Max could not wait to escape from Etiquette; it had leapfrogged Mathematics as his least favorite class. He was first out the door and jogging down the stairs toward the athletic fields for Games as Old Tom chimed. M. Renard was waiting, impatient as ever as he directed them to separate facilities where they could change. When they emerged from the lockers, their instructor was bouncing a soccer ball on his foot. He motioned them over.
“First day of classes. The piggies are tired, I know. We end the day as we begin: a little hop, skip, and jump, eh? All of you know football? ‘Soccer’?” He scanned the faces as the children nodded; Max noticed David was still absent.
“Good game for the legs. Builds speed, stamina, and body control. Apprentices play lots of football at Rowan, but here you will find the conditions slightly different. Here at Rowan, we play Euclidean soccer.”
“What’s different?” asked Rolf.
“You will see as you play,” M. Renard said, allowing a little smile. “You and Sarah will pick teams. Quick, quick.”
Max was chosen first by Sarah despite warning her that he had never played organized soccer. As the game started, Sarah whizzed past Jesse with the ball, passing it deftly to another girl, who ran alongside her. Rolf crashed in and stole the ball, eluding Max and kicking a long pass downfield to Connor, who fired a hard shot toward the goal. Playing goalkeeper, Cynthia tipped the ball straight up into the air and caught it short of the net.
“Nice save!” cheered Omar from midfield.
Suddenly, the ground began to shift and bubble. Small hills and depressions started to form on the field; entire sections rose or lowered several feet to form ridges and plateaus. The children stopped and shot M. Renard a frightened look.
“It is all right,” he assured them from the sideline. “Keep playing!”
The game ended in a 0–0 tie. Rolf ’s team would have scored if a sizable mound, rising like a sudden blister, had not deflected the ball to the side just as Rolf split two defenders and aimed a shot. M. Renard blew a whistle, and the field promptly settled to a flat plane.
“That game is impossible,” complained Rolf, dribbling the ball to the sideline. “We should have won.”
“You will have to struggle, adjust, and adapt,” M. Renard said, shrugging. “That is the entire point. You played the game today on its lowest setting. Come see the older students play on a weekend; you will not think you have it so hard.”
Back in the locker room, cupping cold water over his eye, Max’s spirits fell at the thought of all he had to do that evening. He had to feed Nick, study the Greek alphabet, draw a land map of Europe, and practice kindling small blazes in his hearth. His eye throbbed. Trudging toward the Manse, all he wanted was to crawl into bed, gaze at the constellations, and sleep for a week.
9
A GOLDEN APPLE IN THE ORCHARD
Ten letters lay in a little pile on Max’s bed. They were from his father, and Max had read them several times. It was a late weekend morning in early October, and Max had been at Rowan over five weeks.
Things at home sounded busy. Mr. McDaniels was traveling frequently on business, determined that his efforts would convince Mr. Lukens to assign him more accounts. Max was preparing to write a letter back when David came into the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Hey,” he muttered, flopping onto his bed across the way and kicking his shoes off.
“How was it?” asked Max without looking up.
“Stunk. Miss Kraken yelled at me for not paying enough attention. Ms. Richter came in and watched for the last half. She never says anything, she just watches. It’s annoying.”
After the first day, David had been removed from their Mystics class and was taking private lessons every day from Miss Kraken. The damage he had inflicted on the classroom had been repaired immediately.
“Are you excited to go into town?” Max asked, beginning his letter. What he really wanted to know were further details of David’s lessons in Mystics, but David never shared them.
“Yeah, I guess,” came David’s reply, muffled by the pillow he had pulled over his face.
Max frowned as he wrote to his father; there were so many fascinating things about the new school and so little he could actually share. Practical considerations limited his letters to chronicling his academic struggles and assuring his father he was making new friends. Max made no mention of vegetarian ogres or talking geese.
Mr. Vincenti, Miss Boon, and the other advisors were already waiting for the First Years by the fountain when Max and David walked out the Manse’s front door. Most students had abandoned their school uniforms in favor of blue jeans. Mr. Vincenti spoke up as they set out for the campus gate and the world outside.
“Ha! Exciting stuff—first trip to town and a beautiful fall day to enjoy it! Did everyone bring some spending money and an appetite?”
“Yes!” screamed the group, causing him to cover his ears and chuckle.
“Good. Now listen up—we have reservations for dinner at the Grove at seven, and the food is excellent so don’t fill up on sweets! Make a point to introduce yourselves to the residents and shopkeepers. They’re well aware of what Rowan’s all about—in fact, many are former students or family of the faculty. Be on your best behavior and make Sir Wesley proud, eh?”
The students cheered and Max hurried along with them as they crossed the lawns and entered the forest, which was ablaze with the brilliant colors of autumn. The breeze off the ocean was crisp, and Max rejoiced in the unprecedented sum of money in his pocket—his hoarded allowances for the past two months. He chatted with Rolf and Lucia as they walked the scenic, meandering mile to the gate.
As the great gate closed behind them, Max and Connor dashed away with the others, arriving a few hundred yards later at the long stretch of quaint shops and businesses radiating from the village green. Older students milled about, ducking in and out of the nearby pizza parlor, café, and bookstore.
“Where to?” asked Connor, hopping up and down and looking in all directions.
“Let’s wait for David,” said Max, peering back down the road, where his roommate looked to be getting an earful from Miss Boon. Finally, David nodded and hurried toward them up the road, arriving in an annoyed fit of coughing.
“What was that all about?” asked Connor.
“Oh, nothing special. She wants me to ‘be careful’—she’s been on my case ever since Miss Kraken started teaching me Mystics. I don’t think she likes it.”
“Why would she care?” asked Max.
“She’s really young,” said David. “She’s only, like, twenty-five. I think she’s worried Miss Kraken doesn’t have confidence in her.”
“Kraken thinks you’re going to blow up Boonie!” said Connor with a laugh.
David started walking toward a patisserie, coughing hard into his jacket sleeve. As they got closer, they heard a chorus of excited voices. A few steps later, Max understood why.
In the window, Max saw a marvelous seascape crafted entirely of sweets. There were sand castles of white chocolate, thick beds of licorice anemones, and brilliantly colored fish and sea creatures made of taffy, hard candies, and peppermints.
“Come in! Come in!” said a friendly voice from inside.
A stout man with a black beard and rosy cheeks was methodically braiding strands of bread dough. He stopped to greet them at the counter, wiping his hands on his apron.
“You must be First Years. I’m Charlie Babel—I believe my wife is your Languages teacher.”
Ten minutes later, having settled on some wedges of toffee and a handful of chocolate sand dollars, the three peered into the windows of a café and saw a number of older students having coffee and pastries inside. Jason Barrett was in a corner, flirting with a very pretty Fifth Year whom Max had once seen him kissing behind Old Tom. Jason saw them staring and waved them inside.