Free Shadowland by Peter Straub

insult the seniors by looking slack in front of them, I assure you that they will let you know. This is not an easy school. Not!' He positively shouted the last word, jolting us upright in our seats. 'Not! Not an easy school. We have to reshape you boys, mold you. Turn you into our kind of boy. Or you will be doomed, boys, doomed, an adjective meaning consigned to misfortune or destruction. Destruction, a noun meaning that which pulls down, demolishes, undoes, kills, annihilates. You will be doomed to destruction, doomed to destruction, if you do not learn the moral lessons of this school.'
     
         Thorpe inhaled noisily, ran a palm across his smooth gray hair. He was a furnace of emotions, this Thorpe, and such terrifying performances were standard with him.
     
       
     
       
     
      13
     
       
     
      Teachers
     
       
     
      As the first weeks went by, the personalities of our teachers became as fixed as stars and as dependable in their eccentricities as the postures of marble statues. Mr. Thorpe shouted and bullied; Mr. Fitz-Hallan charmed; Mr. Whipple, incapable of inspiring either terror or love,wavered between trying to inspire both and so was despised. Mr. Weatherbee revealed himself to be a natural teacher, and led us in masterful fashion through the first steps of algebra. (Dave Brick surprisingly turned out to be a mathematical whiz, and took to wearing an ostentatious slide rule in a leather holster clipped to his belt.) Thorpe could freeze your stomach and your mind; Fitz-Hallan, whose family was wealthy, turned his salary back to the school, and doing so, earned the privilege of teaching 'what he liked — the Grimms' Household Tales, the Odyssey, Great Expectations and Huckleberry Finn, and E. B. White for style; Whipple was so lazy that he took great chunks of class time to read aloud from the textbook. His only real interest was in sports, where he functioned as Ridpath's assistant.
     
         Their lives out of the school were unimaginable to us; at dances, we saw wives, but could never truly believe in them. Their houses likewise were mysterious, as if they, like us, had not spouses but parents, and so much homework that their true homes were the old building, the modern addition, and the field house.
     
       
     
       
     
      14
     
       
     
      We had just come out of Fitz-Hallan's classroom, and a small number of seniors were leaving a French lesson in the next room. Bobby Hollingsworth had identified most of the older boys to those of us who were new to the school, and I knew most of their names. They began to look purposeful and superior when they noticed us gettmg books from our lockers. They sauntered over as soon as Fitz-Hallan had disappeared into his office. Steve Ridpath positioned himself directly in front of me. I had to look up to see his face. I was dimly aware of a prefect named Terry Peters standing before Del Nightingale, and of another senior named Hollis Wax lifting Dave Brick's beanie off his head. The other three or four seniors glanced at us, smiled at Hollis Wax — he was no taller than Dave Brick — and continued down the hallway.
     
         'What's my name?' Steve Ridpath said.
     
         I told him.
     
         'And what's yours, insect?' I told him my name.
     
         'Pick up my books.' He was carrying four heavy textbooks and a sheaf of papers under one arm, and let it all fall to the floor. 'Hurry up, jerk. I have a class next period.'
     
         'Yes, Mr. Ridpath,' I said, and bent over. He was so near that I had to back into my locker to get his books. When I straightened up, he had bent down to stare directly into my face. 'You scummy little turd,' he said. The reason for his nickname was even more apparent than before. Exceptionally skinny, Skeleton Ridpath from a distance looked like a clothed assemblage of sticks; cuffs drowned his wrists, collars swam on his thin neck. Close up, his face was so taut on his skull that the skin