No one, other than the prefects on the J-Board and their faculty sponsor, Dr. Booth, had seen me go into or out of my hearing earlier that day. My teacher, Mr. Summerfield, was the one who had reported me for a possible honor code violation. He had wondered why I hadn’t just turned in the test when he had called for them, why it had taken me so long to write out the pledge. In my hearing, the J-Board asked me if I had cheated. The question assumed that, if I were guilty, I would feel ashamed and confess. Instead, facing ten of my classmates, including Fritz and his half smile, I had felt something cold brush my heart, and I had told them no, I hadn’t cheated. Two minutes later, I left my hearing, knowing I would be found innocent, and the guilt I had managed to keep locked down earlier seeped into every cell of my body until I found myself at the lions, as if waiting for Fritz to arrive so I could ruin our friendship.
I got up from the table and put my tray of uneaten food on the conveyor belt to the dishwashers and headed back to my room. Outside in the gloaming, third formers hurried across campus to the study halls in the basement of Stadler Hall. I got to our room in Walker with five minutes to spare before the start of study period. No Fritz. This was odd—Fritz was rarely late for anything. And we weren’t typically allowed to study off dorm two nights in a row, so he probably wasn’t in the library. He must really be pissed, I thought. I made sure he wasn’t in the bathroom down the hall, and then sat at my desk, disheartened, as the bell rang.
Half an hour later, I was worried. One of the masters in charge—the teachers who had the weekly duty of running study hall for the third formers and making sure the rest of us were working in our rooms—could come by any minute and see that Fritz wasn’t in the room. If Fritz didn’t have a very good excuse, he’d get detention, which took place on Saturday nights. He’d probably miss the mixer with Saint Catherine’s. But beyond that, a selfish thought began crawling out of a dark recess in my mind. Fritz could be in Stilwell telling someone, maybe Mr. Hodges, that I had cheated. He wouldn’t do that, I thought, chewing my thumbnail. But if he did? Various scenarios played out in my head: Mr. Summerfield scowling, and then assuring me all was well; Dr. Simmons gazing coldly at me from behind his desk; my classmates rallying to my defense, and then turning away in rejection; my parents coming to pick me up in shame, my mother bawling.
Finally the bell rang, ending the first study period. I had fifteen minutes before the next one. I ran out of Walker into the night and down the lighted brick path to the library. I could see dim, shadowy figures crossing the Lawn, some disappearing, others hanging around the lit porches of the dorms, like spies skulking in alleyways in a Cold War novel. The air was frosty, giving the illusion that everyone outside was exhaling smoke. I got to the library, entered the main doors, and, off the main hall, I found Trip Alexander in one of the study rooms reserved for sixth formers. He was drinking a can of orange juice at a table covered with math textbooks and various papers. I tapped on the glass door, and Trip looked up from the desk, brushing back the straight blond hair that was constantly falling into his eyes. I opened the door and stepped inside the study room, which was little more than a glorified closet with dark wainscoting and a table and two chairs. “I hate Kimball,” Trip said to me by way of greeting, referring to the calculus teacher. “The man will be the death of me. Three tests in three weeks. Total bullshit.”
“Have you seen Fritz anywhere?” I asked.
Trip raised an eyebrow. “No, not since breakfast. Why?”
I hesitated. “Well, I figured you guys were studying for calc again, like last night, and I need to talk to Fritz.”
Trip shook his head. “No, I’ve been studying with Diamond. He really needs to pass this test, but he said he’d had enough. He’s heading back to his room.” Trip frowned. “What did you say about last night?”
“I was . . . Nothing. I mean, just that you and Fritz were studying last night . . .” While I was cheating on my physics test.
Trip sat back in his chair. “Fritz and I weren’t studying together last night.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Fritz and I didn’t study together last night. Did he tell you we did?”
I looked at Trip, who looked back evenly. The honor system, straightforward and unequivocal as it was, did not bend. But there was a whole gray category of behavior that the honor system tended to ignore, such as telling white lies in order to maintain your privacy or spare someone’s feelings. I understood that Trip was trying to figure out if this was that kind of gray area, if Fritz had allowed me to believe he’d been studying with Trip without actually telling me a lie, or if Fritz’s behavior was something else. This was tricky ground, for both of us.
“He told me he was here, with you,” I said. “And now I don’t know where he is.”
There was a knock on the open door, and in stepped Mr. Hodges. His white hair lay on his head and over his ears, looking for all the world like some sort of medieval skullcap. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Mr. Glass, I don’t recall your having permission to study off dorm tonight. You’ve got about six minutes until the bell.”
Trip and I looked at each other. Mr. Hodges tilted his head slightly, arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the doorway. “What’s wrong, Matthias?” he asked.
Trip continued to look at me. I opened my mouth and then closed it. My earlier fear, that Fritz might have gone to talk to Mr. Hodges about me, receded; if he had, Mr. Hodges would already be hauling me into his office. But that didn’t solve the problem of where Fritz was. My choices were all bad. I could say nothing was wrong, which might fool Mr. Hodges but definitely wouldn’t fool Trip. Or I could tell Mr. Hodges that Fritz had been absent from our room during study hall and get my roommate in serious trouble, which was the last thing I wanted to do right now.
In one stroke, Trip cut through my knot of anxiety. “He’s looking for Fritz, sir,” Trip said, his eyes still on me. For a moment, anger flared up in me. Then it passed almost immediately. Trip had forced me into the position of having to tell an administrator about Fritz being AWOL, but this shielded me from being a rat. Also, Trip hadn’t told Mr. Hodges that Fritz had lied to me. I could even make up a story to cover Fritz if I wanted, knowing Trip wouldn’t say anything. Absently I wondered if Trip had thought all this out in the few short seconds since Mr. Hodges had arrived.
Mr. Hodges considered me with polite interest. He continued looking at me with the same interested expression as I explained that I hadn’t seen Fritz since track practice, and that I had thought he had been studying with Trip but was obviously wrong. Mr. Hodges asked us a few questions—when was the last time either of us had seen him, whom else might he be studying with—and kept us past the bell for the second study period. Then he told me we were going to head back to my room. If Fritz wasn’t there, I was to stay in my room and wait. Trip raised a hand in farewell as we left, and Mr. Hodges and I walked through the library doors outside.