The next night, after his bio test, Ben called home to make sure his dad was going to be able to send a check before the end of the year. His dad said things were still looking really good, but the municipality had postponed the rezoning hearing to March first. His voice sounded as variable as a young boy’s. Ben understood that this was simply outside his father’s control. So, okay, Ben thought, if the school made the call before the end of the year, somehow he would figure out school at home.

That night Ben woke up feeling close in the radiator heat. He went to the window and saw that it was snowing, snowing so heavily that he seemed to be looking through the windshield in a car wash. He pushed the window open and snowflakes came into his field of vision to assert their individuality for an instant before mixing back into the purple-gray.

Ben left the window cracked to cool down the room, and when he woke up there was a four-inch snowdrift on the windowsill. He looked out and the landscape was completely smoothed out. The squash courts looked like they were made of white Nerf. The Dragon carried a hump of snow, and its freshly shiny surface didn’t seem as naked.

Without any of its details, the school seemed momentarily a much easier place to live. The day before, Ben had passed shoulder to shoulder with Manley Price, whose gaze remained fixed a hundred yards beyond him. When he was forced to withdraw, none of it would matter.

He turned back to see Ahmed getting up with his usual closed eyes and creased face, and he was so excited that Ahmed was going to see snow for the first time. Ahmed stood up in his crimson boxers and went for his shower caddy to go to the bathroom, the whole time having no idea what it looked like outside.

“Hey, Ahmed, come look at this.”

“Look at what?”

“Look out the window.”

Ahmed walked over. His face was even better than Ben had expected.

“It covers everything!”

They hauled on their winter gear with an exaggerated sense of adventure, and Ben didn’t even mind Ahmed’s ridiculous coat or the gigantic Russian rabbit-fur earflap hat his father had also sent. At least he had a good pair of Sorel boots with nubbly black tread on the sole.

When they walked outside, at least two dozen kids were on the quad entirely losing their minds. Ben and Ahmed tromped toward the chapel, Ahmed picking up wedges of powdery snow between his stiff-mittened hands and lofting them into the air. The road was plowed enough to let one car through, but the walking path along it still only had a couple sets of partly snowed-in leg holes. Ben hauled Ahmed forward by the arm when he foundered.