt. Wendy was still staring with curiosity in Peter’s direction when she felt Connor’s arm around her shoulder. He was still sweaty, and she pulled away a little, then chastised herself for being shallow in front of the hot new RA and forced herself closer to him. Connor didn’t notice, anyway. If they were alone, Wendy would have thanked him for sticking up for John, for being so perfect in every important way. She would have done something to show that she wanted to deserve him. But they weren’t alone, and the RA with the brown curls was turning around to take one last look at the scene, capturing the attention of everyone around him with every minuscule gesture, making Wendy notice Connor’s youth and his tight grip and his sporty smell, forcing her to think of grad students and disloyalty. The RA’s dark gaze caught Wendy’s for just a second before she turned sharply into Connor’s arm. Again, Connor didn’t notice. As they walked toward the locker rooms, he rattled on about weekend plans and last week’s game and entitled druggies who spew lies about his teammates.
“We’re late in the fourth quarter of the New York Prep State Championship here at Madison Square Garden, and these two teams are matching each other punch for punch — a slugfest between two heavyweights. Demarcus Marchand, captain point guard for Bard Academy, has almost single-handedly carried his team through the second half. But Connor Wirth, the Marlowe captain, hasn’t slouched on the other side. It may be presumptuous for me to call, but I see hints of Larry Bird in that young man. From the floor, this reporter has seen Wirth call a number of his shots, right at Marchand, and then execute. Wirth has been playing with a superstar swagger. . . .
Marlowe comes out of the time-out with the ball, down by one. A double screen, in to Wirth at the top of the key, Marchand is in his face, ten seconds left, he fakes left, goes right, Marchand stays with him but Wirth pulls back, a spin, Marchand is WAY out of place, Wirth with a turnaround jumper pulls the trigger at the buzzer . . . it’s in! Marlowe wins! Marlowe wins! Marlowe wins the state championship off the last-second heroics of Connor Wirth!”
Peter woke with a start. At first he didn’t recognize his dorm. He was always in strange beds, in houses that didn’t belong to him. He ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. Another nightmare. They were getting worse, more intense, and the stress was getting to him. He spotted the moth in the corner. He wished for someone, a protector, to ward off his dreams. But what if the one standing over your bed is the one causing it all?
More than anything, Peter still hated getting older. But a close second was the dark. The night was when Peter was most alone. No Tina, no LBs, no one but Peter himself, alone with his thoughts, his fears, his deepest regrets. All those monsters that lurked after dusk. The broken eye that was fixed on him always. Night is the time when everything can go wrong. Twelve hours, twelve chances for disaster. Night is when his oldest nemesis tried to haunt him, to hurt him, to scare him away. All nights come to an end, Peter assured himself.
“Sorry I’m late, class. . . . Class. Quiet down, please.”
Professor Darling stumbled through the door, holding a pile of books, notes, a laptop, some rolled-up schematics, and his third cup of coffee
. He unloaded the heap on his desk. Wendy and John were already nervous.
“You got lucky this time, Professor,” said Marla, from the back of the class. “Two more minutes and we were going to invoke the ten-minute rule.”
Professor Darling picked up some notes that had fallen to the floor.
“The ten-minute rule?” he said distractedly.
“Yeah, ten minutes and the students get to walk out,” said Marla.
The professor adjusted his notebooks, pushed his glasses to the top of his nose, and snapped back to the present.
“I assure you, Marla, that the Marlowe rule book does not contain any kind of clause allowing students to walk out on their own education.”
“Well,” said Marla, crossing her arms, “it should.”
A few students made some noncommittal sounds of agreement.
“That’s a great idea, Marla,” said the professor, pulling out his lesson plan. “Why don’t you prepare a five-page paper on why young adults today are not given the kind of respect and freedom as those of the ancient Nile Delta? I recommend working with me at the Egyptian exhibit, where all of you can see documents from the reign of Ramses II, who was a ruler before he was a teenager.”
“Are you kidding me?” said Marla, sitting up.
“Of course not,” said the professor. “It’s well documented. I think you’ll also find some compelling research on children of peasant families, who didn’t have to go to school at all. In fact, they were allowed to work in the fields as early as six years of age.”
“I mean about the five-page paper,” said Marla.
“Well, it’ll be six pages with the bibliography, but, yes. You can present your findings to the class on Friday.”
As Professor Darling was absentmindedly giving Marla an assignment, Wendy and John sank farther and farther in their seats. The others kids never really understood their dad. He was like the ultimate head-in-the-clouds, nose-in-the-books, good-intentions-but-terrible-attention-span kind of history nerd. And it wasn’t exactly doing wonders for them on the social front. It was even worse for John, who was accelerated into classes with his older sister. His dad may as well have spoon-fed him his lunches in the cafeteria.
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