And then Ben saw Manley Price walking up from an adjoining path. Just an older man, by himself, a little stiff in the knees, clearly with no awareness of Ben’s whereabouts. But something about his uprightness and indifference to being alone suggested the highest evergreen tree on a mountain slope. They met eyes, and Price made just the smallest gesture, his hand remaining by his waist, and Ben began to slow. The other boys looked back but seemed to know to let him go.

Finally Price came near. “I heard you weren’t at captain’s practice today.”

Ben flushed with embarrassment and a sense of moving to the end of a line. “I completely forgot. Everyone was going to the boat docks.”

Instead of chastising him or even shaking his head, Price smiled and leaned in close as they continued to walk to the dining hall.

“I remember your brother.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Teddy, correct?” Ben was astonished that Price would be uncertain of Teddy’s name, and he nodded to confirm Price’s memory.

“What a waste of a body. Every time he came to the court it was like the first time he’d ever played. He just had no love for it. You could always see that he’d rather be anywhere else. A couple times I tried to kick him off the team but he would always come back.”

Hutch and the rest had gone through the double doors out of sight, and now Ben and Price came up to the same doors, and Ben opened the left one and Price stepped through without changing his pace. Once they were in the corridor with the name plaques and the stone arches and the other kids going to dinner, Ben expected him to talk in a more private tone, but Price’s voice continued on just the same as before.

“The last time Teddy came back to the team, his fifth-form year, I think, we had a good team but not the best I’d ever had, and we had a shot at the title but it was going to be close. And just every day when Teddy showed up, he’d bring his mildew energy with him, and I finally told him that if he infected the rest of the team, if I sensed any shrinking from the pain of the work, I’d make him pay for it.”

Price turned toward Ben now as they walked. “Your opponent is always going to want to avoid pain, but you run toward it, you go looking for that pain. Then you’re not afraid, and you win.” He turned to look ahead again.

“But I could tell that to excuse himself, Teddy was going to start rolling his eyes. I knew he was already doing it even if he wasn’t doing it in front of me.

“And so I made sure he never came back, and we won.”

“Made sure?”