Noah said as much to the students who gathered in the auditorium the following afternoon. They looked horrified and shot one excuse after another his way until, finally, losing patience, he said, "This trip is not optional." He looked at his watch. "You have thirty minutes to get ready and meet at the bus."

"What if we don't?" one of the boys asked.

Noah knew him well. He had already broken enough rules to put him in extra study halls for a month.

Now Noah smiled. "Funny you should ask that, Brian," he said. "Your parents thought you would. They said that if you don't go, you can spend next weekend with them," which was the last thing Brian would want, given the friction between his parents and him. Noah's gaze spread. "I have similar promises from others of your parents." He rubbed his hands together. "Any other questions?"

Thirty minutes later they were off. Noah sat alone behind the bus driver. The other front seats were empty, as were the four immediately behind. Beyond that, all the way to the back of the bus, were successive pairs of grim faces.

They reached the base camp on schedule. There they met up with the hired hands, Jane and Steve, and not a moment too soon, as far as Noah was concerned. Not only were the faculty members as unwilling participants as the students, but not a one of them knew the first thing about cooking on a small camp stove, much less digging a latrine, much less raising a tarp.

Working from a prepared list that separated friends and troublemakers, he divided the thirty students into groups of five plus one adult, then went from group to group detailing what had to be done. Jane and Steve backed him up, taking over with their own and adjacent groups while Noah circulated. Grunts. moans, and muffled oaths notwithstanding, the students cooperated. They seemed to understand that no one would eat until the cooking was done and that the more everyone chipped in the sooner that would be.

Dinner consisted of beef stew from a can, rolls from the Mount Court kitchen, and hot apple cider. Through it, Noah moved from one small circle to another, answering questions and fielding complaints. The girls were the worst of the complainers, protesting the food, the bugs, and the lack of bath room facilities and talking wistfully about being back at school as though Mount Court were paradise.

The boys weren't into complaining as much as swaggering around as though they knew just what had to be done when and were bored with the entire show.

Noah had assigned Sara to a group of what he considered to be the least troubled of the students but he spent no more time with that group than he did with the others. He didn't dare approach her, though he was dying to know what she was thinking and feeling. Favoritism would backfire for sure.

When everyone had finished, he made a second round of the groups to make sure the clean-up was done properly and explain what would be happening the next day. Then he passed out tarps and demonstrated how to stretch them between trees to form a shelter for the night.

He made a final round to make sure that the tarps were secure.

The rain began at midnight and continued for several hours. Noah wasn't sleeping so soundly that he didn't hear the group that stole into one of the vans to sleep, but he didn't force them back out. The others would be feeling that much more pleased with themselves come dawn, and, indeed, that was what happened.

There was razzing galore of the van sleepers.

He might have taken pleasure in the satisfaction of those who had remained outside if those hadn't quickly joined the others in grumbling about the ungodliness of the hour.

At least the rain had stopped. The air was damp and chilly, though the chill eased with the coming of light. Breakfast consisted of apples, oatmeal, and hot chocolate and was eaten to the tune of intermittent squabbles, which Noah deliberately ignored. When everything had been cleaned up, the vans took them another forty-five minutes to their starting point. After Noah described the trails they would be taking to the top of the mountain, the pace they should keep, the difficulties they might expect to find, and the rules they were to follow, they set off.

Those who had been wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants soon peeled them off and either wrapped them around their waists or stuffed them into backpacks as the air warmed. They walked in a long line that snaked through the trees, six clusters of five students and one adult each.

Noah led, one of the experienced climbers and his group took the midpoint- the other and her group brought up the rear.

Noah listened both to the mountain sounds and to those of the climbers immediately behind him. He could hear their hiking boots on the dirt path enough to know that they were keeping up with him. He wanted to think that they were getting into the spirit of the thing, though he suspected that their silence was defiance.

Two hours of easy hiking up the mountain, they reached Chimney Pond, where fresh water and a ranger awaited. The air had begun to cool, sweatshirts and sweatpants went back on.

They snacked on gorp and water and, after refilling their bottles, moved on.

They followed Cathedral Trail until the trees thinned and grew stunted.

Noah put on a wool sweater and waited while the others did the same.

"This was where Thoreau turned back," he called down in an attempt to goad the kids on. "He was tired. Thought he'd never make it to the top."

There were grunts and mutterings. He caught the words wimp, smart, and nuts, a mixed review that left him in the dark as to the success of his ploy.

They passed the treeline. Earth gave way to open expanses of rock.

The clouds thickened.

"What if it rains?" one of the girls behind him asked, less complaining than apprehensive.

"We have rain gear, " he answered gently.

"It'll keep us dry."

"Won't the rocks be slippery?" another asked.

"Not terribly."

"The more slippery the better," one of the boys called. "We could use some excitement.

This is pretty boring."

"You call that boring?" Noah said. He turned to study the view, which was spectacular even in spite of the clouds. Growing up in the Southwest, he had adored climbing the desert hills and imagining himself two hundred years back in history. The hills were higher here, greener, and the sense of history every bit as rich.

"When will we be able to see the top of the mountain?" a girl asked from close by his side.

He waited for a small group to gather around him. "It's right there."

He pointed. "Wait.

The clouds are moving.... There. See?"

"That's so far!

"It must be freezing up there."

"We can't make it."

"Sure we can," he said. "It looks farther than it is." He slid off his backpack and took out a windbreaker.

"But it's in the clouds. We can't go there."

"Sure we can," he repeated. By this time the lower climbers had caught up. He saw Sara in their midst and called, "Add another layer," in her general direction. "It'll get colder before it gets warmer." "This is nothing compared to what we ski in," one of the boys said. He was the captain of the soccer team and one of the few who hadn't yet put anything on over his shorts.

The others were busy pulling sweaters from their packs and hurrying into them. Noah, who had taken a wool hat from his pack, gestured the boy aside. In a voice that wouldn't carry beyond them, he said, "I'm sure you've seen worse, Ryan, but the fact is that it could be damn cold up a little farther. Once you get chilled, you'll have a hard time warming up."

"I'm fine," Ryan said, and returned to his friends.

Noah pulled on the hat along with a pair of wool mittens. He looked down the line, relieved to see that many of the others had done the same, including Sara. When the backpacks were in place again, he led them on.

They scrambled over the rocks for an hour before stopping for peanut-butter crackers and more clothes. When an argument broke out in one of the groups, he started toward it, then stopped. Ryan was saying that it wasn't cold, his group was telling him that it was, and that he'd slow down the others if he got cold later on, and that that wasn't fair. In the end he put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

Noah was pleased, in part because he didn't want the kid to freeze for the sake of his pride, in part because group dynamics were finally kicking in.