Free Expensive People by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

They were always striding and rushing as if trying to break through crowds or anxious to see what was attracting a crowd up ahead.
    “Remember, look intelligent. Don't fail me,” Nada whispered.
    Like all mothers, she tended to whisper one last piece of advice that is given too late, too close to the zone all children know should be dignified by silence. We were inside the building when she told me this, and at once a middle-aged woman appeared in a doorway and cast upon us a bemused look. She glanced at me in a kindly way as if to assure me that I did look intelligent.
    “Mrs. Everett?” she said. “Dean Nash will be with you in a minute.”
    We were led into a curiously modern room, like a doctor's office where everything has been ordered from a catalogue, even the abstract paintings and the fake ferns, and there we both reached for the same copy of the
Scientific American,
scorning the
Reader's Digest.
“Come, sit by me, we can read it together,” Nada said. She might have thought themagazines were set out as part of a test. I ignored her, my face still hot from the encounter with the kindly woman.
    That woman returned to her desk and began typing something, paying no attention to us. She had the look of a hospital matron who had seen many mothers and sons come and go, wistful and rejected. As she rolled yellow forms of varying sizes into her electric typewriter, skillfully and with a long-fingered grace that reminded me of Nada, she raised her eyebrows and inquired of us politely, “Are you new to Fernwood?”
    Yes, we were new, Nada said. We lived on Burning Bush Way. (She wanted to let the woman know we weren't wealthy but at least respectable.)
    “Very nice,” said the woman. “And Richard is … twelve?” She peered at me as if she thought this rather incredible.
    “No,” Nada said carefully, “he is almost eleven. But he's been attending seventh-grade back in Brookfield.”
    “Oh, I see. That's very interesting,” the woman said, her eyes turning a little watery as if she were in the presence of a crippled boy. “You know, Mrs. Everett, this is such a fine school, and so many fine boys want to attend it, but, of course as in everything else, there is so much pressure and only a limited number of openings.”
    “I understand,” Nada said.
    When we went into the Dean of Admission's office Nada poked her finger into the small of my back to indicate that I should stand straighter. I was already walking with my spine stretched so tight I thought I might faint with exhaustion. Was it my fault I was only ten, and small for ten? But never mind, on with my miserable story. I won't blame Nada for my inadequate height or for whatever else has come to pass.
    Dean Nash was an interesting man: about fifty, stylish and dandyish, as if he'd just stepped out of a Hollywood movie filmed on the set of a prep school. He was someone's idea of an Anglicized American headmaster. He smiled a dazzling dentured smile at Nada and said, “We're very happy to hear of your interest in Johns Behemoth, Mrs. Everett. Our institution represents something of an experiment, as you may know if you read the literature I sent to you—yes? fine, Mrs. Everett— an experiment set up by the executor of the Johns Behemoth estate some years ago, with the specific recommendation that this schoolstart its program in the early grades. We did experiment with younger children, but this aspect of the venture was gradually phased out so that we could concentrate more intensely on individual, private work in the higher grades. I believe you know, Mrs. Everett, that Johns Behemoth provides one instructor for each five boys in certain classes, and for a senior desiring intensive study an adviser who will devote upward of six hours weekly to this student, and a faculty of several people constantly available to him. We have work-study clubs, foreign-language clubs and tables in the dining room, and a quite successful Overseas Year for our