The Gray House

RALPH

Once every six years, the wall separating the House from the world sprang a leak. Ralph had observed it three times already, and still he couldn’t make himself think of graduation as a natural occurrence in the order of things. That the Outsides could suddenly permeate the House—that the House could bleed its creatures, who until then appeared joined inseparably with it, into the Outsides—was not something you could accept and get used to. The more experienced counselors passionately loathed the pregraduation term, and their newly hired colleagues had to spend a couple of years listening to their horror stories. “If you haven’t been there for a graduation, you haven’t seen anything.” Ralph had been lucky (or unlucky, take your pick) to have arrived in the House shortly before a graduation, and so wasn’t a target for such remarks. He was one of those who “had been there” from the start. A fresh conscript finding himself immediately on the front lines and in the thick of battle. Even though all he could later recall from that, his first graduation, was an indeterminate feeling, mostly a result of the parents’ all-out assault.

Just as there weren’t two students who were alike, there weren’t any parents who were alike. But still counselors placed most of them in two broad categories: Managers and Contacters. Managers maintained active communication with their children, made regular visits on assigned days, and pestered counselors with phone calls. Contacters appeared only in the days before graduation. The rest fell somewhere between the two extremes, and were unworthy of a separate classification.

Contacters’ visits coincided with the arrival of supervisory committees, fire and sanitary inspectors, and all and sundry child-welfare agencies (it was always a surprise how many of those there actually were in existence). Every six years the counselors were reminded that there was an authority above them, and that the authority was very interested in what they had been up to. Their work was checked and rechecked. They had to produce reports and reviews, duty-shift timesheets and exhaustive evaluations of each and every student. All of that was then collated, examined, and cross-referenced. The fire inspectors tested the extinguishers and quizzed the counselors on proper procedures. Those who could not quickly rattle off the sequence of steps to be undertaken in case of a fire were sent to remedial training. The medical inspectors took over the hospital wing and turned it inside out. The sanitary inspectors went through the kitchens with a fine-tooth comb. The Contacters demanded advice, immediate attention, and, often, first aid. The Managers demanded respect. Some inspectors, after going away, returned for the second and even third go-around. By the end of the month the principal was a human wreck.

Then summer break came, allowing the counselors some time to recuperate, and then they were immediately thrown into the pool of freshly admitted six-year-olds. Ralph considered the system of handling admissions and graduations that had been adopted in the House completely idiotic. He could not understand why the juniors, in the graduation year, were not being sent away from the House earlier. Even by itself, the House losing half of its inhabitants was a shock to them, and that they were allowed to witness it happening Ralph considered inexcusable. Also that in the summer camps they received an unlimited license to discuss what had happened, with no classes to distract them and almost no counselors to supervise them. And that, upon return, they were faced with the new batch of students, their successors, a constant reminder that soon they too would share the fate of the seniors, because the seniors were now them. It was no surprise they didn’t have any love for the juniors, never cared about them or helped them with anything. It was also no surprise that they never forgave the counselors their betrayal and never trusted them again. What was surprising was the abject adoration that the juniors had for those disgusting youths. Seniors could ignore them or treat them like dirt, the squirts didn’t mind at all. They absorbed everything seniors had, including the dread before the graduation, and that dread by degrees became a part of the fabric of their lives. A sign of the coming maturity.

This time Ralph was alone among the counselors in having been through a graduation, and it struck him as curious that the pregraduation month had passed quietly, almost peacefully. A single visit from the supervisory committee. No parents except those explicitly invited. Several docile Managers, no Contacters at all, no inspectors, no reams of reports. The committee arrived and departed without a single comment. All that despite the House being completely, comprehensively in tatters. Shark was singularly inept at being a principal, and the state of records and accounts could only be described as disastrous.

Ralph had thought about that and soon figured out the reason for the unexpectedly forgiving attitude. The House was on its last legs. No one cared anymore about its overall dilapidation, the falling chunks of plaster and the condition of the fire extinguishers. The fire and sanitary inspectors could not be bothered about a building slated for demolition. It would have been silly to insist on repairs and check the safety procedures. Ralph, with a sadness that surprised even him, realized that in the Outsides world, the House already had been struck from the registers. All that remained was for it to die.

On the day of departure of the last successful test takers, he managed to push out the troubling thoughts. That day even resembled the previous graduations somewhat. The parents of the four smarty-pants had arrived simultaneously and before the announced time. The active Manager among them, Booger’s father, caused a gorgeous scene that lasted a good half of the morning. Bedouinne’s parents weren’t into scenes, but their daughter did everything in her power to make this day memorable for them and succeeded brilliantly. Chickenpox’s mother fainted when she discovered that her daughter’s body had been adorned with no fewer than three separate tattoos, a parting gift from her loving friends.

Tradition dictated that the counselors see off the students from their groups, so Ralph was free to be engaged in the role of a guard. For two hours straight he chased away from the reception area the gawkers who desperately desired to join the fun, listening to the screams behind the door until the crowds finally dispersed. Not two minutes after the hallway cleared, Homer emerged from the reception, and two Pheasants wheeled after him. Homer was a wreck, Pheasants beamed.

Ralph waited for Shark to come out, reported that his hallway shift had been uneventful, and inquired why the farewells took so long.

“Good thing they happened at all,” Shark said. He had a guilty look.

From the reception came the sound of breaking crockery and someone bawling. Ralph guessed that this was Darling unwinding after her encounter with the parents and decided to leave it at that. A counselor who’s just gone through the ordeal of spending time with the departing students and their parents was, to one who hasn’t, as a soldier who has returned from a skirmish to one who’s stayed back in the trenches. Seeing Ralph in the room could push them over the edge.

He wasn’t visiting Smoker but did inquire after his well-being every day. Not because he felt concerned about his health, but because of a guilty conscience. Besides, he was afraid Smoker might sink into an even deeper funk. Spiders respected Ralph’s wishes and hadn’t invented any mysterious disorders to explain Smoker’s stint in the hospital wing, saying to him instead that they were simply concerned with his blood work, but the hypochondriac boy had freaked out anyway. This needed to be resolved soon, one way or another. Ralph couldn’t insist on keeping him for more than ten days, but on the other hand he didn’t want to return Smoker to the group from which he was clearly being squeezed out.

He went into the staff room, to make the requisite call about Smoker, and ran into Godmother. She was one of the few who really used her desk there as a work space. She was behind that desk now, sorting some papers, nodded curtly in response to his greeting, and then asked if he could spare her a few moments. That didn’t surprise Ralph. As the graduation crept closer, the counselors started asking him about his experience with the previous ones. By now he was used to the questions, which were always the same, and they kept asking them over and over again, as if they didn’t hear his answers, or couldn’t understand them.

Godmother collected the loose sheets into a file and only looked at Ralph after making sure the surface of the table was clean. She folded her hands on top of it, neatly, palm to palm.

“I remember you saying once that at the time of the last graduation the situation in the House was less stable. If I’m not mistaken, you were referring to the ongoing confrontation between two belligerent groups.”

“Yes,” Ralph said. “It had been much worse then.”

He sat down, feeling somewhat uneasy, as he always did in Godmother’s presence. This woman had an ambiguous effect on him. Yes, she was undoubtedly good at what she did, effortlessly handling the problems that would reduce Darling to a sniveling mess, she was smart, responsible, and rational, and the girls respected her. At the same time, her aloofness was off-putting. No one in the House liked her. To Ralph it looked like she had no feelings at all for her charges, that she was comprehensively impersonal. He tried to convince himself that this was just a professional deftly hiding her emotions, but it did nothing to dispel his prejudice. Godmother was too icy for her job. Or too old. Trim and straight, like a retired ballet dancer, invariably in the same gray pantsuit, white cuffs gleaming, she appeared fifty while in reality pushing seventy.

“I would be interested to know if that remark hasn’t been simply an attempt to calm down the principal,” Godmother said.

Her eyes behind the glasses glinted severely and accusingly. The cold, round, staring eyes, the hooked nose, the long neck—they all combined to make her look like a bird of prey. But despite all that, anyone talking to her got the impression that she had been a great beauty once.

“No,” Ralph said after a pause. “I don’t remember exactly the conversation you’re referring to, so it is possible that I was trying to calm him down, but the last time the situation really was much less stable.”

“Are you concerned at all that as of today there are again two belligerent groups in the House?”

It took some time for Ralph to understand what she meant, and when he did he almost laughed out loud.

“No,” he said. “I am not concerned. I do not consider this conflict to be serious.”

Godmother’s fixed stare became unblinking.

“Why?” she said.

“You see,” he said, feeling awkward for intruding on her turf with his musings, “this so-called war is entirely the girls’ invention. I think it’s their way of coping. They are aware that graduation is coming whether they like it or not, and with it the separation from the boys with whom they have established relationships. They also see no chance of those relationships continuing beyond the gates of the House. So, what’s easier: accepting the separation or convincing themselves that those who they’re being torn from are the enemy? They chose the latter. On balance, it would mean less pain for them overall. The war may look silly, but it appears to be an effective technique.”

“Do you consider yourself an expert on female psychology?” Godmother said.

What infuriated Ralph wasn’t the question itself but that it made him blush.

“No,” he said drily. “I do not. I was merely expressing an opinion.”

“An opinion that deserves the highest praise,” Godmother said even more impersonally. “I salute you.”

Ralph again tried not to let his annoyance show.

“Would that be all?”

“Apparently,” Godmother said. “I would like you to keep one thing in mind, however. The principal does not share your optimism.”

“I would imagine,” Ralph muttered.

“And he is prepared to use all options available to him to ensure safety at the time of graduation. What would your attitude be toward that?”

“One of understanding,” Ralph said, getting up. “If you’ll excuse me, I still have some unfinished business to attend to before the meeting.”

Godmother nodded. “Of course. Should we be expecting any suggestions from you?”

“Possibly.”

As he left, she remained in her place, looking ahead at the wall, like a robot that’s been switched off. Sitting very straight, with hands folded in front of her.

A round-faced, big-eared boy in a black skull-and-crossbones T-shirt peeled leisurely away from the door. Ralph closed it behind himself.

“What were you doing?” he whispered.

“Listening in,” the boy said earnestly. “I am well aware that I shouldn’t,” he added, preempting Ralph’s reaction.

Ralph lightly massaged his eyelids.

“Why do you do it, then?”

“Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of my ethical values,” the boy admitted. “Has that ever happened to you?”

Ralph leaned against the door.

“Please leave,” he said. “Get out of my sight.”

Whitebelly nodded eagerly and retreated.

“Did you hear that?” Ralph mumbled, making his way toward the stairs. “And this one isn’t even a Log.”

But in all truth, he was glad of the encounter. Charmingly insolent Whitebelly chased the image of the unmoving mannequin in the staff room from his mind’s eye. A frightening image, even if he wasn’t quite ready to admit it.

Ralph climbed up to the third floor, to the break room where the meeting was scheduled for three o’clock. Originally this was supposed to be a home away from home for counselors, but the drab institutional furnishings and rickety tables piled with dog-eared magazines invited the ghosts of a dentist’s waiting room, so there never had been any volunteers to spend their free time here. Finally the administration hauled in three desks and a slide projector, put up a dry-erase board, and designated it a meeting room. This breathed new life into the space, and soon counselors claimed parts of it for storage, divided up the chairs, and declared the tiny balcony to be the smoking area, and Sheriff even brought his favorite boombox. Now at any time of day or night someone would be in, even if most often that someone was Homer, dozing on the sofa.

Today the room reeked of menthol and medical alcohol, again reminding Ralph of the dentist.

Homer and Raptor, slumped in chairs, had all the appearance of victims of a natural disaster. Homer’s balding dome was crowned by an enormous cold pack. Raptor stared fixedly at the ceiling. Their ties looked like they’d been used recently in vigorous attempts to strangle their owners. Their jackets were nowhere to be seen.

One desk was occupied by Darling, applying a fresh coat of paint to her face; another, by downcast Sheep, preparing a new cold pack. Sheriff crowded the door to the balcony. The smoke from his cigar wafted into the room, and that concerned him not a bit: his body was safely in the smoking zone, and where the smoke chose to go was its own business. Sheriff wasn’t about to miss a single detail of what was going on in the room.

Ralph sat on the sofa between the two chair dwellers, moaning Homer and ominously silent Raptor. Sheep tiptoed over to Homer, changed the cold pack, and shot Ralph a reproachful glance. “Where have you been hiding while we were in agony here, desperately in need of your help?” was the approximate message of that glance. Or maybe she was just chiding him for staying silent. Or for lack of compassion. Or maybe neither. Sheep’s watery stare seemed always on the verge of tears and always accusing of something. The playful curls of her hair and the girlish ruffs of her dresses clashed with the permanently sour expression on her face.

“Thankfully I was able to refrain from throttling anyone today,” Darling muttered through clenched teeth, studying her reflection in the compact’s mirror. “An amazing feat of self-control . . .”

“Ha, ha,” Raptor said grimly, as a reminder that he was still alive.

“And to think, I assumed Lenses had set the bar impossibly high,” Darling continued. “But that oversexed cow Bedouinne managed to top even her.”

“How can you say things like that about a child?” Sheep exclaimed indignantly.

“A child?” Darling almost dropped the compact in surprise. “A child? The dumb little slut looks older than her mother!”

“Language,” Sheep squeaked.

This was obviously far from the worst language that had been uttered in the room recently, and Sheep’s indignation somehow lacked conviction. Ralph again congratulated himself on not coming up here earlier. The hysterics seemed to have died down, and he wasn’t enough of a sympathetic listener to precipitate another round. He had no doubt, however, that all the sordid details of the indignities suffered by each of them would be rehashed anew before the meeting started.

“What is it you’re trying to see there?” Homer said caustically. “New lines that appeared since morning?”

“No!” Darling snapped the compact shut. “New gray hairs in my nose!”

They exchanged looks full of deep mutual loathing. Homer self-consciously probed his own nose. There was plenty of hair in it, gray as well as other colors, projecting happily far beyond its confines, so he could only take Darling’s remark as a personal jab.

“Look who’s talking! Like he’s the one aggrieved,” Darling sneered. “After everything that we had to listen to on his account!”

Homer moaned, jerking his legs in untied shoes, and hoisted the cold pack higher.

“He has the temerity to portray himself a victim!”

Sheep, seemingly to cool down the room’s overheated atmosphere, switched on the fan standing in the corner. Sheriff stomped to the windowsill and mounted it.

Darling, unexpectedly pretty in anger, her eyes shining and even her nose appearing somewhat shorter, addressed Ralph directly.

“Now you tell me, whatever has he been thinking, dragging three Pheasants to meet with the parents of one of them? I wish someone would explain that to me!”

Nobody was planning to explain to her anything about Pheasants, Ralph least of all, but Darling wasn’t really in need of explanations. She wanted to spill out her frustration. A silent listener was perfectly acceptable. But she got some unexpected competition.

“Damn Shark couldn’t be pried off the phone,” Raptor said to Ralph as if taking him into confidence. “Forty minutes! Booger’s daddy is eating me alive, and the old codger keeps babbling nonsense into the dead receiver. Ain’t that a riot?”

“What did he want?” Ralph said, accepting that one way or the other he’d have to listen to the whole story.

“Who?”

“Booger’s father.”

“A graduation certificate, what else! What do all of them want when they start that whole song and dance about quality of education? ‘I don’t care where you get it from, that’s your problem, you should have warned us that you were running a school for retards here,’ all that crap.”

Raptor rubbed his forehead.

“Boogy brought his old man a copy of the question booklet. So this buffalo keeps waving the goddamned sheet in front of my face, roaring so loud you could hear him two blocks away. Wants to know how come most of our students botched the answers to those questions. And what am I supposed to tell him? When the hardest one in there is ‘Austria is located in a. Europe, b. Asia’? And to top it off, those disgusting little Pheasants of his”—he nodded at Homer, who blinked guiltily—“are right there next to us, tossing out Latin proverbs and happily citing philosophers of antiquity.”

Homer moaned, loudly and defiantly, sending Sheep scrambling.

“Then,” Raptor went on, winding himself up, “Cupcake’s mom takes that splotchy little scrap from Booger’s daddy, acquaints herself with its contents, and starts an inquest, for what possible reason these boys here”—Raptor switched to a high-pitched voice—“these two gentlemen, who have just displayed an astonishingly high level of intellect, could have failed this, the most straightforward of tests.”

Ralph couldn’t help himself and smiled.

“So, how did they wiggle out of it?”

“Wiggle out?” Raptor said. “Pheasants? They didn’t! They just sat there ogling us and smirking! I was the one who had to do all the wiggling. For everyone, because Alf here decided to keel over and play dead!”

“It was a heart attack,” Homer protested. “I really could have died. There was not an ounce of deceit!”

“Yeah, right.” Raptor nodded. “Of course not. One’s clutching his chest, the other his phone. Guess who’s left to deal with the mess?”

“If you ask me,” Sheriff growled from his perch, pointing at Homer, “it’s all his fault. There’s no call to be pushing his Pheasants everywhere. They’d give anyone the willies. Now take my Ratlings, they make sense whenever they open their mouths.”

“I see, so that’s why their mouths are always hanging open,” Darling interjected. “And their eyes are closed. And their heads are twitching.”

“Right, that’s what I’m talking about,” Sheriff said, unfazed. “Just the ticket.”

Homer, wearing a deeply haunted look, swallowed a couple of pills and took a swig out of the mug brought over by Sheep.

“Coffee? Tea?” Sheep addressed the assembly.

Before anyone could answer, Shark came in. His suit was rumpled, the tie hung askew, but overall he was unusually bright and businesslike. Godmother followed right behind him.

Shark went to the table, poured himself some water, drank it up, looked around the room with the air of a commander before the final battle, and announced, “The topic of today’s discussion is graduation.”

Ralph thought that Shark couldn’t be anything but disheartened by what he saw. His hastily assembled putative army was in disarray. Homer, even after having pulled the cold pack off his head, cut a pitiful figure. Raptor, with his twisted tie and vacant stare, wasn’t much better. Sheriff, perched on the windowsill, brought to mind Humpty-Dumpty just before that great fall. Flustered Sheep imitated a pincushion. Darling, as always, overdid it while applying her makeup; the result was a teenager on her first trip to a nightclub.

And still this motley gang, as idiotic-looking as it is, is my pack, Ralph thought. Or whatever can be called my pack. I am one of them.

Godmother was alone among those in the break room in having a presentable appearance. Trim, collected, resembling an aging French actress, she took position behind Shark, arms crossed, and the shoulder pads of her gray suit seemed tailor-made for military patches.

“So. Graduation,” Shark repeated meaningfully. “At our last meeting I called upon all of you to give this issue some serious thought and prepare suggestions.” Shark thrust his hands in the pockets, rocked on his heels, and added, “I shall now hear those suggestions.”

He fell silent, and it took the counselors a couple of minutes to realize that the introductory speech was over. They exchanged puzzled glances. Whatever else, Shark was never known to be succinct. For him to come to the point was usually the labor of the better part of an hour, giving everyone else enough time to finish their coffee, exchange some whispered gossip, and even catch a couple of winks. They’d acquired a knack for appearing to be listening to Shark’s speeches while engaged in their own little distractions, and now, deprived by him of their customary ration of forced boredom, felt almost cheated out of it.

“I’m waiting,” Shark reminded them after the brief pause and fell silent again, to everyone’s consternation.

Sheriff was first to get his bearings back. He yanked at his suspenders a couple of times before droning, “So, my suggestion is gonna be like this. On the night before the graduation we all go to our groups, right, and we stay there in the dorms and maintain order. Until morning.”

He cast a proud look around.

It was obvious that this was going to be rejected out of hand, but it allowed him to project the aura of a tough guy.

“If I may be allowed an observation.” Godmother stepped forward and planted herself in front of Shark. “To make your plan a reality, some of us would have to become twins.” She rested her gaze on Ralph. “And that is to say nothing of the situation in our quarters. Where we have thirteen dorms and four counselors. I am afraid you have not taken that into account.”

Judging by Sheriff’s grimace, he’d never even heard about this until today.

“Um . . . I mean, how many have you got?” he said.

Darling giggled.

“We are caring for fifty-six young women,” Godmother articulated. “Housed between nine four-bed rooms and four six-bed ones. If I were you I would not be so ready to admit ignorance of such basic facts about the place where you’ve been working for years.”

Sheriff was not to be intimidated that easily.

“Come on,” he scoffed. “Like I would ever go there. I’ve got enough trouble as it is. All right, if’n that’s so, let’s knock our heads together some more. We can get all the girlies in one place. When it’s just for one night it’s not gonna be a big deal.”

“Speak for yourself!” Darling exploded. “And what, pray tell, is that place you’re talking about? The lecture hall? I for one am not too thrilled to be cooped up on graduation night with dozens of deranged girls in a place that doesn’t even have adequate sanitation. How do you propose we take them to the bathroom? Under armed guard? Or will you provide each with a personal chamber pot?”

Sheriff broke out into his infamous convulsive laughter. Swaying back and forth on the windowsill, he slapped his thighs, gurgled, and snorted, and his checkered polo shirt seemed ready to split apart under the assault of this much mirth.

Godmother finally took a seat. At the very edge of the chair near the door, still facing the counselors; more like a stern teacher in the classroom than one of them.

While waiting for Sheriff’s exuberance to ebb, Shark pointedly stared at his watch.

“That’s a winner!” Sheriff wiped his livid face with a battered handkerchief. “I’d pay to see that . . . Your stuck-up heifers . . . all in a row . . . holding the potties!”

A more conscientious person would have been skewered to the spot by the look Godmother was sending him, but not Sheriff.

“Now if your fertile imagination has fully enjoyed this picture, can we, perhaps, move on?”

Shark’s sarcasm also missed wide. Sheriff’s thick skin made him almost invincible.

“Sure, why not. Let’s hear it,” he agreed. “So my idea didn’t fly, I get it. Let’s have others give it a shot.”

“Thank you,” Shark said icily.

And now if he says “Anytime” Shark is going to throw him out, Ralph thought. No one ever gets fired during the last term, but Shark will make an exception.

Luckily for him, Sheriff said nothing. Shark gave him another minute of the silent treatment and then, satisfied that there were going to be no more remarks coming from the windowsill, went on.

“Anything else?”

Darling rose up. She gracefully smoothed out her skirt and puffed her silver bangs to the side.

“I have a very simple suggestion,” she said earnestly. “We lock ourselves up on the third and let the night take its course. It’s not like we have any idea what they’re planning anyway. They could sleep quietly through the next morning, for all we know. Or they could throw a farewell bash. After all, don’t they have a right to celebrate the occasion? It’s the same in every school.” Darling batted her lashes and smiled obsequiously at Shark. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“This isn’t a plan, it’s a surrender,” Shark snarled. “I am not entertaining any more ‘run and hide’ proposals, or their variations, at this point.”

“Well, then.” Darling shrugged, doing her best not to show how hurt she was. “I have nothing further.”

Shark stared at Ralph. Transferred his gaze to Raptor, waited a moment, then waved a hand in invitation. Godmother stood up. Observing Shark’s pointed courteousness as she took his place, Ralph realized that those two were in collusion over this. He didn’t like it.

Godmother nodded to the assembly. Reset her spectacles. Cleared her throat.

“I cannot conceive of supporting the last proposal, even though it would be preferable to some others we have heard today. In my turn I would like to offer two ways to approach the current predicament. Please be assured that both of them were exhaustively researched to encompass all eventualities.”

Godmother spoke so softly that it seemed any noise, no matter how insignificant, would make her inaudible. Everyone strained their hearing in order not to miss a single word. A well-worn speaker’s trick, but you had to admit—she really could make it shine.

Sheriff was leaning precariously off the windowsill, cupping an ear with his hand. Advertising his hearing problems. One could almost believe that the requisite earphone wires snaking into the ears of each Rat, deafening them, all somehow had ended up in his ears as well. At least, this was the impression he was trying to convey. That it was a workplace disability.

Ralph felt the rising tension. Something was about to happen, and happen very soon. Godmother was nodding at Shark and he leered at her in return. They behaved like two conspirators who didn’t care to conceal their conspiracy.

“As all of you must be aware, the graduation is officially scheduled for the seventeenth of June,” Godmother went on. “I recommend moving it up. If the graduation happens earlier than anticipated, we may reasonably expect the pregraduation night to remain free of incidents. It goes without saying that under no circumstances should any students be apprised of this. The whole enterprise hinges on maintaining the utmost secrecy.”

There was a well-placed pause.

The counselors exchanged glances. Sheep’s eyes filled with tears. Homer applauded quietly. Raptor shifted excitedly.

“Well, I’ll be! That could just work,” he blurted. “It really could! What a nice idea.”

“It could work,” Darling admitted sourly. “Unless they get wind of it.”

Ralph didn’t say anything. The thought of doing this to them didn’t sit well with him. Declaring the graduation at the moment of graduation? It was low, it was unfair, it was cowardly. Very Shark-like, in short. But . . . Raptor was right—it could work. Had he any right to take away something that would guarantee them a month of peace? Especially when not offering anything in return?

So—silence, which also could be taken for acquiescence.

“In the interest of avoiding disclosure it will be necessary to institute restrictions on the communication between the students and their parents.” Godmother gave the counselors a severe look. “All calls to parents must take place exclusively on the third floor, and only with one of us present throughout. All visits to be approved on a case-by-case basis by the principal, with all visiting parents briefed in advance. Under no circumstance should we be mentioning the date being changed either in personal conversations or in written form when finding ourselves beyond the third floor. My strong preference would be for that rule to be observed even here. The telephone currently located in the staff room, I propose to eliminate. There is a suspicion that students do avail themselves of it.”

“Yeah,” Raptor whispered. “Suspicion my eye. They’ve been using it for ages. Who’s this hag think she is?”

“And in conclusion.” Godmother’s voice became louder as she shot a disapproving look at Raptor. “In conclusion. The true date of the graduation shall be known to two persons only, our esteemed principal and myself.”

Ralph imagined hearing the thud of Raptor’s jaw hitting the floor.

Homer shot up, waving his hands madly. “This . . . It’s an outrage! What do you mean—we don’t know the graduation date?”

Sheep surprised everyone by piping up, in a reedy squeak, “I object! This is disgraceful!”

The explosions from the two most cowed counselors made Sheriff’s menacing growls seem insignificant by comparison. Raptor peered ahead fixedly, gripping the arms of his chair. Ralph desperately hoped that he himself did not look stunned quite to that degree. Godmother, composed and self-assured, calmly weathered the barrage of hostile stares. Ralph couldn’t but admire her composure.

“Allow me to explain,” Darling said when the excitement died down.

Clearly impressed by Godmother’s grace under fire, she did her best to appear equally dignified. It was painful to watch.

“What you’ve just suggested is impossible, for several reasons. One,” she said, flashing a purplish-pink fingernail, “one, they need to gather and pack their belongings. It takes time. Two, parents! Even assuming that you do not reveal your secret date to us, you’ll have to tell them, right? Why do you assume they would keep silent? And when the day comes, some of them are going to show up early, the others late, and then there will be those who will simply inform us that they can’t quite make it on that day but anytime else is fine with them, and so on. Imagine the mess! More than a hundred students suddenly finding out they’re being taken away before having time to pack, say good-byes, put on makeup, write farewell notes, or whatever it is they would want to do . . . and add to that the parents—and us, also completely frantic, because . . . because we, imagine that, had no warning that the graduation was going to happen on that particular day! It’s ridiculous! Just four of them leaving today has reduced us to ruins, and now you’re expecting—”

“Please. Calm down,” Godmother interrupted Darling’s effusive oration. “This is not the end of the world, as you seem to be imagining. Especially if we can keep our wits about us and refrain from inflating the issue to apocalyptic proportions.”

“Right.” Shark, visibly downcast, perked up. “It’s not that bad. We went over the procedure in great detail, secured the assistance of certain third parties, and expect that with their help unrest can be prevented.”

“And who would those parties be?” Darling inquired.

No reply was forthcoming.

Godmother paced the room, arms folded firmly.

“I have an impression that you do not fully appreciate the need for maintaining complete confidentiality,” she chided, stopping by Homer, cowering in his chair. “Our pupils are nothing if not perceptive. The least misstep, from any one of us here, and the secret will be out. It is not even necessary to actually mention the date being shifted. An unusual burst of activity. A concerned expression. We could be sending signals and not realizing it. I am not talking about preparations.” Godmother glanced in Darling’s direction. “But if for no apparent reason our belongings started disappearing from the staff room, it would attract attention. I want to stress that it is possible to slip unintentionally, thus endangering the entire initiative.”

“I’m not arguing with you.” Homer waved his hand feebly, obviously imagining that the harangue had been directed at him. “You have been quite clear. I apologize for my outburst.”

Godmother was smiling, looking over his head at Ralph.

He smiled back.

I get it, Iron Lady. Running around in panic—that’s Homer. Darling has a packing fetish. Sheriff is a windbag. Raptor can betray himself by the triumphant look on his face. Sheep, by the long-suffering one. But what about me? What is it you suspect me of? Are you imagining I’m going to run straight to them and blabber about those precious plans of yours?

He caught that “yours” in his own thoughts, cringed, and half closed his eyes.

Is that really how I’ve put it? “Yours” and not “ours”? Maybe she really does have a point there, the old bitch.

“I am waiting for confirmation,” Shark demanded. “From everyone. No exceptions. Now. Because I do not intend to return to this after we vote.”

“I mean, I agree it’s a clever plan,” Homer said hurriedly. “Even though I am annoyed at the lack of trust the administration has demonstrated.”

Darling snorted, “Oh! Lack of trust. That’s what this is called now? Nice!”

“Do you agree or not?” Shark demanded.

“I agree.”

“I don’t,” Sheriff grumbled from the windowsill. “Precisely for that reason. Making me into some kind of old gossip who can’t be trusted with keeping a secret? I’d sooner resign than put up with this kind of attitude!”

“Perfect.” Godmother nodded. “No one is keeping you in the House by force. If your decision is final, prepare your resignation letter. The principal will sign off on it.”

The silence that fell on the room was disturbed only by the blades of the ceiling fan slicing through the air. Godmother, speaking for the principal in front of him, made everyone uneasy, and Sheriff doubly so.

“Now this is going too far!” he blurted. “Where d’you get off jerking people around? Who gave you that authority?”

“Everything our esteemed colleague expressed here has been discussed with me,” Shark said gleefully. “Discussed and approved.”

The expression on Sheriff’s face was hard to describe. Ralph never imagined that he could be that shocked.

Where have you been for the last thirty minutes, you silly little man? How come you’re only now getting what we all have already understood and accepted?

“And unless you decide to reconsider, please make sure that the letter reaches the principal’s desk within twenty-four hours,” Godmother demanded. “We need to know definitively whether you are leaving or staying.”

“I am not about to resign this close to the end of the year!” Sheriff roared.

But he couldn’t quite put his usual bluster in it.

“In that case I will thank you to refrain from more empty threats in the future.”

Sheriff slumped sullenly on the windowsill. He looked like an irritated gargoyle that’s put on weight. Looking at him, Ralph even felt a twinge of compassion. He thought that if now Godmother were to tell Sheriff to get off the window and sit down on a chair properly, he would most likely capitulate.

Luckily Godmother was above petty gloating. It was obvious to everyone that Sheriff had been comprehensively defeated and his humiliation was to serve as a warning for anyone foolish enough to contemplate insubordination.

Godmother was now circling around Ralph.

“Let’s move on with the voting,” Shark prompted.

They moved on with the voting.

When Godmother’s suggestion secured a majority, Shark applauded briefly (Homer decided to join in but stumbled when he saw that no one else did) and then requested for the second suggestion to be revealed.

“I am trembling with anticipation,” he announced, rubbing his hands together.

“Look at him trembling,” Raptor muttered under his breath but perfectly audibly to Ralph. “I wonder how many times you two have rehearsed this.”

“Yes, the second part of the plan.” Godmother looked squarely at Ralph. “I propose that we remove from the House some or all persons whom we, after careful consideration, deem dangerous. Persons who are psychologically unstable, behaviorally maladjusted, and at the same time capable of influencing the rest of the student body.”

Ralph leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. There it was. Now it was his turn to protest and be cut down to size. Godmother was in for an unpleasant surprise.

“Ah!” Darling perked up slightly. “That’s interesting. So who are they, these dangerous, influential crazies? I am looking forward to the naming of names.”

Raptor, on the other hand, darkened.

“I vote no!” he said, jumping up. “This will only provoke them. We’ll get exactly what we’re trying to avoid, only earlier.”

“I vote yes,” Homer said. “A very reasonable and timely action.”

“I have a question.” Sheep dutifully raised her hand, like a student in class. “Are you planning to include girls on that list?”

“Certainly if you can think of a specific candidate,” Godmother said, fighting back a smile. “We would be happy to consider her.”

“God forbid,” Sheep squeaked. “I would never!”

“So we’re talking about boys, mostly?” Darling pressed on.

“Yes. The so-called Leaders.”

Raptor grabbed his head.

“I suggest we discuss Sphinx, from the Fourth,” Darling said. “Popular, influential, and clearly a disgusting character. A real pervert, if you ask me.”

“There are no unstable persons in my group,” Homer pronounced proudly. “I ask for the First to be excluded from this conversation.”

“Well . . .” Shark tried to make it look like he was weighing a decision. “This is against the rules, you understand. But the First really is an exemplary group. I am open to making an exception. So ordered. As for Sphinx . . .”

“He is not one of the Leaders,” Godmother prompted softly. “So he is not the object of the present discussion.”

“Precisely,” Shark rushed to agree. “He is far from the most influential figure, let’s not waste our time. Denied.”

Darling went into a pout.

“We are not debating the actual candidates yet, but the proposal itself,” Godmother said to her by way of consolation. “Two of us for it, one against . . .”

“Emphatically against,” Raptor put in.

“Two abstained,” Godmother went on without so much as a glance at Sheep and Sheriff. “And one more is . . .”

There was a pause.

“Against,” Ralph said.

Godmother nodded, satisfied, as if this was exactly what she had expected him to do. She then made another pause and when he failed to make use of it, continued.

“Two ayes, two nays, two abstentions. I am, naturally, voting yes, and our esteemed principal . . .”

She turned to Shark, and that’s when Ralph decided he’d had enough. He was tired of looking at Godmother, tired of listening to her, and disinclined to perform the rest of the lines she’d written for him in this play.

“Excuse me,” he said, getting up. “I still have some important things to do.”

Shark’s expression promised a coming storm.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said. “What things could be more important than this meeting?”

“What things?” Ralph stopped at the door. “Oh, you know, of an urgent and unavoidable nature. Compose a resignation letter, type it up in duplicate. Pack, tidy up around the office a little. It’s amazing the way the dust just seems to stick to it. Return the linens to the laundry and some books to the library.”

“Oh god!” Raptor gasped. “Just what we needed . . .”

“Wait a minute!” Shark said. “I’m not signing that.”

“Don’t.” Ralph shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t care if your signature is on it or not.”

“Aren’t you the least interested in the results of the discussion?” Godmother said in a surprised voice. “In finding out who we are going to choose? Are you concerned about the welfare of your charges at all? Your childish behavior seems to suggest otherwise.”

Ralph smiled.

“I am reasonably sure that it will be my charges you are about to single out, and this is exactly why I am refusing to participate in this charade. As a counselor I am responsible for every single person in my groups. When someone pushes me aside and starts running their lives for them, the only thing that’s left for me is to say good-bye. I’m done here.”

Godmother grimaced.

“How easily you abandon your post. And how quick you are in forcing your responsibilities on others. It amazes me, frankly.”

“You just won’t believe”—Ralph glanced briefly at Shark, frozen in place—“the extent to which it amazes myself.”

He tidied the office, took a shower, and packed his black duffel bag. Used the old typewriter to type the resignation letter, signed it, and left it on the desk. Then, to his own surprise, he realized he was whistling a tune. So, is this really it? I am leaving forever? Just like that? Now that Shark and Godmother had revealed their plan, there was in this a justice of a sort. He wasn’t allowed to say his farewells properly to this place, to let the departure sink in, just as they wouldn’t be. Feeling ridiculously light and empty, he went out without even bothering to lock up. There wasn’t anything left in the office worth worrying about.

Ralph nodded to the on-duty Log (who undoubtedly took notice of the bag), crossed the hallway, and went up to the third floor.

The staff canteen was open until eight. It was cozy and quiet here, especially in the evenings. Round tables, on each one a wicker basket with bread, a massive wooden napkin holder, and an amusing salt-and-pepper set shaped like mice. Flower-patterned curtains. A neatly handwritten menu to the side of the serving window.

Ralph got two slices of meat pie and a tea, and went to sit at the corner table.

He was eating and looking at the photograph on the wall, under glass in an elaborately decorated frame. There were six of them in the canteen, all six utterly bewildering. Street shots. No people, no dogs, and none of the buildings caught in them could be considered of any interest. It was a mystery why these featureless images had to be printed in this large format, framed, and hung on the wall. Certainly not for aesthetic reasons.

Ralph studied the one closest to him and thought that, after he left, both it and the rest of them would forever remain an enigma, because without him no one would remember that these had been made by Flyers. They were of the Outsides. Flyers had photographed it haphazardly. The important thing had been to simply capture it. They returned to the House with their trophies, enlarged and printed them, framed them, and put them up in the windowless Horror Chamber on the first floor. The Chamber had existed specifically to cause discomfort. The children of the House liked scary stuff. There were other items in the horror storage, but the photographs of the Outsides were the undisputed highlight of the collection.

Then those who had created the Chamber of Horrors left, and the juniors who replaced them came to hate the exposition they’d inherited, so much that it had to be dismantled. The photographs ended up on the third floor. None of the current students had ever seen them; the entire thing happened before they had come here. Ralph often wondered what they’d feel if faced with them. Astonishment? Curiosity?

The shots might as well have been taken by Martians. A comprehensive detachment. Outsides distilled. That’s how it looked from their point of view. Not beautiful, not ugly, not anything at all. Even total strangers who happened to see the pictures couldn’t help being vaguely disturbed.

As Ralph looked at them, he realized that if, upon exiting the House, he really would be met with this faceless, scrubbed world of empty black-and-white streets, he would have felt much worse than he did now, and how lucky it was that for him the Outsides was not like that, and how unfortunate that he could not share that knowledge, that certainty with any of them.

Raptor and Shark came bursting into the canteen together, hooting and hollering as they saw Ralph there. Godmother entered quietly and unassumingly, and took her place at the next table.

“You bastard, making me sit and wait for your notice! Do you care at all?”

Shark dragged a chair over, plopped on it, moaned, and loosened his tie.

“Then we run to your damn office and see that damn notice on the desk! You couldn’t even be bothered to bring it over for me to sign! Planning to split on the sly, weren’t you?”

“You said you weren’t signing it.”

Shark noted Ralph’s duffel under the table, made a face, and told Raptor to get some pie for him too.

“Two slices. No, one slice and some scrambled eggs. And a coffee. I urgently need sustenance.”

Raptor went over to the serving window.

Godmother pulled her chair closer to their table.

“You have surprised and disappointed us. Couldn’t this public display of disapproval have been avoided?”

Ralph shrugged.

“It could. I’m just not used to being manipulated.”

She sighed.

“No one was manipulating you. Your perception of the situation is prejudiced.”

They were silent when Raptor returned with a tray. They were silent while Shark shoveled food in his mouth. Godmother’s hands rested on the table, palm to palm, the pristine cuffs setting off the grubbiness of the tablecloth, which had looked perfectly clean until she appeared. Ralph knew that Godmother wasn’t going to move until he finished his tea, until Shark was satiated, until Raptor stopped fidgeting. Like a statue. She didn’t need to engage her hands, to shift her pose, to busy her mouth with idle conversation. She could simply wait. It was unbearable.

“You would make an excellent sniper,” Ralph said.

“Pardon?”

Shark pointed his fork at Ralph.

“Let it be noted that you haven’t proposed anything. Anything! And when the people who were desperately seeking a solution made suggestions, you went on a crusade against them and then washed your hands of the whole thing! How’s that fair? What is your problem with the decision to move up the date? Because I seem to have noticed it wasn’t to your liking either.”

“Then you probably also noticed that I wasn’t arguing with that one. I don’t like it, true, but it certainly has a chance.”

“Aha!” Shark said. “So what you didn’t like was not being among the elect, right?”

“Wrong. I don’t care about the exact date. Especially considering that it would be fairly easy to calculate.”

“Then what precisely do you object to with regards to that proposal?”

“Its cruelty.”

He was unprepared for the indignation that flashed in Godmother’s expression.

“Cruelty?” she repeated, and her voice trembled with suppressed emotion. “Do you mean to suggest that this is more cruel than what happened six years ago?”

“No. Which is why I didn’t argue.”

Godmother pursed her lips. Ralph again was overwhelmed by a suspicion that this was all a performance. At this particular moment she was playing the indignation that she wasn’t feeling. He didn’t understand why she would need to do that, just as he didn’t understand why she’d come here to persuade him to stay, now that she’d done everything in her power to make him leave. He didn’t understand too much of what this woman was doing, and the sheer volume of that ignorance was starting to affect him. Shark and Raptor were so engrossed in their exchange that they forgot all about the coffee. They looked like a pair of Bandar-Logs, only older—the same naked, shameless, prying curiosity.

“The first suggestion is simply dishonest. But the second is abusive. I will not tolerate my students being abused.”

Godmother’s face was a mask of equal parts weariness and disgust.

She blushes from the neck up, Ralph thought. And it makes her look older. What is she after? Power? A position on top of the pecking order? In a place where there’s soon going to be no one left to peck? Or is she in such a panic over the graduation that she’s honestly searching for ways out of the tight corner she’s been placed in, and the methods she’s employing are simply what come naturally to her?

He didn’t believe any of that. Not her panic, not her sudden desire to rule the roost, and least of all her selfless, breathless service to the principal. Godmother wasn’t cowardly, servile, or stupid. He did not understand her motives, and that made him vulnerable. He didn’t know what he was fighting against.

“Ultimately,” Godmother said, “we shall have to rely on your judgment. If you are certain that none of your charges represent a threat to the others at the time of graduation, it is incumbent upon us to try and share your conviction, and refrain from undertaking any additional measures.”

“I have no such certainty,” Ralph said.

“Just as I expected.”

“But I am also not certain that your so-called considered measures won’t make the situation worse.”

“Neither are we. We just prefer action to inaction.”

“Sometimes action is worse than inaction.”

Shark turned his head from side to side, as if tracking a tennis ball in play. Godmother lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose and pierced Ralph with a schoolmarm glance.

“Is it your position that a graduating student is irreparably harmed by the very fact of the graduation happening a few days earlier than planned?”

“Depends on the student,” Ralph said and stumbled, realizing that he’d just walked into a carefully prepared trap.

“Are you implying”—Godmother’s nostrils flared in anticipation—“that there are those who will be harmed by it and those who might not?”

“You could say that.”

“But wouldn’t you agree that it is precisely the person who is so ill-adapted to life outside the House that a mere change in the manner of his graduation could prove disastrous for him, that it is this person who represents a clear danger to his peers?”

Ralph was silent.

Shark smirked. Raptor avoided Ralph’s gaze. Godmother reached across the table and placed her hand on Ralph’s arm.

“There will be no voting,” she said firmly. “You will reach your own decision, and we will all abide by it. Who is the most dangerous? Only you, their counselor, are familiar with them well enough to answer that, to make that choice. And it therefore falls on you to guard them, to the extent possible, against grievous harm.”

That night Ralph attempted to get drunk. He was drinking alone, locked up in his office, and almost succeeded, but the desired oblivion eluded him, leaving behind only a dull headache and a sullen apathy.

Deciding to leave was simple. As he was packing and typing up the notice, he’d felt uneasy because of the suddenness of it all, but at the same time never doubted that what he was doing was right. That under the circumstances it was the only available option. Talking to Godmother had robbed him of that sureness. Deep in his heart Ralph realized that agreeing to participate in Shark and Godmother’s scheme was a sellout. Betrayal of one for the benefit of many was still a betrayal.

That right to choose, so graciously bestowed on him, was pure torture, all the more unbearable because in reality there was only one choice. He had no doubt that Blind was indeed dangerous, and would become extremely so at the moment of graduation. He also had no doubt that removing him from the House would only make matters worse. Someone would have to pay. He had a pretty good idea who that someone was, and it definitely wasn’t Godmother. Could that be the reason she was trying to make him stay? They needed a scapegoat, and Ralph was perfect for the assignment.

“A goat,” he whispered to himself. “You are so useful, my friend, you’ll make a nice goat . . . or maybe a lamb. A stupid sacrificial lamb.”

He cringed, realizing that he was behaving like a drunk, when he wasn’t drunk at all. A little, maybe. But mentally running through the conversation with Sphinx once Blind had been removed from the House was sobering him up quicker than a cold shower.

Getting comprehensively sloshed and meeting Sphinx with inane, drunk blabbering wasn’t going to cut it. Maybe he should listen to Darling and remove Sphinx as well? Ralph counted off the hierarchical structure of the Fourth on his fingers. Next step down from Sphinx they had—no, not Noble, but Tabaqui, strange as it may have seemed. As Ralph imagined Jackal in the position of the Master of the House he smiled, but the smile quickly became a fixed scowl. If that happened, drinking or not drinking would not make the slightest difference. Might as well really barricade themselves up on the third and wait. Tabaqui would disassemble the House brick by brick and only then agree to negotiate the terms of their surrender—if they were lucky. By that time everyone would be clamoring for Blind’s return. Did this mean he had to remove Jackal too?

Ralph went to the bathroom, stuck his head under the faucet, and then furiously rubbed his face with a towel.

Going over the list was completely pointless. Every single one of them was dangerous. Including that tacit mute, Alexander. It was not a good idea to push them. He had to make Shark understand that, and then let him duke it out with Godmother.

Ralph remembered that there had been cases of students who, having been sent out of the House, were then hastily returned, for varying reasons. Those had to be recorded somewhere. The former principal was a stickler for protocol and also liked to look for similarities and patterns in everything, so he surely had a file somewhere detailing all of those cases. Ralph should go and find it.

His headache subsided a little and Ralph knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. Why not go to the library, then, and look for that precious file? The more he thought about this, the more logical it seemed to him.

He put on a coat, to have a good pocket for the flashlight, checked the batteries in it, and went out into the night.

The old night guard, always short of breath, opened the door to the third floor for him and shuffled back to his glass-walled nest to continue napping, or watching TV, or both.

On the third the lights in the hallways did not go out at night. Ralph followed the threadbare carpet to the library. It was very different from the common library down on the first—in its compactness, its wide selection of specialized tomes, and the decent condition of the books.

Ralph turned on the lights between the stacks one by one as he moved to the last aisle. There, against the wall, stood a tall steel cabinet, its drawers flashing stickers denoting their content. On the bottom drawers the writing was clearly readable, by halfway up the paper was already graying and the letters became barely legible, and closer to the top the stickers gave way to random scraps until they disappeared completely near the ceiling. The contents of those were to remain forever a mystery. Fortunately Ralph had no use for them now.

He pulled out one of the lower drawers and shuddered at the sight of the files massed tightly together. He dragged the drawer to the little table in the corner and started taking out the files. He briefly thumbed through the stapled sheaves and put them aside, file after file, until he was satisfied that this drawer did not contain what he was looking for. He replaced it and pulled out another. Then another. The stack of files that he wasn’t able to stuff back in their drawers was growing, and Ralph hoped that at some point he was going to stumble on a half-empty one and dump them all in there, so as not to leave behind on the table a pile of paper.

At some point he looked up momentarily and noticed that the night guard was now sitting in the chair between the stacks. The guard, under his customary uniform cap with a green bill, looked asleep, but was in fact watching him closely.

“I wasn’t going to smoke here, if you came to warn me about that,” Ralph said.

The guard shook his head.

“I was wondering what is it you’re so diligently seeking.”

“That doesn’t really concern you.”

Ralph turned back to the files but soon realized that he was exhausted. The presence of a stranger interfered with his concentration. As he kept turning over the sheets he struggled to take in their meaning. Ralph stuffed the remaining files in the drawer in front of him and decided to stop punishing himself—and allow the guard to go and slumber in peace, which was probably what he was hinting at by coming here.

“You’re wrong if you think it doesn’t concern me,” the guard said suddenly.

Ralph slowly turned around.

“What? What did you say?”

“I said that you were wrong to think it doesn’t concern me,” the guard repeated. “You’re going through the archives of the former principal, if I’m not mistaken?”

Ralph walked over to the guard and stared at him closely.

“You’re not,” he said.

The guard produced from his breast pocket a white smoking pipe with a battered stem, put it between his teeth, straightened up, and took off his cap.

“I might be useful to you in this endeavor.”

Oh god, Ralph thought. He’s always had a flair for the dramatic. I guess I’m supposed to faint now from all the excitement. And I didn’t even gasp. How rude.

“Yes,” he said. “It appears that you’re just the man I was looking for.”

The guard looked offended.

“You could have at least acknowledged your sudden luck,” he said, pointing at the rows of drawers with his pipe. “This is far from one night’s work.”

“It’s shock,” Ralph explained. “I’m shocked. I am at a complete loss for words.”

Those were actually exactly the right words that he’d found. The guard sprung up and squeezed him in a tight hug. Ralph stoically accepted the outpouring and, in turn, patted the former principal on the back.

The man stepped away and looked him over.

“Well, well! How are you, my boy?”

He hugged Ralph again.

Fatherly, he probably imagined himself. Dwarfishly, Ralph thought as his chin rested on top of the old man’s head. Old Man, that was what everyone called him. Old Man jostled, squeezed, and probed him, then let him go and went to sit in the chair and get his breath back.

Ralph replaced the last drawer he’d taken out.

“I was looking for mentions of those expelled from the House,” he said. “Whose parents took them away shortly before the graduation. Some of them seemed to have developed this strange disorder, the Lost Syndrome, they called it. Do you remember?”

Old Man knitted his brow.

“Lost Syndrome . . .” he muttered. “That wouldn’t be here. You’ll have to go dig in the sick-bay archives. Rare thing, that, but yes, sometimes . . .”

“Were there any cases similar, but not exactly like that?”

Old Man sank even deeper in thought.

“There were lots of things,” he said finally. “All sorts . . . Can’t say for sure.”

Ralph felt acute disappointment. When you start hoping for a miracle you sometimes get it, and then it turns out completely hollow. What did he expect from this old clown? Even in his better times he couldn’t see past his own nose.

As if confirming his suspicions, Old Man waved his hand dismissively at the cabinets.

“What you’re looking for isn’t there,” he said again, tapping his forehead. “It’s all in here, collected and stored. The fount of memory is inside, and all that is just dumb paper.”

With that he grabbed Ralph by the hand and pulled him to the door.

“Let’s go! I will tell you everything I remember, and I remember everything!”

Alarmed by this promise, Ralph shuffled after Old Man while he, not letting his mouth close even for a moment, clicked the switches that gradually restored the library to darkness.

“You see . . . As soon as I saw you today, I immediately thought: Time to come out! It was like lightning! I simply had to come out, that’s what I thought . . .”

The night-guard quarters, the first room from the stairs, turned out to be a tiny nook stuffed to the brim with mismatched furniture, old magazines, and clocks. The clocks filled all available space on the walls. Ralph’s first impression was that the walls were encrusted with glass plaques in lieu of wallpaper, and he had to look closer to realize his mistake. It was indeed mostly clocks, with a few watches here and there, and even some alarm clocks thrown in. He froze in stunned amazement, studying the dials that surrounded him. None of them worked. Their hands pointed at different angles, some had no hands at all. For some reason Ralph’s memory brought up that endless winter night when his watch and the time itself refused to move, an experience he didn’t much like to recall.

Old Man obviously relished his reaction.

“Impressive, isn’t it? Took me fifteen years to collect. Not everything was salvageable, of course, and then I have some I couldn’t fit here. I’ve got two more boxes under the bed, both chock full.”

He hung the cap on the nail in the door, squeezed sideways between the table and the bed, went to the far corner, crouched down, and started rummaging there.

It occurred to Ralph that he was going to be presented with the undisplayed part of the collection, but when Old Man straightened up he was holding a bottle.

“Someone mentioned that the life expectancy of a clock in the House, doesn’t matter what kind, was surprisingly small,” he said, wiping off the bottle with a suspicious-looking piece of cloth. “That was what had set it in motion. I was only collecting the wall clocks at first. The ones in the canteen and the classrooms. I expect others in my position would just give in and stop putting them up, but I was intrigued. It was a challenge of sorts.”

He proudly placed the bottle on the table and admired it.

“Usually we couldn’t find any evidence of them being tampered with, you see. Then it came to me that watches should be out there somewhere too, and I put a word out for the janitors to be on the lookout and bring me any that they found in the trash. Now those were being broken on purpose. Crushed down to dust, almost. The collection got a big boost. After a while I had to stop accepting the ones that were completely destroyed.”

Ralph attempted to read the label on the bottle, but Old Man switched off the light and turned on a feeble desk lamp.

“That better? The collection does make people a tad uncomfortable sometimes.”

“It is better,” Ralph agreed. “And it is uncomfortable. Too sparkly.”

“I’m used to it. It’s all a matter of habit. I would miss them if they went away.”

Old Man presented Ralph with a glass and pulled up a stool, then made himself comfortable on the quilt-covered couch. The glass appeared to be holding wine.

“What is it that you do here, exactly?” Ralph said.

The question sounded somewhat impolite, but Old Man clearly had been waiting for it to be asked and wasn’t too particular about the precise wording. He leaned forward, clutching the unlit pipe in his hand.

“I observe. I track the situation as it develops. Truth be told, I seem to have missed some things in my time.”

Practically all of them, Ralph thought. And you missed them while sitting in the principal’s office. What do you hope to see now from the night guard’s post?

“I had some theories I wanted to check.” Old Man downed almost an entire glass in one gulp. “That old story kept tormenting me. A couple of years ago I finally realized that I had to go back. And so—here I am!”

It sounded so pompous that Ralph winced. He knew he should try to be tolerant, but Old Man was grating on his nerves. His self-righteous complacency, that idiotic clock collection—Ralph’s day hadn’t been going too great even without all this.

“I suppose you enjoy full access to a lot of things now?” he said. “From this room, I mean. In your position as a guard.”

“More than you can imagine,” the former principal said importantly, leaving a significant pause.

Ralph at this point had neither energy nor desire to feign interest. The pause lingered.

“Ask!” Old Man prompted, leaning back on a stack of magazines that gave way under the weight. The magazines cascaded down on the floor. Old Man pretended not to notice.

“What about?” Ralph said glumly.

“Anything! Don’t you have any questions at all?”

The wine was sweet to the point of stickiness and almost impossible to drink. Ralph felt the encounter moving inexorably to Old Man taking offense and Ralph feeling guilty for having offended him. Old Man desperately required an enraptured listener, and Ralph was crushingly bad at it. He rolled the syrupy liquid in his mouth and managed to force it down.

“I am afraid,” he began cautiously, “that the questions I have are not the kind you might have answers to.”

“Try me! What have you got to lose?”

Old Man frowned.

“Oh, all right. I get it. That’s fine, you don’t have to. I’m not going to push you. I just thought that you might be interested in learning some things. You looked like you were stumped.” He filled his glass again and emptied it in two gulps. Fighting the belch coming up, he added, “I’m telling you, Rex’s grandma is something else. She isn’t the goody-two-shoes she’s playing. I figured you’d appreciate my help, now that you’ve locked horns with her.”

Ralph straightened up.

“What?” he said, not quite believing his ears. “Who are you talking about?”

“That granny of Rex’s, who else?” Old Man looked at him quizzically. “Wasn’t it her that you crossed at the meeting today?”

Ralph took a huge swig of the wine.

“Once more from the beginning,” he said. “Are we talking about the same person? Godmother? Is she somehow related to Vulture?”

Old Man nodded.

“Sure. His own dear granny. You mean you didn’t know?”

“Where did you get that?”

“For crying out loud!” Old Man said hotly. “Where! Same place you’d get it, if only you made an effort and utilized your head once in a while. I used to have this habit, you know, of checking out people before hiring them. And she was the only one who looked halfway professional among the riffraff that your new principal dragged in. Of course, that piqued my interest. People like her don’t all of a sudden come to work for people like him. I conducted my usual due diligence. All of her credentials turned out to be fake. Then I just sneaked a peek at her driver’s license, registered under her real last name.”

He gave Ralph an incensed look.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t even suspect it!”

Ralph poured himself more wine. “Except that’s the truth. It has never crossed my mind. I guess I was surprised when she came in, but that was the extent of it. I wouldn’t dream of checking someone’s papers. Who knows what her reasons were for coming here.”

Old Man looked crestfallen, and Ralph rushed to console him.

“Please understand. Here I’ve always been surrounded by decent people. Like you said, professionals. I probably got too used to it. Her arrival came unexpectedly for you, because it wasn’t you who hired her. And I just thought—great, now there’s someone on that side who looks like she knows what she’s doing.”

Old Man shook his head again, but not as ruefully this time. The well-placed flattery was having an effect.

“Well, all right,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You young people just haven’t the knack for paperwork, ’cause we always tried to shield you from it. Another one of my mistakes, now that I think about it.”

“Don’t blame yourself for everything,” Ralph demanded in a fit of self-loathing. “I’m not that young. You’re entirely correct, I should’ve used my head.”

Old Man patted him on the shoulder, put away the empty bottle, and immediately extracted another one from behind the couch.

Ralph broke out in nervous laughter and said, “I would appreciate it if you’d explain to me one more time what a dunce I am. Tell me what she is trying to accomplish with her suggestions. I can’t imagine why she would all of a sudden need to show everyone who was the boss here with only a few days remaining until graduation.”

Old Man perked up.

“Yes. Exactly. Few days remaining. And she’s scared witless that her grandson is going to do any of that graduating. Because then, by the terms of his late grandfather’s will, the family mansion passes on to him. So, she would either have to live with him under one roof, or go find herself another place, which isn’t that easy at her age.”

He scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“I guess those two didn’t get along too well. Or maybe they did at first and then they didn’t anymore. Anyway, Grandpa played a nice dirty trick on his dearly beloved. I’ve seen quite a few people do that. How it’s supposed to make them feel better when they’re dead, I have no idea.”

Ralph poured himself more wine.

“What about the parents?”

“The parents? That’s a sad story right there. Mother killed herself at nineteen. Father—now you see him, now you don’t, no one even knows who he was. Grandma and Grandpa shipped the boys to an orphanage with the mother still alive, right after they were born, and haven’t given a hoot about them since. At least they never tried to find out anything about them once they were here. I mean, I don’t think Grandpa ever did care, except he couldn’t think of another way to get at her.”

“You are a genius,” Ralph said earnestly.

Old Man waved him away. His eyes were shining.

“Everything is actually very simple if you get the right information. And I still have ways of getting it, thankfully.”

They drank some more. Ralph had the sensation of his stomach congealing into a sticky blob. The syrup also messed with his head.

We’re having a Fairy Tale Night, Ralph thought. Drinking and telling each other scary stories about the Outsides. Me and the former principal. Or rather he’s telling and I’m listening. And I’m already plastered.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him that made him jump.

“Now wait a minute! I still don’t understand . . . She wants to remove Vulture from the House, right? Hoping that it’s going to break him down. All right. But. They told me that they expected me to make that choice. That I was the one to decide who it’s going to be. Which means . . .”

“Which means you got snookered.” Old Man shrugged. “Or did they guess right?”

“No. They didn’t.”

“They’ll talk you into it, then. Dressing it up like that’s what you wanted.”

Ralph felt cold fury flooding him. Trying to stanch this sudden shivering, he hugged his own shoulders, but the cold was spreading from inside. Even a fur coat would not have been enough.

So all this time, while he was fighting his conscience and mulling over the inevitable standoff with Sphinx, the damn hag was angling to throw out Vulture. And he would be her able assistant in that tomorrow, trotting out every last argument against removing Blind that he’d spend the night digging up. All she had to do was agree with him and then put out a counterproposal that he would have no choice but to accept. Because unlike the Fourth, the Third had no one who could take Vulture’s place. The entire pack would just freeze. It was quite possible that in Shark’s mind that would count as a huge victory in his battle to ensure safety at all costs. And the most disgusting part of it all was how well she’d managed to get into his head while sitting on the other side of the House, seemingly absorbed in her own duties and responsibilities. Ralph shuddered at the thought that the old crone had been watching him closely for the last four years and he simply didn’t notice. Him, Vulture, and everyone else for that matter. She’d predicted Ralph’s reactions to a tee, including the show he’d put up of quitting, and had woven them into her plans. There was only one wrinkle she didn’t count on: an equally shrewd old-timer hiding in plain sight right under her nose.

Old Man was insistently pushing a restorative glass of wine at Ralph, getting more and more anxious.

“Don’t get so upset, my boy! Buck up! You look pale. You’ll need all the resolve you’ve got to fight the enemy. Do you hear?”

Ralph realized that he’d better take the glass before he got drenched. He drained it in one gulp and resolutely set it aside.

“I think that’s enough for me for tonight. Or I might just go and bump off someone.”

This statement horrified the former principal.

“No! Never! Violence is never the answer! That would be your undoing!”

“No, you don’t understand. I was not planning to kill her. No way. Revenge is a dish best served surreptitiously.” Ralph got up, realized that his legs weren’t equal to the task, and lowered himself back on the stool. “Did you make this wine yourself?”

Old Man was kicking up such a fuss around him that Ralph felt slightly uneasy.

“My dear old gnome,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m perfectly all right.”

This somehow failed to calm Old Man. He tripped over the kettle’s electric cord and crashed down on the pile of magazines.

“Enough of that,” Ralph said, helping him up. “I told you, everything’s fine. We’re going to sit down now and have a nice long chat. You’re going to share your wisdom and experience and provide advice. And I’m going to listen. And so on and so forth.”

“Perfect!” Old Man exclaimed hotly, steadying himself. “What a great idea! That’s exactly what we’ll do!”

For the next hour, Ralph pretended to be listening to Old Man. To his stories of the tangled webs of intrigue from the old days. He even voiced agreement from time to time. The stories became more and more complicated as Old Man’s speech became less and less coherent. After the fourth bottle, the headache returned and the sense of time vanished.

That’s good . . . that’s nice . . . just the way it should be. I need to get really far over the edge to be doing what I’m planning to do. Really, really far . . .

Suddenly the lamp went off.

Ralph peeked out into the hallway and discovered that it was completely dark there too.

“Lights out,” Old Man grumbled. “Just what we needed. And in the most interesting place, too. I have some candles in the desk over there.”

Ralph pulled out the drawer, felt there for a bundle of thick tapers, and lit one of them.

“I had a flashlight,” he remembered. “But I don’t anymore. I left it. In the library. In the coat. With the coat. Sloppy, sloppy.”

Old Man proffered him a saucer. As Ralph started dripping wax on it, he discovered with amazement that it was incredibly hard to make the drips land in the same place. The wax seemed to want to splash all over the desk. Defeated, he returned the candle and the saucer to Old Man and said that he had to go.

Old Man was already sleeping on his feet, and didn’t protest.

“You sure? All right. Take a candle. Another candle. And I need to walk you over. Lock the door behind you and all that. Because the keys. I have the keys. I am the guard here, I’ll have you know!”

Ralph assured Old Man that he would on no account forget that.

Swaying, they went out into the hallway together. Ralph was holding the former principal under the arm, while the principal waved the candle around, splattering them both with hot wax, and discoursed on the topic of revenge. According to him, the best kind was to sit at the bottom of the river and wait for the bodies of your enemies to float by.

“Are you sure it’s the bottom?” Ralph said. “Like algae?”

“Precisely,” Old Man said. “Those ancient Chinese, they knew their stuff. Did I mention it was a typically Chinese way of revenge?”

When they reached the door, Ralph took the candle from Old Man and tried to use it to light the second one, but Old Man’s excited breathing as he hung limply off Ralph’s shoulder kept blowing it out, until finally he extinguished both of them. Ralph decided that it was for the best. He wouldn’t have been comfortable leaving Old Man here with an open flame. He somehow managed to haul him to the guard’s post, remembered about the cigarette lighter, and with its help found the second copy of the key on the nail in the wall. He dumped Old Man, already snoring happily, on the battered chair in the corner and set off on the return journey.

After locking the door behind him and coming to the landing, he lit the candle. He was taking the stairs very carefully, step by step, to maintain balance and to keep the candle from going out, feeling like a character from a gothic novel.

His entrance in the corridor on the second floor was quite spectacular. He shuffled forward slowly, dimly aware of the appreciative whispers from the unseen audience, holding the candle in front of him—white shirt, sunken eyes, hair sticking out. He desperately wished for a candlestick. A graceful antique affair, with a winding stem, he’d look so much more dashing if he had that. Also he wished for some more steadiness. And for the rustling around him to stop.

The corridor was supposed to lead Ralph straight to the door of his office, but it was playing tricks tonight. It branched three times instead, demanding that Ralph choose which turn to take, and every time he had grave suspicions that he’d chosen incorrectly.

Finally, in a filthy, garbage-strewn corner—the House had never had such places before tonight, Ralph was absolutely sure of that—an unfamiliar-looking young boy courteously touched him on the arm and offered his assistance.

“Yes, thank you,” Ralph said. “I seem to be slightly lost.”

“Where would you like to go?”

Ralph studied the boy closely. At least he lacked visible wings.

“I need someone to help me exact a terrible vengeance,” he explained. “But not the Chinese kind. For the Chinese kind I’m not quite ready yet. Would you happen to know anyone of that persuasion?”

The polite boy said nothing but nodded matter-of-factly and went ahead. Ralph, bone tired, tagged along behind. The candle was half-gone. His fingers no longer felt the burns.

At length he was brought to a surprisingly cozy room and put in a high-backed chair. There he was provided with a splendid candlestick, a pill for the headache, and a glass of water. Afraid that he might fall asleep, Ralph rushed to explain the purpose of his visit.

“I am a stoolie,” he said, peeling the flows of dried wax from his fingers. “A snitch. And I am tattling. Betraying my own. Exposing the evil plots of the Outsides.”

This revelation was received with sympathy.

Ralph, inspired by the reception, told everything he knew about Godmother.

“Vulture needs to be warned,” he said, concluding the confession. “Tell him he’s in danger.”

The hospitable owners of the cozy room promised Ralph that they would do just that.

Ralph remembered nothing about his way back.

When he woke up he was on his own couch. His insides were burning and his bladder threatened to burst, but there was, surprisingly, no trace of a headache. He shuffled to the bathroom and relieved himself, staring in horror at the wax-encrusted trousers. The shirt wasn’t much better. He washed his face, did his best to scrape the wax off the glove and the shoes, then changed and went out. He needed to get to Shark first, before Godmother had her way with him.

Shark was in a state of total stupefaction. Godmother was nowhere to be seen.

“I came to make a statement,” Ralph said.

“Your statement is just the thing I need right now. Have a look at this,” Shark said, passing Ralph a sheet of paper. “Like it?”

It was Godmother’s resignation letter, citing “family circumstances.” Ralph stared at the looping signature under today’s date and shuddered, like from a sudden burst of cold wind.

“When did she bring it?”

“She didn’t!” Shark roared, jumping up. “No one in this whole damn dump can be bothered to actually bring me something in person! At least she had the decency to take it as far as my office. And staple it to the door! How sweet of her, don’t you agree? Because I know some people who couldn’t manage even that!”

Shark dashed about the office, frantically kicking the furniture.

“Who do you all take me for? Your elderly deaf granny? Family circumstances, all right, great! But coming in and explaining what the hell happened—oh, no, that’s not how we do things! We’re in such a hurry we barely have the time to write this!”

The door opened a crack and Raptor peeked in. He read the situation correctly and realized that the best strategy for him at this time would be to vanish. Ralph waited it out while Shark’s ire peaked and then he said, “Has anyone seen her today?”

“Not me,” Shark grunted. “And I don’t give a damn about what anyone else saw!”

He stopped and finally had a better look at Ralph’s appearance.

“What’s this, a tropical safari? I’ve had it up to here with Sheriff and his polos, and now you come strolling in here in sneakers? We have a dress code, you know. A suit! Trousers, button-down shirt, jacket! And a tie! All right, I’m not going to insist on the jacket when it’s this hot, but jeans and a tee—that’s too much. You’re going to be the death of me, all of you!”

“My trousers are slightly ruined at the moment. With wax,” Ralph admitted. “And the shoes too.”

Shark shot a mad look at him and crashed in the armchair.

“The death!” he repeated and closed his eyes.

Ralph decided that he’d better go.

He saw that Shark was in the throes of panic. Godmother’s exit he interpreted as her running away in fear, and the fact that she chose this particular moment for it—that what she feared was the graduation. Shark himself dreaded the graduation so much that no other possible explanation would even occur to him.

Ralph didn’t believe in the urgent departure either, but his doubts were of a different nature. What did they do to her was the principal question on his mind. That it was something they did he had no doubt, but what was it? What could make Godmother abandon the House?

In the duty room it was Sheep’s shift. She was sitting there alone, thumbing through a magazine instead of her customary knitting. Ralph’s question about Godmother set her eyes blinking.

“A letter of resignation? Can’t be! Well, no, I haven’t seen her today, but her shift is not until two and she never comes down before that. The letter must be someone’s idea of a silly joke.”

By three o’clock Ralph had established that no one in the House had seen Godmother that day.

Not on the third floor, not on the second, and not in the yard. Her room was cleaned out, her car disappeared from its place in the garage, and there was not a single thing left in the duty room that could have belonged to her.

Exactly when, in the course of the few hours, she managed to wipe every trace of her presence from the House and leave without anyone noticing remained a mystery.

The old guard swore to Ralph on his honor that he hadn’t unlocked the door for Godmother, neither at night nor in the morning. Ralph believed him. When he’d left last night, Old Man could have slept through an artillery attack. But the spare set of keys, usually available for the use of the counselors, Ralph had taken.

Ralph knew that the children of the House could get in and out of the tiniest cracks, but he could not imagine the same arcane paths being taken by an elderly lady. As much as he tried to chase it away, his imagination kept unfolding this surreal picture before him: the boys, resembling at the same time a group of busy black ants and a detachment of sinister ninjas, dragging a listless woman, bound tightly like a mummy, swiftly along the rainwater pipe. Variations on this theme included the body being delivered ceremoniously to the basement or stuffed down the storm drain. Then the ant ninjas soared on their invisible strings to the third-floor windows and went to work on the counselor’s room, filling their capacious backpacks with her personal effects.

The vision of Vulture thoughtfully putting down the signature at the bottom of Godmother’s resignation letter, carefully checking it against her real autograph on some paper or other, was much less bizarre and much more frightening. In a peculiar coincidence, Bird Leader was known for his advanced ability to forge any handwriting. It was a point of pride for him on par with, if not more than, his talent at picking locks. And the one thing that Ralph could not picture, no matter how he tried, was Godmother stapling an important document to the door of the principal’s office. She’d never do that. It was against her style.

Ralph made sure to personally examine the basement, the attic, and every empty room on the first floor in both wings. The closer inspection of the storm drain he decided to postpone until dark. He took a break in his investigations to pay another visit to Shark and convince him not to declare an emergency assembly and not to remove anyone from the House unilaterally, since Godmother’s flight clearly indicated that she herself had grave doubts about the success of such actions. Shark made a brief display of reluctance and then quickly surrendered—almost eagerly, Ralph thought.

On his way out of Shark’s office, Ralph bumped into Raptor, who shook his hand.

“The victory is ours,” he whispered.

Sheriff was more direct.

“Way to go, man, throwing out that harridan,” he said, bathing Ralph in a gentle wave of alcohol reek. “Keep it up!”

Sheriff had been celebrating the happy riddance of Godmother since morning, and by this time could hardly be called lucid, but it still made Ralph pause. What did the counselors think he’d done when congratulating him? After running through several possibilities of what they might have been imagining, he decided to cancel the dive in the storm drain altogether.

Ralph hadn’t been back to his office through the day, but when he finally reached it around ten at night, there was a surprise waiting for him inside.

On the floor in the middle of the room stood a massive bronze candlestick. One of its two cups was empty, but the second contained the lopsided runny stub of the taper.