She turned back, and he managed to look up just in time. “Don’t let them be mean to him.” She didn’t wait for him to react before she faced ahead again.

He considered the reality of actually trying to ask her out. He would almost prefer not to have more than this; just this could be exactly what he had been preparing for. Hawley was right on the other side of the Two-Laner, and he waited until the doors closed behind her to let up the brake again and pull away.

8. Basic Oxygen

8. Basic Oxygen

THANKSGIVING APPROACHED. NOW GOING TO SEATED ALL THE well-off boys wore Gore-Tex jackets with the tails of their blue blazers sticking out the bottom. Ben got his cast off and went into a gray-plastic walking boot fastened with Velcro. Still Hutch talked about a way to get back at the school, but it had started to seem abstract. Worry about money sat constantly in Ben’s chest, but after the weeks on crutches, he felt a leap there when Rory told him they were going to have another captain’s practice. He went over to the courts, waiting to feel that unease with his father’s overreach or with Price’s bargain for him to earn his place at the school. But as he passed the Dragon he was just psyched to hit.

About a dozen kids were already sitting on the carpeted stadium steps, chatting quietly. Ahmed hadn’t mentioned that he was planning to play squash, but there he was, in all-whites. Ben rode out his annoyance as Ahmed nodded briefly to him, but Ahmed continued talking to the two closest kids, and they seemed to be talking back. It was the most normal social interaction Ben had seen him have in weeks.

The captain was Colin McCaffrey, a sixth-former, a solid, athletic player whom Ben had seen play in the Under-17s and was positive he could beat. As soon as Colin came into the stadium area of the courts, with his short hard steps and his brown hair in front of his eyes, Ben could tell that he had been named captain because there wasn’t really anyone else. Cole Quinlan, the sixth-former who would have been captain, had shattered his jaw and the floor of his eye’s orbit in a grad-party car accident and likely wouldn’t come back to school. Rory was clearly next, but he was still in fourth form. Colin seemed to have removed speaking from the room.

Price as head coach was expected not to attend a captain’s practice, but Mr. Markson, who had been tapped as the team’s strength-and-conditioning coach, came into the courts and said they were going to the weight room at the gym: nothing too crazy but just a quick intro. Markson wore boxy gray sweats, the elastic cuffs of the pants tight around his ankles. Everyone seemed a little relieved that Price wouldn’t be coming.