“And the faculty, are they happy with the changes?”

“Less so, I’m afraid. One woman asked if I didn’t understand that the more I gave the students, the more they’d want. She suggested I was setting dangerous precedents. For years they’ve seen the students as the enemy and the students have reacted by being adversarial. Being bad has been the only power they’ve had. It will take time to change that.”

“What about the psychologist, Mr. Evings?

“He’s something of a disappointment. I’ve spoken to him a few times—really, only trying to help—but I seem to frighten him. At least he attends the meetings. Unfortunately, he tends to fall asleep. The students, well, he doesn’t have much credibility with them. Some are quite rude. Evings is gay, which is neither here nor there, but he feels that’s why he’s unpopular and it increases his anxiety. And of course some people do object to his gayness, which is one reason we’ve started these discussion groups. But the school nurse has helped a lot, as well as some of the faculty. The admissions office is perking up. And Bill Dolittle, the librarian, has been supportive.”

“Isn’t there a chaplain?” From the half-closed doors of a classroom, Krueger could hear talking and occasional laughter.

“Reverend Bennett, a woman. She rather disapproves of me. Early on she asked if I’d please refrain from engaging in athletic events with the students. I’d been playing basketball and scraped my knees. Actually, her husband knocked me down. He teaches math and is known for never flunking a student no matter how much the kid deserves it. He’s considered a character—very bouncy, for the most part. Anyway, the chaplain does her job well enough, giving sermons about vice and abstinence, though I don’t think many students would attend chapel if it weren’t required. Her husband was very apologetic when he hit me. It wasn’t on purpose. At least, I don’t think so.”

Krueger had taken off his overcoat and held it folded over one arm. “And what about Fritz Skander?”

“He’s been a big help, but it worries him that he’s had to mediate between me and the faculty. He’s always asking if I don’t think we’re moving ahead too quickly and he talks vaguely about ‘repercussions.’ But he means well, I believe. When I came here I thought of the faculty as a sort of unit—people who had been living and working together for years—but they’ve got all sort of dislikes and rivalries, even hatreds. Two teachers who in public strongly objected to Chip’s dismissal came to me privately to assure me that I’d done the right thing.”

“Certainly there are rivalries in treatment centers.”

“There they’re part of the fabric, basically superficial; here they’re part of the foundation. Sustaining timbers. In some cases, it’s all these people think about, as if the hatred were preexisting. And now a certain amount of their hatred has been redirected at me.” Hawthorne laughed. “But it’s hardly personal. They would have hated any headmaster.”

“You’ve been very active.”

“Yes. For many that’s a decided fault.”

A bell rang and within seconds the hall was filled with students moving from one class to the next. They seemed mostly congenial—noisy and good-natured, with backpacks and Walkmans. Two boys carried skateboards. A girl had a hockey stick. Krueger tried to look at them in the way that he expected the review board would look at them when its members visited in the spring to decide on accreditation. Krueger had visited schools all over the state. He had seen sullen schools and angry schools, even dangerous schools, but here the students seemed cordial, though there was a tension that Krueger couldn’t identify. A sort of vigilance. Quite a few greeted Hawthorne. In their dress, they seemed rather ragtag, as if their clothes had been obtained from a local thrift shop. Several had dyed their hair orange or scarlet, and one young man wore a Mohawk with three-inch purple spikes.

Hawthorne pointed him out to Krueger. “He’s sporting Bishop’s Hill’s first Mohawk and he’s terribly proud of it. Only conventional haircuts were allowed before this year. It seemed a pointless rule so I got rid of it. When I arrived, there was also a dress code. Boys were expected to wear coats and ties, girls had to wear skirts. It wasn’t very popular. So we had a vote and the coats and ties lost, nearly unanimously. Many of the faculty disliked the change. The fact that students wore coats and ties seemed proof that what the teachers were saying in class was important. Anyway, now the students are going to opposite extremes. When the rule was first dropped, one boy insisted on wearing a loincloth. So I said everyone had to be completely dressed—no bathing suits or leopard skins. It eventually got straightened out. When they come back after Christmas break, I expect they’ll be dressed more conventionally. Christmas is a good time for new clothes.”

The faculty weren’t so spirited. Some were friendly, others were cool or indifferent. They nodded to Hawthorne or said hello. They regarded Krueger with suspicion. Hawthorne introduced him to several, beginning with Herb Frankfurter and Tom Hastings, the two science teachers. Though Frankfurter was only in his forties, he walked with a cane; Hastings was younger and sharply dressed in a black shirt and a black tie. Hastings seemed cheerful enough but Frankfurter clearly objected to being stopped and introduced to strangers.

After they departed, Hawthorne said, “Mr. Frankfurter’s mad because I made him return an old Chevy he borrowed from the school last year. Since no one was using it, he didn’t see what the problem was. But the school was insuring the car and he was getting gas at the school pump some of the time. He’s one of those whose hatred seems preexisting. It’s what he does, like a hobby: hatred and football, hatred and hunting.”

“So what will you do with him?” asked Krueger.

“He’ll either come around or he won’t. The thing is, he feels ill-used. He still thinks he should be able to take the car.”

Next Hawthorne introduced him to Bill Dolittle, who had paused to speak to Hawthorne. After absentmindedly shaking Krueger’s hand, he asked Hawthorne, “Have you heard anything yet?”

“Nothing yet, I’m afraid. It’s unlikely that I’ll know anything before Christmas.”

“The waiting’s hard.”

“I know, I regret that, but as I told you before, it’s a matter of money.”

After Dolittle left, Hawthorne said, “He hopes to move to an apartment on campus. He asks about it twice a week. But he supports me in meetings—a loyal but vexing soldier.”

Next Krueger met Kate Sandler, who taught Italian and Spanish, an attractive woman with a white streak in her thick black hair that reached back from her left temple. Krueger could see she was fond of Hawthorne and he felt a twinge of jealousy. She had large dark eyes and looked at him quite candidly, as if to determine whether Krueger would be a supporter or a rival in her affection for Hawthorne.

“Kate’s also been helping me coach the swim team,” said Hawthorne as they walked away. “She’s a great swimmer.”

“She clearly likes you.”

“We’re friends, I think. There’s been a lot of gossip about us. Entirely without reason, I’m afraid. It’s made her ex-husband quite upset.”

A bulky student dressed in a blue sweatshirt and sweatpants jogged up, gave Hawthorne a high five, said, “Yo, boss!” and hurried down the corridor.

“That’s the president of the student body,” said Hawthorne. “His name’s Tank. He’s a little rough, but without his support I would have had a much harder time.”

Then Krueger met the art teacher, Betty Sherman, a theatrical middle-aged woman dressed all in black. And there were others—a music teacher, a history teacher, math, civics. Krueger felt they all had certain similarities: they seemed needy and lacking in confidence. And they had a watchful quality that disturbed him.