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athlete. He mattered nothing to anyone. He had outgrown preposterous notions of mattering. There was no fun, in short, to be had in their domain, so yon skulker-in-the-shadow could just take itself off where it had come from. St. Stephen’s Academy and Morgan himself were too unexceptional for evil to bother with them.

 
    3
    John Grieves disliked social occasions. There were benefits to being an undermaster with digs in Fridaythorpe rather than living within the walls of the Academy, such as the space, however brief, to think his thoughts undisturbed. In the minus column, his rooms were expensive to heat and required a quarter of an hour’s bicycle ride twice a day in rain, sleet, snow, or occasionally sunshine. Also in the minus column, he had no private place at the Academy itself to confer with boys, except his classroom. The other masters thought him either put-upon or tragically acquiescent to the Headmaster’s miserly ways, but he defended his arrangement to any who would, after seven years, listen: He would not have it another way. He cherished his autonomy in Fridaythorpe and his social horizons in the village. This last was not quite true, but it sounded plausible. But now, this Friday in March, for the satisfaction of a rugby wager, he was due to entertain Lockett-Egan.
    John made it a rule not to socialize with his colleagues outside the gates of the Academy, but he made an exception for the Eagle, who had some years previous established a pattern of fortnightly fellowship at the Cross Keys, the only watering hole within fifteen miles of the Academy and John’s refectory-cum-study in Fridaythorpe. They knew him there. He never had to place an order. When he walked in, tea would be brought to him, and food of some description. Over the years, they had learned the outline of his private life, but they did not intrude with conversation unless he initiated it. Masters from the Academy frequented the Keys Sunday afternoons; at these times, John confined himself to his rooms across the road. He justified his aloofness with the label teetotaler. In time, the explanation had become unquestioned fact, making sense of everything.
    Tonight as the Eagle shouldered his way from the bar, John tried to look congenial, but all he could think of was the Eagle’s alarming confession on the sidelines of the rugby pitch that afternoon.
    â€”What’s wrong? the Eagle asked him.
    â€”Pocklington, John said. You can’t take it.
    â€”Finger off the trigger. I haven’t even sat down.
    The Eagle removed his overcoat, took a seat, and raised his glass; John raised his tea mug.
    â€”How many more days in this godforsaken term? the Eagle asked.
    â€”Fourteen.
    â€”Any chance you’d abandon your Quaker ways and kill me now?
    John grimaced.
    â€”That’s right, the Eagle replied, I forgot you’re a saint. One who wouldn’t have felt my entirely unchristian satisfaction hearing Clem’s bookcases collapse this evening.
    So that was the commotion during Prep. When Clement supervised the Third, little of the evening was devoted to preparation and much to mischief. John found Clement more aggravating than he wanted to. Clem was in his eighties, a gentle soul who didn’t bully and didn’t persecute, but his lessons and his House were disasters. John had no idea how the Eagle tolerated working under him. Of course he’d be tempted by offers from other schools.
    â€”Any notion who was behind it? John asked.
    â€”Too many notions.
    â€”The Third are sowing their oats.
    â€”The Third are feral beasts, as previously discussed.
    They had discussed the Third Form ad nauseam, and there was no question—between the two of them or within the Senior Common Room as a whole—that this year’s Third were a thoroughly bad crop. John often felt the school was on the verge of anarchy.
    â€”We’re all at the end of our tether, John said. But that’s no reason to