Boarding School Read Online Free

out when he spotted a small round-faced man with mutton chops wearing glasses, a tie and a nondescript sport coat while he sat behind his desk in one of the offices along the south hallway.
    But the man didn’t jump up and rush over to shake our hands and offer us a hearty greeting upon our arrival. In fact, he barely looked up at us at all when he spoke. “Yes ah, just go over and wait in the library. Someone will be along in a few minutes to assist you.”
    Deflated, and a little annoyed at having come all this way to be told to go sit down and wait, especially when we could detect no other signs of life anywhere at the Academy, the three of us then turned around and walked back to find ourselves seats in the library. As soon as we had entered the larger room with its many windows which looked out the rear of the building toward the lake, we were able right away to find some black captain’s chairs with the Academy crest painted on their backs for us to sit down in.
    “Are we here on the wrong day?” my mother asked.
    “No, this is the day when all students are supposed to arrive with their parents,” my dad assured us.
    Blue carpeting was everywhere as we then spent a moment surveying our new surroundings. From the sitting area along the library’s south wall, where we now were, we looked north into the rest of the room. After an open area, there was a row of tables, each one surrounded by chairs, which ran from left to right (or west to east) the entire depth of the room. Beyond these tables were stacks of books which filled the rest of the room to its north wall. The catalog had referred to this as a “fine library,” but I didn’t know that a collection of books this small could even be called a library.
    My mother then spotted something that convinced her that we had indeed arrived on the correct day. “Look at what they’ve left out as refreshments for the visiting parents,” my mother said as she pointed to a white dinner plate on a nearby table with three pathetic-looking Hydrox cookies on it.
    A few moments later, we began to hear what sounded like some older kids horsing around down at the end of the north hallway. Soon after that, we noticed the small man, who had no time for us still, pass by the entrance to the library and head toward these sounds. A minute or so later, the sounds had ended and the small man had returned and had entered the library so he could speak to us again.
    “I’m sorry you’ve had to wait. I guess nobody’s around anymore, so why don’t you all come into my office now and we’ll get you enrolled.”
    “Ok,” my mother answered in a tone which conveyed her disapproval of the obvious inefficiencies in this place which were causing us to be inconvenienced.
    The man caught my mother’s meaning and spoke again to defend himself as he guided us back into the south hallway. “Everyone else has already arrived today. You’re the last ones. I guess that’s why my staff has already left for the day.”
    We followed the man back into his office and once we had all been seated, we then watched as he slurped his coffee without offering any to my parents. “I’m Donald Stuart,” the man offered. “I’m the headmaster here at Ulster Academy.”
    Even at thirteen, I could tell that this man was overly impressed with himself. And so I sat there and listened to the conversation which ensued between my parents and this odd little man into whose care I was about to be placed. After a couple of minutes, I realized that this was one of those conversations where the child was discussed, but never engaged. And so I picked up the Academy’s yearbook for the previous year which had been lying on a table next to me and began to look through its pages. Right away I was able to find a picture of this man, so I read through his credentials. Given what I had seen so far, I was shocked when I read that my new headmaster had earned degrees from Yale and Brown and had also been a Fulbright