Free The Books of Fell by M.E. Kerr Page A

your advice. I might cool it with Keats.” I’d already decided not to go up to Four Winds for the play. Let Quint Blade go.
    “Good!” he said. “Cool it.”
    “Not because I’m taking you up on your offer.”
    “All right. It’s probably still a good idea.”
    “I can’t trust her.”
    “Can she trust you?”
    “I don’t know, after last night.”
    “I forgot about last night. How did it go?”
    “Fine.”
    “You liked her?”
    “She was easy to talk to. She likes to talk.”
    I watched the couple kiss. Everyone out on the porch was watching them. The waitress was standing there with orange juice on a tray, grinning, waiting for room to put the juice down in front of them. I counted to five, slowly. They were still at it.
    Pingree said, “Let me tell you about this club at Gardner.”
    “Another thing,” I interrupted him. “What if I get a thing for Delia Tremble?”
    “If it’s ‘a thing,’ it won’t matter, will it?”
    “You know what I mean. What if I fall for Delia Tremble?”
    “Write her. That’s what you’d do anyway, isn’t it? She’s not from Seaville, is she?”
    “No.”
    “Well then?”
    “But I’d want to see her.”
    Pingree stabbed some bacon with his fork. “You can’t have everything you want. You can have a lot, but not everything. No one can ever have everything!”
    I looked out at this fat pigeon waddling around on the green lawn, and bit into my English muffin. I said, “What club were you going to tell me about?”
    “It’s called Sevens. It’s a secret club at Gardner. It’s
the
club.” “Like a fraternity?”
    “No. No. It’s not like anything you’ve ever heard about. They have their own rules, their own privileges. They control The Tower there.”
    “Why do they call it Sevens?”
    “No one knows.”
    “What do you mean, no one knows? Someone must know.”
    “Members of Sevens know what it means, of course. My grandfather knew. He was the only member from our family.”
    “Did he tell you anything about it?”
    “Never! If you get into Sevens you never tell the reason you got in, or the meaning of the name, or anything about Sevens. You’re set apart when you get into Sevens … some say for life.”
    “You didn’t make it, and your father didn’t?”
    “Just my grandfather.”
    “Why are you mentioning it this morning?”
    “There’s something else I didn’t tell you about my grandfather’s will,” he said. He finished his bacon and eggs, pushed his plate back, and lit a cigarette. “If you make Sevens, you automatically get another ten thousand dollars. You get it instantly.”
    “You didn’t think I’d make it, so you didn’t mention it before, hmmm?” I couldn’t eat any more. I tossed the rest of the muffin out toward the fat pigeon on the lawn.
    Pingree began to speak extra clearly, as though he wanted what he was saying to really sink in.
    “No one knows why a boy qualifies for Sevens. There’s no type. Anyone can be in Sevens, but few are. Only about five or six a year. One year there was no one tapped for Sevens.”
    “This club really impresses you, doesn’t it? You’re not just talking about it because of the extra ten thousand, are you?”
    “Yes, I guess it does really impress me, Fell. I like solutions to things. I could never solve that one — what makes a Sevens.”
    “If I were to go to Gardner, and if I got in, I’d tell you.”
    “Oh, no. No one’s ever been told.”
    “But I think that stuff is crap! I don’t care about secret clubs!”
    “Gardner will teach you about tradition. Tradition isn’t a bad thing, Fell. Sometimes it’s the only continuity.”
    “I don’t mean tradition. I like tradition, too.”
    I did. So had my dad. Christmas used to be this big production when he was alive, starting with the tree trimming on Christmas Eve. He always made Christmas breakfast, too. “It’s snobbery I don’t like. It’s people thinking they’re better than other people just because