Ahmed had to break into a two-step trot every ten steps or so to keep up. The early-dusk light reflected off the pond through long, slim evergreens, and it was as though the scene were mocking Ben with its placidity. They emerged from the path and jogged up a short set of stairs onto the brick path leading to the Dish. The Dish—officially the Dining Quarters but no one called it that—resembled the quad dorms in its English Gothic style and brick-and-stone complexion, but it was forty years older and forty years more refined. Slate roofs reached down into sleek gargoyles, the windows were tall grids of small leaded panes, and the tunnel passage to the entrance went under a two-story archway. The two of them came to the twelve-foot-high oak entry doors.

Ben took hold of the wrought-iron hoop handle—as thick as a garden hose and as big around as a small pie plate—and leaned his weight back against it. The wide hinges moved smoothly and Ahmed stepped through. They jogged down the long hallway to the dining hall, shoes clacking on the smooth brick floor, past Gothic-arch windows on one side and oak panels listing graduating-class names on the other. Fingers had passed over the famous names until they had been rubbed shiny. Soon they heard the surf of dining hall voices.

Ben reminded Ahmed where he was sitting and went to find his own table, where they were already halfway through the main course. The other kids and the two faculty members smiled to him, but Ben was warm with embarrassment and tried not to make any more of a spectacle of himself.

In the common room after dinner Ben searched the thrumming, glossy crowd, and finally over by the coffee tureens he saw Hutch’s lion head.

Hutch had the conviction of his own rightness around him, and Ben made his way over, leaving the other kids from his table as they all looked for somewhere else to adhere to. It seemed to take Hutch a second before he recognized Ben, almost as though he were performing the delay, but then he smiled and they clasped hands and hugged briefly, shoulders only.

Hutch felt Ben’s dense, thin torso, which had always seemed off to him. Was Ben just kind of blank or was some important part of him elsewhere, someplace he judged better than this place? Hutch had occasionally wondered whether Ben thought Tongaheewin was kind of lame.