Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the SAT (A Harvest Test Preparation Book)

by Charles Harrington Elster

  “I wanted to leave a legacy of benevolence, not just money and material things. In Leo Kabnis I saw all the qualities the teacher in me admired and, though he was not my flesh and blood, everything I had hoped for but been denied as a father and grandfather. So I created an ambitious puzzle worthy of his talents and arranged things so I could observe his progress and enjoy his success from the wings—before permanently departing the theater, so to speak.”

  Prospero paused and looked up at Hargrave, then at the gleaming gun in the librarian’s hand. “The only flaw in my plan was making you principal executor. I’m bitterly disappointed in you, Harold. I thought you had integrity—or at least a conscience.”

  Hargrave glared at the old professor. “You arrogant, hypocritical egotist,” he said, spitting out the words. “You think your role in this is entirely altruistic, yet you fail to perceive how all along you’ve tried to control events and dominate others’ lives to suit your whims. You spent your whole life masquerading as a great philanthropist when you were actually building a shrine to your own magnificence. Your much-vaunted generosity was nothing but a charade. You thought giving money to found a library in your name and making me its curator would eradicate the ill will between us. Well, I’m no dog, professor; you can’t just toss me a bone. I’m not so easily assuaged.”

  Hargrave dug a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped the beads of sweat off his brow, and continued his tirade. “You were always so officious, weren’t you, always butting in, always trying to get a laugh at someone’s expense. Have you forgotten how one of your ill-conceived pranks nearly sabotaged my career? I was the laughingstock of the whole college, for God’s sake! Did you expect me to forget that?”

  “I certainly didn’t expect you to cherish a grudge for twenty-five years and allow it to undermine your sanity and corrupt your soul.”

  “That’s enough, you dotard!” Hargrave shouted. “I don’t have to put up with the ravings of a senile fool.”

  From his position with the others in the corner by the fireplace, Leo watched the librarian approach Prospero and raise the gun until the muzzle was only inches from the old man’s forehead. Prospero sat perfectly still and calm, a stoic expression on his face.

  “I’m sick of your smug soliloquies,” Hargrave said through clenched teeth. “I’m sick of you and everything about you.”

  “Back off, Harold,” Burton-Jones said, stepping from behind Prospero’s chair. “Don’t be a fool.”

  Hargrave turned and shoved the gun in the valet’s belly. “You’re the fool, you toady.”

  Leo saw Hargrave’s finger tense on the trigger and his heart slammed against his ribs. He dashed across the room. In one swift motion he grabbed Hargrave’s wrist, forced the gun up and away, and jammed the chief curator’s head back with the palm of his other hand.

  Hargrave groaned and staggered backward. Leo pinned him against the wall. The librarian sank his teeth into Leo’s thumb. Leo howled and smashed his forehead into Hargrave’s nose.

  “Jolly good show!” cried Burton-Jones. “They’re at it tooth and nail.”

  “Reggie, look out!” Caitlin shouted as Melvin charged.

  The stalwart Englishman dodged the knife and landed a lightning right cross to the big man’s jaw. Melvin absorbed the blow like a bag of sand. Grinning, he raised the knife to strike again.

  Phil took two long steps and sailed through the air. He landed with one knee in the middle of Melvin’s back, driving the big man to the floor. Melvin grunted, then heaved Phil from his back like a water buffalo shaking off a pesky tsetse fly. Phil rolled aside and swiftly regained his feet as Melvin struggled to get up from the floor.

  “Make Caliban a knight,” Prospero said, handing his oaken staff to Burton-Jones.

  “With pleasure.” Burton-Jones, no stranger to the pugilistic arts, hefted the sturdy wood and smacked it across Melvin’s shoulders.

  “Take that, you reprobate,” Prospero cried.

  From the corner, Teddy echoed the old man’s sentiment in considerably less genteel terms.

  Melvin, roaring in pain and fury, rose to his feet. Phil wound up and let fly with everything he had. The uppercut caught the big man square in the face. As he reeled and slammed against the wall, his back hit a switch and the lights went off.

  In the half-light from the blazing fire, the fight raged on. Distorted shadows grappled and writhed in a grotesque dance. Tables and chairs overturned. Books tumbled from shelves. A shot rang out. Someone screamed.

  The fire shifted suddenly and a burning log rolled off the andirons onto the hearth. Red-hot embers crackled and sprayed onto the carpet. There was a horrifying whoosh as the trail of gasoline ignited.

  The ardent flames quickly stormed the walls, scaling the shelves and feeding on the dusty volumes. Acrid smoke choked the room.

  The door flew open.

  Bill Berkowitz, Carmen Torres, and three Holyfield police officers, their guns drawn, burst into the room.

  “Oh my God, the manuscript!” Caitlin cried. “And Shakespeare’s letter!”

  Beside a broken table, a pile of papers curled and blackened into ashes. Love’s Labours Won, the object of so much love and so much labor, had been lost.

  Epilogue

  At eight o’clock Monday morning, a crowd formed as students lingered on their way to breakfast and classes to gawk at the result of the previous night’s conflagration. Although the stone exterior of the building appeared relatively unscathed, the damage to the interior of Tooth and Nail had been extensive. Through the blackened doorway workers carried out charred furniture and sodden, partially consumed beams. A vigilant security guard and a cordon of yellow ribbon marking the periphery of the premises kept the inquisitive at a safe remove.

  Two hours later, Harold Hargrave, his nose broken, and Melvin Rudnik, his hulking body battered, were arraigned separately at the Holyfield Municipal Courthouse on State Street downtown. Both men were remanded into custody to be held without bail pending trial on numerous charges, including breaking and entering, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, arson, and conspiracy to commit murder. The district attorney assured The Plains that both were open-and-shut cases and predicted that Melvin, a repeat offender, would get fifteen to twenty, while Hargrave, for his transgressions, could look forward to at least ten contemplative years behind bars to catch up on his reading.

  Late that afternoon, Lucy Kwon and Juliet Jacques sat in Java Jones discussing a special edition of the Herald that covered the fire at Tooth and Nail, the charges against Hargrave and Melvin, and the complex events leading up to their arrest. Their interest in the story was especially keen, as the article carried the byline of Caitlin Ciccone.

  That night, after gamely trying to read a few chapters of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Phil gave up and joined Jimmy Thomas, Chris Bednarski, and Max Meyerhoff for a round of pool in the Student Center. He was so enervated and fatigued, however, that he nearly fell asleep on the table trying to line up a bank shot.

  On Tuesday morning, Teddy Prospero appeared before the Campus Rules Committee, which voted unanimously to expel him for “malicious and incorrigible behavior,” “wanton disregard of the rules and regulations governing campus life,” and “egregious failure to meet the minimum standards of academic performance required of all students enrolled at Holyfield College.”

  On Tuesday afternoon Leo and Caitlin were interviewed by Newsweek, Time, and USA Today.

  That night, a limousine driven by Annie Howe quietly left the confines of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of town. Two hours later it arrived at a small airfield outside Des Moines, where a private jet was waiting to fly to an undisclosed destination in Mexico. On board that flight were two passengers: Reginald Burton-Jones and Edward Anthony Prospero.

  Meanwhile, “Lend Me Your Ears,” the evening call-in show hosted by Randy “The Maniac” Malone, featured Leo, Caitlin, and Phil answering questions about their adventure. The first caller was Ben Schofield f
rom CHS, who offered Caitlin “covert congratulations from an anonymous source.” After that, the telephone lines were jammed for two solid hours.

  The following afternoon, Professor Torres returned the essays on Emily Dickinson to her students in English 112. Phil was jubilant when he saw “Well thought out!” written on his title page below a grade of A minus.

  On Thursday morning, the college’s board of directors voted in special session to promote Carmen Torres from associate to full professor and grant her tenure—“in recognition,” they said, “of her laudable contributions to literary scholarship and her meritorious commitment to the advancement of pedagogy at Holyfield College.”

  The next night, Caitlin finally sat still long enough for Phil to sketch her face, as she’d promised to let him do the night they’d met at Romeo and Juliet. She was so pleased with the results that she treated him to a Megaworks Special at Salerno’s and, in a gesture of supreme benevolence, let him have the last slice.

  On Saturday morning Leo went to CHS to have the stitches removed from his thumb. Dr. Abigail Benson drolly apprised him that he would live to type again.

  That evening, two hundred-odd notable guests—faculty, alumni, visiting dignitaries, philanthropists, and a handful of selected undergraduates—gathered in the Rococo Room in Guild Hall for a sumptuous reception celebrating the opening of the new Prospero Memorial Library. The soft strains of lute and lyre wafted through the capacious chamber, accompanying the genteel conversation.

  In the heart of the crowd, Caitlin, Phil, and Leo stood chatting amiably with Professors Bibb, Martext, and Torres.

  “One thing still confuses me,” Caitlin said as she watched Bibb devour a heap of lavish hors d’oeuvres. “Remember your rare book on the Sufis?”

  Bibb gave his busy mouth a fastidious wipe with the corner of a linen napkin. “It’s not something I’m apt to forget. Why?”

  “What was it doing in Tooth and Nail?”

  Bibb took a gulp of mineral water and swallowed audibly. “Teddy was telling the truth for once, Ms. Ciccone. That wasn’t my book. Mine is real. Theirs is a facsimile.”

  “But it looked exactly like yours.”

  “A superficially alluring volume, of course, but it can’t be worth more than a hundred dollars.”

  Caitlin took a tentative bite out of a chunk of Cheddar cheese and washed it down with diet cola. “Then Tooth and Nail was a Sufi organization?”

  “Not by any stretch of the imagination. The Sufis are ascetic and spartan in their ways. However, I believe some of Tooth and Nail’s modus operandi are derivative.”

  “How do you mean?” Leo asked.

  “Their costumes and initiation rituals, their occult chants and runes, their allegedly magical formulas, that sort of thing. One might say that they took a more literal approach to the Sufi text, whereas my interest has always been in its historical, mystical, and aesthetic value.”

  “Nor have you overlooked its economic value,” Martext joked.

  Professor Bibb let out a robust laugh. “Well, I’d be a fool if I did. But since you bring it up, Bart, you certainly have never been one to close the door when opportunity knocked.”

  Martext took a sip of white wine. “Not quite never, Theo.”

  “Is that so? To what do you refer?”

  “As you know, the Theater Studies Department is always on the qui vive for stray funds. The college subsidizes only half of our production costs. The rest we must raise through ticket sales and donations. Well, I don’t need to tell you that over the past twenty years the chief benefactor to the theater program was Edward Anthony Prospero. He supplied the money to renovate the Stink, and when we wanted to bring opera to Holyfield he—”

  “Yes, of course, Bart. We’ve heard this all before. Prospero’s beneficence is proverbial.”

  “Quite. So a couple of weeks ago I made a visit to Tooth and Nail to see if a magnanimous interest in theater was something that could be passed down genetically.”

  “What did you find out?” Torres asked.

  “Teddy offered to contribute a generous amount to the program, but demanded that in return I use my vote as an executor to approve a settlement of his lawsuit. At first I told him I’d consider his offer because I thought I might be able to reason with him. It soon became clear, however, that any capitulation would have catastrophic consequences. So I told him categorically that I’d rather rot in hell than agree to his sleazy deal.”

  The director paused and looked at Professor Bibb, who was grinning at him. “I am a man of the theater,” he said, glaring at his plump colleague, “but I do have principles, you know.”

  “Indeed,” said Bibb, popping a bite-sized quiche into his mouth.

  At the far end of the hall, Dean Arthur Calvin Herbert tapped his crystal glass with a fork, calling everyone to attention, and the conversation dwindled. As the administrator began to address the crowd, Phil looked across the wide hall.

  Above a voluminous fireplace, a grandiose portrait of Professor Prospero had been displayed for the occasion. The painting depicted the old man at a somewhat younger stage of life. He was dressed in an Elizabethan doublet and ruff; in one hand he held a quill pen, in the other a yellowed manuscript. Two rosy-cheeked cherubs fluttered around his head and seemed to be whispering something amusing in his ear. In the background, arable farmland extended to the horizon.

  “And so it is with great pleasure,” Dean Herbert intoned, “that I introduce to you the guiding spirit of this great institution, President Harriet O’Donnell.”

  As the applause died down, Phil yawned and decided it was time to stretch his legs.

  “I would like to thank everyone who has made this historic moment possible,” O’Donnell began.

  Phil burrowed through the dense crowd and found an empty alcove where a set of French doors stood open to the expanse of West Quad. He walked onto the moonlit terrace and breathed deeply. The evening air was chilly but crisp and rejuvenating after the stuffy atmosphere inside. He was loosening his tie when he felt a warm hand touch his shoulder. It was Caitlin.

  “It’s hot in there,” she said.

  The moon bathed them in pallid light. For a while they stood together in silence, gazing up at the sky. Then they looked in each other’s eyes.

  Caitlin took Phil’s hand and smiled. “Well?”

  Phil felt his heart begin to pound. “Well what?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what’?” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t be such a reluctant Romeo. Kiss me.”

  He pulled her close and they kissed, briefly but tenderly.

  ‘“O trespass sweetly urged,”’ Caitlin whispered, quoting Romeo and Juliet. “‘Give me my sin again.’”

  Phil grinned. “With pleasure.”

  They kissed again, deeply.

  “It’s about time,” Caitlin sighed and rested her cheek against his chest. Phil held her tightly.

  When they walked back through the alcove into the crowded hall, Caitlin laughed and pointed to the portrait of Prospero.

  “Phil, do you see what I see?”

  “Yes,” he said, and burst out laughing too.

  There was no question about it. The old codger was nictitating.

  Exercises

  Group One: True or False?

  Consider the following statements and decide whether each one is true or false.

  A hostile person may become belligerent.

  Pompous people are also pretentious.

  When you’re mortified, you’re venerable.

  An exalted person is notorious.

  A hypocritical person is likely to prevaricate.

  A glum person is not likely to engage in banter.

  Something repugnant is unorthodox.

  A hierarchy is egalitarian.

  To be capricious is to be fickle.

  A succinct message is protracted.

  Clamor is raucous.

  A benign gesture is malicious.

  A boor is urbane.

&n
bsp; Something facetious may be ludicrous.

  Cacophony is strident.

  A listless person is apathetic.

  Something flamboyant is pedestrian.

  When you capitulate, you succumb.

  Derisive speech is contemptuous.

  Desultory speech is terse.

  A commodious room is capacious.

  A meritorious action is prodigious.

  When you’re imprudent, you’re circumspect.

  A perfunctory job is superficial.

  A sycophant is supercilious.

  Group Two: Synonyms or Antonyms?

  Decide whether the pairs of words below are synonyms—words with the same or almost the same meaning—or antonyms, words opposite in meaning.

  Amiable and affable are . . . synonyms or antonyms?

  Bizarre and outlandish are . . .

  Articulate and incoherent are . . .

  Noxious and beneficial are . . .

  Indistinct and discernible are . . .

  Frivolous and trivial are . . .

  Dominant and servile are . . .

  Concise and verbose are . . .

  Corrupt and depraved are . . .

  Naive and ingenuous are . . .

  Rash and discreet are . . .

  Cantankerous and irascible are . . .

  Gregarious and aloof are . . .

  Tawdry and gaudy are . . .

  Zealous and fervent are . . .

  Avaricious and altruistic are . . .

  Arcane and esoteric are . . .

  Enigmatic and cryptic are . . .

  Ebullient and morose are . . .

  Hidebound and intractable are . . .

  Vociferous and boisterous are . . .

  Bombastic and grandiloquent are . . .

  Auspicious and ominous are . . .

  Salubrious and salutary are . . .