Chapter 6

The Next Evening

I smiled at the feeling of deja vu, as I sat with Grant in Wendi’s and Lucas’s room, hearing the tapping at the door. Once again, Lucas called, “Come in.”

Tasha, Holden’s roommate, peeked in through the doorway, the uncertain look on her face identical to Holden’s the previous night.

Wendi invited her in with a friendly wave. “Come in, Tasha. Have you met Amy and Grant?”

Tasha’s eyes grew wide. “I haven’t met them, no. I know who they are, of course.” She cautiously came forward to shake our hands, and took a seat, looking very puzzled.

Lucas started the discussion. “I want you to know, first thing, that this isn’t about you, or anything you’ve done. But we’re in a situation where we want to try shifting some roommate assignments around. This kind of thing is always a little tricky, because even in just two weeks, some roommates have developed a strong bond already, and they’d be upset if they had to change partners. Now, whatever you say won’t go beyond this room. What we need to know is whether you’d consider rooming with someone else.”

Tasha looked very taken aback. Despite Lucas’s assurance, I could read in her face that her immediate thought was that she must have made Holden mad somehow. I decided to clarify. “The reason this is coming up is that we want Holden to start working on a special project, with some individualized instruction, and we’d like him to room with a couple of Second Years. Those two and Holden already know we’re trying to work this out, and it’s fine with them. If you say no, none of them will find out the arrangement fell through because of anything you said. We’ll tell them the Dean didn’t approve it, which is sort of true, because he won’t approve any move that isn’t okay with everybody. So I just want you to understand, you can decide either way and it won’t make Holden mad at you. Okay?” I smiled at Tasha encouragingly.

Tasha sat back with a sigh of relief, and a small smile. “I wouldn’t mind rooming with someone else. I really like Holden a lot, and he is so sweet, and fun to talk to, but ... to tell you the truth, he scares me a little.”

I blinked in surprise. “Holden scares you?” Before Tasha said another word, I knew why. I knew exactly.

Tasha responded, “Well, of course, the last few nights we’ve started practicing hanging, in our room. And when I watch him, I just think, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I do what he’s doing? I’ve tried to imitate it, but as soon as I start, then I can’t breathe, and everything gets out of whack, and I try to get the rhythm back, like our teachers have been showing us, but it’s just totally gone. Holden’s tried to help, and I do feel like I’m getting somewhere, but ... Anyway, I do feel better about it in class, in the gym, because I can see everybody else is kind of like me. But then as soon as I watch Holden again up close, and then I have to hang with him watching me...”

I smiled at him. “You don’t need to explain. I know all about it.”

Tasha needed to finish her thought. “I just feel so ... inadequate. I’ve started worrying I don’t have what it takes, and I’m having a hard time concentrating on studying...”

I waved my arms, again smiling. “Okay, stop, stop.” I sat forward. “Tasha, there’s no reason to think you’re inadequate. You’re just ... well, you may be looking to the wrong person for a standard.”

Tasha smiled, as if I had confirmed what she had been hoping. “There is something special about him, isn’t there?”

I nodded. “We think so, anyway. If there is, we want to draw it out, help him work with it. Oh, I was going to tell you, he said he likes you a lot too. I know you two haven’t had sex yet, but it’s not anything about you.”

Tasha laughed. “Oh, I do know that much. We did kiss once, when we got back to the room after our first hanging class and were really excited, but ... well, I get a feeling he’s a little too attached to his brother to be ready to sleep with somebody else yet.” She shook her head in wonder. “He’s already filled up one entire notebook with that diary he’s keeping.”

Wendi joined in the discussion. “What we need to figure out now is who you might room with. I’ve been...”

Tasha’s eyes shot wide open. “Oh! Could I get in with Wilson and Celia? I’ve been eating lunch with them a lot. I think they’d be willing. Or then there’s that one room that already has three. I like Errol, and I’ve been getting a feeling his other roommates are kind of closer to each other than they are to him.”

Wendi beamed at him. “Thank you! That saves us a lot of trouble, if one of those matchups works out. Okay, we know Holden is in the library right now. We’ll try to get back to you later this evening, but if he gets back to the room before you hear from us, don’t say anything to him, okay? This isn’t a done deal yet.”

“Okay.” Tasha stood and gave us a cheery wave as she left.

The Next Afternoon

I sat in one of the chairs in the Dean’s outer office, holding the yearbook, trying to make sure I had the outline of what I wanted to say. I had earned a lot of concessions from the Dean recently. But this, I suspected, would be a lot harder than those.

There was no doubt in my mind about the need for what I’d be proposing. Holden and Hamish were going to be outstanding Noosemeisters, no matter what. But I was convinced that, if their training were handled the right way, these two boys were going to be the most important thing ever to happen to the Academy. And I loved the Academy with all my heart.

At present, Grant was with Melissa, Jana, and Holden in their room, supervising their practice, and probably working with Jana on a new idea Jana had mentioned for bound-feet hanging. I’d been with them for two hours this morning, until it was time for my appointment with the Dean. Holden had done a short practice session in the noose. Melissa’s and Jana’s eyes had nearly popped out of their heads. I could read it all on Melissa’s face: Two weeks, this boy has been here two weeks, and I’ve been here a year, and I can’t even do what he’s doing!

I had also seen in Melissa’s eyes: I will do it. I’ll learn to do anything he can do.

I jumped slightly as Tina, the Dean’s secretary, answered the buzz on her intercom. “Go on in,” she told me.

I took a seat. The Dean smiled at me across his desk, leaning back in his chair, holding a pen he had probably been using before I came in. I returned the smile. “Thank you for seeing me, Sir. I was just now thinking about my first time in here, more than three years ago.”

The Dean chuckled, rolling the pen between his fingers. “Little did I know, right?”

I felt my face coloring a little. “Well, you knew I had the potential to make it. I’m really grateful you did.”

The Dean gave me an ironic smile. “But enough about me. I know that look. You have a grand idea you want approval for.”

I tried hard not to react. The Dean had an ability to read people that was very much like a Noosemeister’s. “Sir, you can probably also tell that I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you’d end up liking it, once you hear it all the way through.”

The Dean raised an eyebrow. “So my first instinct will be to say no?”

I sighed. “Yes, Sir. But I know you’ll listen. You always do.”

“Ah.” He smiled again. “Flattery.” He sat up straighter, closing his fingers around the pen. “Okay. Listening.”

I took a deep breath. “I want to start just by reporting that the roommate switch has gone smoothly. Holden has already moved his things to Melissa’s and Jana’s room, Errol has moved in with Tasha, and everybody’s happy all around.”

The Dean frowned slightly. “And now I’m getting the feeling that was just the first step in an agenda. I hadn’t realized that.”

I waved the suggestion off. “Oh, no, Sir, it’s not like that. Yes, I’m going to ask for some things, but it’s not related to switching roommates. I want to talk about some things that hadn’t even occurred to me when we started thinking about trying to change room assignments.”

The Dean raised the eyebrow again, and gestured with the pen. “Proceed.”

I had tentatively worked out my opening. “Well, to begin with, I’m sure Melissa and Jana will be able to handle the extra work without it disrupting their other studies. We’ll never ask for them to be taken out of class or excused from any assignments.”

The Dean gave me a deeper frown. “But why shouldn’t that apply to Holden too?”

Damn him, he’s already arguing with a point I haven’t even made yet. I decided to try a little humor. With a smile, I said in an I’m-giving-you-a-little-dig voice, “Listening.”

He laughed. “Okay. Doing so.”

I got back on track. “Sir, what I hope you’ll approve is taking Holden altogether out of the First Year class, and letting him start as a new First Year student with the entering class next Fall.”

The Dean suddenly let his reclining chair come forward with a thump. With an astonished expression, he said, “You were right. Immediately the word ‘no’ comes to mind.”

“Yes, Sir. And remember the part about how I think you’ll end up liking this?”

Reluctantly, he leaned back again. “Go on ... Oh!!” His eyes shot open. “Does this relate to his brother somehow?”

I heaved a tentative sigh of relief. Since he’d now made the connection himself, this might make the rest of it easier. “Very much so, Sir. Of course, I’ve never met Hamish, but I’ve talked with Holden enough to know that the two of them have sort of a ... pipeline into each other’s heads. Now, Holden has some amazing abilities, but he is still just an entering student, and he has so much left to learn, and of course his brother will be in that same state when he gets here, just a very talented neophyte. They are both excellent students, and they can succeed anywhere, but in the context of the Academy, they’ll learn the most when they’re ... well, literally on the same page, studying together. It will just be such a huge benefit for both of them to be in the same class.” That was an understatement. I could tell that Holden and Hamish were, in a strong sense, two halves of a single person, united by their love of hanging. Now that he was at the Academy, Holden was unable to let the tiniest detail of his life go by without recording it in his diary for Hamish. Ordinary schoolwork, through high school, had been so easy for them that it was only a remote distraction from their concentration on hanging. But once they were both here at the Academy, it was crucial that they become one in their studies. I knew that each of them could be an outstanding Academy student by himself. But I was pretty sure the Academy had never before seen students of their unique potential, and that potential might never be fully realized if they were forced into unsynchronized studies.

“Amy, we’re talking about waiting for a student who hasn’t been admitted yet—who hasn’t even applied for admission—for whom we don’t have any high school grades because he hasn’t sent a transcript, which wouldn’t include senior grades because they don’t even exist yet. You’re asking me to assume he’s going to be admitted to an institution whose selectivity you very well know.”

“Yes, Sir, but you know Holden. You know he was a straight-A student in high school, and I’m sure he wowed you in the interview. When he left this room, did you seriously have any doubts you were going to admit him?”

The Dean was quiet for a moment. He looked at the ceiling, suddenly reminiscent. “You know ... well, you wouldn’t know ... when I did the choking test in his interview, he said right afterward that he’d noticed I’d only cut off his air, not his arterial flow, and that I was probably really looking for his emotional reaction to asphyxia rather than his physical one. Of course, I know what I’m doing, but I never had an applicant sit there and explain it to me before.”