Always a Catch by Peter Richmond

Author:Peter Richmond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2014-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

18

I FOUND THIS BIG OLD EASY chair in the library and cracked open the The Bacchae for the quiz the next day. My calculus tutor was at another table, figuring out the dimensions of the universe. A few other kids sat at a long wooden table, reading beneath bankers’ lamps, but for the most part, the huge room was empty.

The random percussion of steam radiators provided a lulling soundtrack. You could put that in a song, I thought. I could hear the crackle of a fireplace somewhere. For once, I felt like I could have been anywhere except Oakhurst Hall: some really cool living room from a movie or something.

Once Simon had explained the play and I started to figure out how to read the words, I thought it was a pretty cool story. I was starting to get into ancient Greece. Any civilization that liked sports and wine couldn’t be all bad—except that, like Bruno said, Greece ended in civil war and brought itself down . . .

I closed my eyes, and I was just sort of melting into the chair . . .

. . . while my brain was trying out a few more thoughts before I fell asleep . . . like . . .

. . . what Sam said . . . no matter where you go, there . . .

. . . and then I woke up with a start. I’d dozed off. I was cold, and the place was completely empty. I walked back to the dorm. Ward was waiting outside the door.

By now I’d figured out that The Hall had three kinds of faculty: the Jarvis ones trying to help you out by sharing what they’d learned in life, the teachers who were treading water until they summoned enough guts to find a life, and the cops who’d decided to earn their chops by giving out enough tickets that someday they could wear a head-of-school bow tie at a private day school in Tulsa.

I’d blown curfew by a good fifteen minutes. And the cop was waiting outside Screwville. When I told Ward I’d been in the library, it sounded completely lame, even though it was the truth. I guess that happens a lot. But I knew I couldn’t have come up with a lie that worked, not with the way he was looking at me.

“The library is closed, Lefferts.” Even though it was cold, beads of sweat on his half-bald head caught the light from a lamppost. He was totally getting off on this.

“But it wasn’t,” I said. “I was reading my history homework, and I fell asleep, and nobody else was there. So I left. Hey, I ran back here, sir.” Okay, slight exaggeration.

“Every minute you waste bullshitting, son,” said Ward, “is another minute you’re late.”

“I’m not lying,” I said, “sir.”

Ward daggered me in the eye. “Lefferts, I was boarding in sixth grade. I know the game. You think you can beat the house. But you’re messing with something bigger than you think.

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