Ben felt the possibility of the adults not being disappointed with him drain out of the room.

“I should probably go. I still need to get books from my room for next period.”

“Well,” said Phelps, “you change your mind, come back.” Ben nodded, but then worried that the nod would be interpreted as an admission of guilt. Then he stood up and nodded again.

When Ben came out into the hallway, the door to the Bursar’s office was closed. Ben started down the quiet stairs back into it all, but he heard a door open behind him, and when he turned he saw Markson taking a few jogging steps to catch up. Ben waited, and Markson came down two steps.

“Hey, thank you for coming in, I know that was intense.”

“Not the end of the world.”

“Nothing gets a school more scared than hazing. But I understand what kind of position you’d be in with other kids.” He smiled.

“Maybe it happened in some other dorm, but—” Ben smiled as well, and the two of them seemed to duel with weary smiles for a moment.

“Listen, I’ve been working on this project—maybe it’s a little hokey, but just in the context of all this, I thought you could help me.”

Ben raised his eyebrows and compressed his lips.

“Aston has asked me to rewrite part of the Companion, and I’m trying to find out what students think about it.”

“The Companion?”

Markson laughed. “Exactly. You know the little blue book they gave you the first day?” Ben immediately saw where it was in the pencil drawer of his desk. “There’s an essay in there on decision-making—actually called ‘Decision-Making’—and it’s been the same forever, since before I went here; it still refers to students as ‘boys.’ So I’m redoing it. Take a look, then let’s talk over what you think.”

“Okay, sure, yeah, will do.” Ben paused. “Hey, I would totally say something if there was anything—”

Markson raised his hand to his waist and made a brush-away gesture. “That’s not—listen, whatever you want to do. I just also wanted to say…it may have seemed this way, but don’t think this has anything to do with the tuition situation.”

Ben tried to say something but instead lifted his eyebrows again.

Markson closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them he was looking down toward the far side of the stairs. “Like, don’t think they’re trying to put pressure on you with that. It’s between your parents and the school.”

Then the tip-of-the-tongue feeling resolved as Ben remembered the mail that spring as he had waited for his admissions letter. Every day the mail would come and Ben would scour it for anything from St. James, anything on that ecru paper with the ant insignia in the upper left corner, worried that it wouldn’t be the thick packet.