"See you at lunchtime," Linda promised. Then she was gone and Mark was filling out the numerous questionnaires and forms that would get him enrolled as a student at Silverdale High.

Half an hour later Shirley Adams quickly went over the forms he'd completed and handed him yet another stack.

"Take these to the nurse-two doors down, on the left-then come back here after you're done. By then we should have a schedule for you."

"Wh-What about photography?" Mark asked hesitantly. "Back in San Marcos I was taking my second year of it."

Shirley Adams's smile widened. "Then you'll be in it here, too."

"You mean you really have a darkroom?"

Miss Adams looked astonished. "This is Silverdale," she said. "We have everything here."

Mark, dressed only in a pair of gym shorts that were two sizes too large, was standing on the scales when Robb Harris walked into the nurse's office. Robb glanced at the scales, then smirked at Mark.

"A hundred and five?" he asked. "You're even scrawnier than I was when I came here." Before Mark could say anything, Robb turned to the nurse. "The coach wants me to go over to the clinic this morning. Can you write me a pass?"

"In a minute," the nurse replied, not glancing up from the clipboard on which she had been noting Mark's height, blood pressure, lung capacity, reflex responses, and myriad other details pertaining to his health.

"Maybe you'd better write one for Mark, too," Robb went on, dropping onto a chair and stretching his long legs out in front of him. "I bet Dr. Ames could fix him up in no time."

Mark frowned. "Dr. Ames?" he asked. "Who's he?"

"The sports clinic. Didn't your dad tell you about it?"

Mark shook his head, but already a tight knot of anxiety was forming in the pit of his stomach.

"It's a couple of miles out of town. It's a sports camp all summer, and kids come from all over the country. But the rest of the year we get to use it."

Mark stared at Robb. "Use it for what?"

"For training," Robb replied. The look of scorn that had needled at Mark on Saturday evening came into his eyes once more. "Dr. Ames knows practically everything there is to know about sports medicine, and he's got all kinds of special equipment out there. It's neat."

"And," the nurse added with a knowing glance at Mark, "the fact that the boys get a morning off from classes when the coach sends them out there doesn't make it any tougher for them."

"Time off from classes?" Mark echoed. "Just so you can go out and train for football?"

"And basketball and baseball," Robb replied.

Mark frowned. "So what's wrong with you that you're going today?"

Robb shrugged. "Nothing. It's just a checkup. All of us on the football team get one every week."

"Everyweek? What for?"

Robb rolled his eyes impatiently. "Because you can get hurt playing football, dummy. Christ, look what happened to that guy from Fairfield on Saturday. He's all torn up inside, but he looked just fine."

The nurse put her clipboard aside for a moment, scribbled something on the top sheet of a small pad of paper, and handed it to Robb, who stood up and stretched lazily, then grinned at Mark.

"Sure you don't want to come along?" he asked. "It sure beats sitting in a math class."

Mark shook his head. "Guess I'll have to do without weekly checkups, since I'm not going out for football."

Robb looked at him sharply. "Oh, yeah? That's not the way I hear it."

And then he was gone. Mark stared at the closed door where Robb had stood a moment before. The other boy's last words echoed in Mark's mind.

The knot of anxiety in his stomach tightened.

Robb Harris pedaled his bicycle slowly out of town, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his back, feeling no rush to reach his destination. That, he decided, was one of the best things about being on the football team. You never had to rush to get anywhere except practice, and at least one day a week you could count on half a day off from classes. Not, of course, that you could let your grades slip-Phil Collins was an absolute fanatic about that. Drop below a B average, and you were off the team. But if you were on the football team, the teachers were always ready to give you a little extra help, so it was really no sweat. And in the end the best football players from Silverdale always got their pick of where they wanted to go to college.

They might not get scholarships, but they all at least got their choice.

He breathed deeply of the mountain air, enjoying the rush of oxygen filling his lungs.

Not like before, when he'd been growing up in San Marcos. From the time Robb had been seven years old, almost every breath had been an agony. He could still remember the terrible panic he felt whenever an attack began, the helpless, horrible fear as he gasped for air. It had been that way here, too, for the first few months. But then he'd started going to Dr. Ames, and been put on a regimen of exercise.

For the first six weeks he'd absolutely hated it. But then the coughing had begun to ease and he'd started feeling better. A few months later, as he'd put on weight and grown out of his clothes, he decided that all the exercise was worth it.

Then, summer before last, his dad had gotten him into the football camp, even though he'd never really played the game before. At first he felt clumsy and stupid, but as the summer progressed, he began to catch on. For the first time in his life he felt like everyone else.

Maybe, he thought, that would happen to Mark, too. Except that Mark didn't seem to care if he fit in or not. Robb snickered softly to himself, remembering Mark showing off his rabbits the other day.

Christ, that was kid stuff. And if the other guys found out about it, Mark had better watch out.

He turned off the narrow road that led up the valley toward the foothills, and steered the bike up the lane to the gates of the sports clinic, barely glancing at the sign he knew so well:

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

MensSana inCorpore Sano

Robb still thought it was a dumb name but he hadn't been able to convince Marty Ames that none of the kids cared about that old John Denver song anymore.

The gates under the arching sign stood open, and Robb rode through with a wave to a gardener who was working on the turf of the playing field to the right. He parked the bike in the stand next to the entrance and pushed open the glass door into the lobby. It was large and airy, and furnished with an assortment of comfortable furniture. During the summer the lobby served as a lounge for a motley collection of husky youths. But now, during the school year, it was deserted, and Robb hurried through it, then turned left, passed the dining hall, and entered the waiting room next to Dr. Martin Ames's office. Marjorie Jackson smiled up at Robb from behind the clutter on top of her desk. She was a middle-aged woman whose title was Assistant to the Director, and it was she, as all the boys knew, who actually took care of the day-to-day running of the camp, with little direction from her employer.

"He's in the rowing room," she said without waiting for Robb to ask. "And," she added, glancing at the clock on the wall, "you're ten minutes late."

Even before Robb could begin to make up an excuse, she had gone back to her work, pointedly ignoring him. Only slightly abashed, Robb turned and left the office, then broke into a trot as he cut through the dining room and kitchen, toward the large training section at the back of the building. Marjorie might forgive him for the ten minutes, and Dr. Ames might not even mention it, but still, Robb would see the hurt look in the doctor's eyes and know that he'd let him down.

Robb, and most of the other boys on the team, far preferred Phil Collins's shouting at them to Marty Ames's grave look of abject disappointment.