Free The Education of Bet by Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page B

Mercy."
    "And the one they were, er, throwing?"
    "Christopher Warren. Everyone calls him Little. He hates it."
    "Except for that last bit," I said, trying on a laugh, "it doesn't really tell me much about them, does it?"
    He stopped walking to look at me. "Didn't what you saw back there tell you everything you need to know?" he said evenly. Then he started walking again. "Besides, you'll see plenty more at dinner."
    ***
    At dinnertime Marchand Hall rang with the sound of five hundred chairs scraping the hardwood floor as seats were pulled out, five hundred plates hitting the tables, five hundred glasses being set down, five hundred sets of silverware clinking as five hundred linen napkins were unrolled. Marchand Hall also rang with the sounds of, as Mr. Winter would have it, boys being boys.
    James and I sat side by side at a long table with Mr. Winter at one end and Hamish MacPherson at the other. I would have liked to sit almost anywhere else, but according to James it was the custom at the Betterman Academy for boys to sit at tables with their floor mates.
    "I keep telling you," Hamish said, addressing Johnny Mercy, "that the idea is to
catch
Little, not
drop
him."
    Little, I noted, was now sporting a large bandage over his right eye.
    "I would never have
dropped
him," Mercy returned, "if you could learn how to
throw
him."
    "Don't you two ever get tired of this game?" James said, sounding bored.
    I wanted to say I agreed with him—it seemed to me that this game they played did get tiresome quickly—but the scowl Hamish shot in James's direction was enough to keep my mouth shut.
    "Always think you're better than everyone else, don't you, Tyler?" Hamish said.
    To this, James gave no answer. I think it was because the answer was too obvious: James
was
better than everyone else. At least, he was better than Hamish.
    Hoping not to be noticed, I looked down at the plate that had been set before me. The small piece of meat on it was ...
mysterious;
mysterious and, I suppose,
stringy
would be the next appropriate word.
    Still, I was suddenly famished, not having had anything to eat since the meager breakfast I'd barely been able to consume at the inn that morning, so many hours ago now; my stomach at the time had been shaky after Will's and my adventures of the night before.
    I took up knife and fork, preparing to tuck in.
    "Don't you know anything, Gardener?" Hamish said.
    So caught up was I in my own hunger, I didn't really register the words as I attempted to cut the meat.
    "Hey! Gardener! I'm talking to you!"
    I felt something bounce against my forehead and looked up in time to see that it was a dinner roll.
    I realized then that I was going to have to start being more careful, pay closer attention. Hamish had somehow learned my name and had been addressing me, but I'd ignored him because I still wasn't used to my own name!
    Hoping to speak as little as possible—for in my hungry and tired state, I feared that I'd forget to speak like a boy—I simply looked at Hamish, the question in my eyes.
    "We wait for grace around here before we eat," Hamish informed me, causing me to drop my knife and fork as though they were hot coals when I realized my error. "Don't you know anything?"
    The room fell silent, as if on cue, as Reverend Parkhurst, standing at the head of the room, waited for us all to rise before saying grace over the meal.
    "
Now
you can eat," Hamish told me when the reverend had finished and five hundred chairs had been pulled out again, five hundred boys had sat down.
    I took up knife and fork once more.
    "My
God,
" Hamish said. "You're worse than Little here. One would think you'd never been at school before. This your first time away from
Mummy?
"
    Much as I wanted to keep silent, I couldn't stop myself from speaking up.
    "My mother is dead," I said, straightening my spine as I spoke the truth for both Will and myself.
    "Yeah, well, whose isn't? I'll still bet anything this is your first time away at