"That's the requirement."

"Where are we supposed to find that kind of time?"

"Saturday mornings, six weeks' worth, five hours each," Noah said. Or Saturday afternoons, or Sunday afternoons, if you can't get out of bed early enough. The hospital is always in need of help on weekends. Or if you don't want to work at the hospital, you can tutor math at the elementary school, or read to the elderly at the nursing home, or work at the recycling booth at the town dump. The point is," he concluded, "that you all are a privileged lot. You have advantages that others don't have. You owe it to society to give something back."

"We pay taxes."

"Your parents pay taxes," Noah corrected.

"You're the ones taking so much without giving "We're too young to give back."

"You're never too young." He rose from his seat.

1 .R 7.

Much more and he'd have indigestion, and he hadn't yet started to eat.

"Who knows?" he added, tray in hand. "The concept of charitable giving might just sink in. You might find that you like it. You might leave Mount Court a nicer person." On the verge of saying something sharper, he took his leave.

He ended up back in the faculty alcove and ate his dinner feeling somehow defeated. So, when he was done and back out in the early evening air, he tried again.

This time it was Paige Pfeiffer's groupJulie Engel, Alicia Donnelly, and Tia Faraday, plus Annie Miller and several juniors, plus two sophomores, Meredith Hill and Sara. They were sitting on the lawn, finishing assorted concoctions of the frozen yogurt that had been served for dessert. He slid his hands into his pockets and sauntered up.

"How's the yogurt?"

The girls eyed him with varying degrees of caution. Julie shrugged.

Annie tipped her head. Tia said, "It's okay." They continued to eat, some licking cones, some spooning yogurt from dishes.

"An improvement over last year's food?" he asked.

They consulted each other with glances.

Finally Alicia said, "This is."

The implication was clear. Noah waited for someone to elaborate on it.

When no one did, he elaborated himself. "But you didn't like the tofu we had for lunch, is that it?"

Annie made a face. Tia grunted. Julie said, "It was vile."

"Tofu takes on the flavor of the foods it's cooked with," Noah explained. "Our cook hasn't gotten the idea yet. But he will. I thought his pizza was great." It had been covered with extra cheese and an assortment of vegetables and, more important, had been prepared without the extra dollop of oil that school cooks mistakenly assumed added flavor.

No one commented.

Noah pushed on. "He's doing okay with the salad bar. And the sandwich bar." They had been Noah's ideas, too, the theory being that there would be less waste if food was prepared simply and presented in such a way that students could take what they wanted and leave the rest. They much preferred bagels for breakfast than burned corn muffins that the cook had spent an hour preparing. Noah had had the dubious honor of tasting the latter during his visit to the school the spring before.

Alicia stretched out her legs. Tia whispered something to Julie. The juniors took extra crunchies from a dish and sprinkled them on their cones. Meredith and Sara reached for napkins from a wad that sat on the grass.

"How's your dad feeling, Lindsey?"

The girl, one of the juniors, looked up in surprise. "How did you know he was sick?" "I talked with him on the day he and your mom dropped you here. He said he was having surgery."

"He did. He's better."

Noah nodded his satisfaction. He looked up in time to catch a wayward Frisbee that had sailed out of control from the game in progress farther down the lawn. Good catch, Noah, he told himself when none of the girls said a word. He sent the Frisbee off again.

"This time last year," he told the silent group, "I was in the hills of northern Virginia. I thought fall was beautiful there, but it's even more so here. Another few weeks and the color will be spectacular."

The girls looked at each other. Julie said, "That makes it even harder to concentrate on classwork."

"And on official school business," Noah said, "but it has to be done.

Besides," he added on a note of humor, "concentrating when it's the hardest is what builds character."

No one laughed. No one even smiled. Noah felt a tangible resentment directed his way.

Alicia pushed herself up from the grass. "I'm taking this back to the dining hall." She was immediately handed other dishes and spoons, which she stacked, and left.

Julie rose, said pointedly, "I have to get ready for study hall," and started off. She was quickly joined by her friends.

The sophomores were the last to leave. Noah would have liked to talk with them, but when his eye caught Sara's, the abject fear he saw there kept him still.

He worried about her. She had come from San Francisco and a mother who was unable to cope with a teenage daughter, which had to be one blow for the child. Another had to be leaving all her friends behind, and a third, starting over in the middle of high school.

She was a sweet girl. Beneath the stoicism that kept her feelings hidden, she was sensitive. He was sure of it, and because of that, he had doubts that this was the right school for her. He liked Meredith, and others of the sophomores seemed nice enough, but he wasn't wild about the seniors in the crosscountry gang. Paige Pfeiffer seemed fond enough of themshe could afford to be fond of them, since her time with them was limitedbut they struck him as tough. He didn't know whether he could get through to them in a year. The underclassmen were something else.

He had a chance with people like Sara, assuming they weren't turned off by the seniors. He vowed to do everything he could to prevent that, but it wouldn't be easy.

Nothing was, it seemed, where Mount Court was concerned.

Feeling sad, tired, and alone, he crossed the campus and followed the path through the trees, behind the library and the art center, to the headmaster's house. It was a beauty, a small brick Tudor covered with ivy, and had been one of the lures of the Mount Court job.

That was before he had taken a closer look.

One could call the place dignified, elegant, even stately, but the most appropriate word was old, and although Noah had nothing against old houses that had been cared for, this one hadn't been. He had already personally replaced nonfunctional doorknobs, front and back, put weather stripping around the windows, and reshingled large sections of the roof when the storms of late August had sent rain dripping inside.

He had had a plumber in to replace the hot-water heater, all the while wondering if the Head before him had enjoyed cold showers, and when the refrigerator had proved nonfunctional, he had purchased a new one himself.

It was a small house, as fitted the image of the Head whose children were grown and living on their own. Noah wasn't of that ilk, but he liked the intimacy. The first floor held the living room, dining room kitchen, and den that were used from time to time for official entertaining. The kitchen and den jutted out from the back of the house as offshoots of an original, smaller kitchen. With their predominance of windows looking out onto the woods, this was Noah's favorite part of the house.

The second floor had two bedrooms, each with its own bath. He had found the wallpaper so depressing that he had stripped it off within days of his arrival. Now, replacement rolls sat in boxes. He fully intended to do the repapering himself when he had the time.

One part of him thought he was crazy. It wasn't his responsibility, during a temporary stint as Head, to make improvements in the physical facilities, at his own expense, no less. The other part knew that doing things like papering the walls would be therapeutic.

At the rate he was going in the popularity sphere, come the cold weather, when he would be spending more evenings and weekends at home, he would be desperate for things to do.

There was satisfaction in working with one's hands. Lord knew he needed satisfaction from some quarter.