Unfortunately there was no appropriate headship available at the time when he had a sudden, dire need to leave Tucson. So he moved to northern Virginia to head the nonprofit Foundation for Environmental Awareness. There he was able to combine his knowledge of ecological issues and his teaching skill with his flair for fund raising, and over the course of twelve years, he thrived. If there were times when he missed the warmth of small-campus life, he consoled himself with the knowledge that he had a meaningful job working for a cause in which he believed.

When he turned forty, though, he began to feel detached. He was as apt to wake up in Minneapolis, Boulder, or Boise as in Alexandria. People moved in and out of his life. He craved the centeredness of the life he knew as a boy.

A return to academia was inevitable, etched in his marrow like a spare gene, but he took his time, wanting just the right school, just the right setting.

Mount Court Academy wasn't it. Nearly insolvent, it had a dismal reputation punctuated by impotent leadership and a student body out of control. Academics had declined, disciplinary problems abounded. The school was a disaster that had already happened, waiting only for aftershocks before imploding.

But the timing was right. Noah needed the change. The fact that the appointment was for a year gave him a built-in escape clause. And there was something to be said for the challenge.

He started in June and spent the summer cleaning up the administrative mess that his predecessor had left. By September he had worked out scheduling snafus with the registrar, weeded through a maze of alumni records with the development office, and, with the academic dean, critically examined every course being offered. While the basic curriculum was upgraded, electives were sorted through, tossed out, or restructured with an eye toward demanding a meaty academic load from every student.

More than a grumble came from a less than enthusiastic faculty that suddenly had to rewrite lesson plans, but those sounds were nothing compared to the reaction of the students when they returned after Labor Day.

Now, less than two weeks into the school year, Noah wondered if he was up to the job.

To say that he wasn't a popular man on campus was putting it mildly.

He didn't have a friend. The faculty treated him like an outsider, the students treated him like the enemy. The strength of his convictions didn't waverhe knew that he was doing right by the schoolbut that fact did nothing to make his work easier. He was lonely.

That was why, he supposed, Paige Pfeiffer caught his eye. She was a doctor, an intelligent woman who would support the changes he was trying to make, or so he had assumedand it wasn't that he had assumed wrong, just that she was coming at things from a woman's point of view.

She saw the emotional side of the issue, while it was his job to see the structural side. He was the rule maker, the disciplinarian, while she could be softer and more permissive, which was all fine and good.

She wasn't the one who had to answer to an army of demanding parents and an even tougher brigade of trustees.

Still, he watched for her. She intrigued him somehow. He decided that it was her long, lean, runner's legs. They were sexy as hell.

The inappropriateness of the thought brought home to him the sad state he was in. He needed a friend in Tucker. More than that, he needed encouragement, a sign that what he was trying to do just might work.

Determinedly he showered, put on a clean pair of slacks and a fresh shirt, and went to the dining hall but rather than taking his customary place in the faculty alcove and sitting through another meal with another teacher who would get in little digs about the extra class he had to teach that term, he plunked himself down in the middle of a group of freshman boys.

Those who weren't eyeing him warily exchanged nervous glances with each other.

"How're you guys doing?" he asked in a friendly way.

One brave soul found the courage to say, "Okay."

"Classes going well?"

Several shrugged. Others found sudden interest in their food.

"What do you think of the building project?" he asked to get them going.

They looked at each other.

One said, "It's okay."

Another said, "We're not old enough to do it."

A third said, "It may not look so good when it's done. Homemade stuff stinks."

"There's nothing homemade' about the house we're building," Noah chided. "The plans were drawn up by a legitimate architect, and the construction is being supervised by a legitimate builder."

Another boy said, "My brother s helping. It 11 be a "Uh-uh," Noah argued. "I can't afford a disaster. Everyone who's helping will learn to do it right."

"Yeah," said another with smug looks at his friends on either side, "so they'll be able to graduate and build houses."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Noah said.

"My dad isn't paying big money for me to learn to build houses."

"No, but that would be a great little side benefit to the formal education you're getting. Let me tell you, there's satisfaction to be had in building a house."

"You've done it?"

"More than once."

"Your own house?"

"No. They've always been houses for other people who wouldn't be able to afford it without a little help from their friends."

One of the boys groaned. "Here comes the pitch."

"What pitch?" Noah asked him.

"You're going to tell us that the community service requirement is the best thing to hit campus since the salad bar, but I hate salad."

"That doesn't mean you have to hate community service."

"In Tucker? Are you kidding? The town is the pits. There's nothing here."

"There's a grocery store, a library, and a post office. There's a hardware store, a lumberyard, and a bookstore. There's a crafts collaborative. There's the Tavern. And the inn. There's an ice-cream shop, and there's Reels. And the hospital."

"Tucker General," someone snickered.

"From what I hear," Noah said, "Tucker General's saved many a Mount Court kid from disaster, so don't knock it."

There were several more snickers with no words attached. Then someone mumbled, I wouldn't want to have a heart attack there," and the others laughed.

"Why not?" Noah asked. "The doctors at Tucker trained at the same hospitals that you know and trust. They just choose to live in Vermont. If I were a betting man, I d wager that Tucker offers more personal care than the big city hospitals do."

"That's because the nurses are hicks. They don't know any better."

Noah was disappointed by the boy's cynicism, but not surprised.

Spoiled was never far from arrogant and arrogant never far from jaded.

These fifteenyear-olds were all three. "John, is it?" he asked the boy who had spoken last and found satisfaction in his surprise. "I tell you what. You do your thirty hours at the hospital and then tell me you still believe that, and I'll treat you and three of your buddies to sundaes at Scoops." aThirty hours?" John asked, looking appalled.