“I like,” Peter replied. “Ben likes, too. Holy cow, I have to call him!”

“Call him from your room, if you will. I have work to do here, and I don’t want to listen to your squeals.”

Peter ran up the stairs, waving the letter.

Joan came in. “I was listening,” she said. “This is so great!”

“Isn’t it?” Stone said. “Where’s his mother?”

“Out shopping.”

“I didn’t think I could make him wait until she returned to open the letter. He would have exploded.”

Chapter 32

32

At the appointed time for Ben’s birthday party, Stone and Arrington had a pizza delivered and repaired to the master suite, where they watched Peter’s film, rapt.

Halfway through, Stone put down his glass of beer. “He did this by himself?”

“He and the other boys,” Arrington replied, “but knowing Peter, I’m sure he took the weight of it on his own shoulders.”

“I didn’t know he had acted in it, too.”

“Neither did I. He’s good, isn’t he?”

“He is, and so is everything else. Now I see why Leo Goldman at Centurion was so impressed.”

They continued to watch until the final fade-out, then Stone put on some music. “You know that Peter sent his screenplay and the DVD along with his application to Yale, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Arrington said.

“When Leo called me and wanted to buy the film, I insisted that he return his copies to me and keep absolutely quiet about the film, but now I don’t think it can be kept quiet. They’ll see it at Yale, and word is bound to get around that the thing is, well, brilliant.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yes.”

A faint throbbing could now be felt from three floors below.

“The party seems to be at its peak,” Stone said.

“I’ve told them to have everybody out of the house by eleven,” Arrington said.

“I hope there’s still a house left by then,” Stone said.

Early on Friday morning Stone got the two boys into the car and started for New Haven. Ben had stayed the night before. They reached New Haven in plenty of time, and Stone followed the map that Peter had printed out from the Internet. They found the administrative offices, and took seats in the waiting room. Ben was called in first for his interview.

“Peter,” Stone said, “your mother and I watched your film last night, and we thought it was absolutely terrific.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

“You remember our conversation about Leo Goldman liking it, and how I asked him to keep it a secret?”

“Sure.”

“Somebody at Yale, maybe more than one person, has seen it by now, and it may be difficult to keep it quiet.”

“It had occurred to me that that might happen,” Peter said, “but I thought my chance of being accepted here would be better if they saw it.”