The school Mother has picked for me to go to is right next to the Episcopal church that runs it. When she told me about it, I thought I wouldn’t like to go to a church school, especially since I haven’t been to church much, and certainly not to the Episcopal church. Mother says I might as well be an Episcopalian as anything, and if they have religious education, that will be good for my soul.
The first thing I’m surprised about is that I have to pass a lot of other schools to get to mine. There are plenty of schools right in the neighborhood, but Mother says they are public schools, and my father should have to pay to give me a good private-school education. I can see that Mother must be a lot of fun to work up a family budget with.
On the first day at the school I see the blazers all the other guys are wearing, and Mother buys three right there on the spot. This is more sport coats than I have ever had at one time, and it doesn’t make any sense to me that all three have to look alike.
“They’ll be at the cleaners all the time if I know boys,” Mother says.
“I’m not going to play basketball in them,” I tell her.
“Oh, but little boys are always so sweaty,” she says, which really makes me mad. I sweat like everyone else, but I’m not a little boy, and people my age don’t sweat any more than adults. The man in the school store agrees with every word Mother says though. He even wonders if three blazers will be enough.
“Come on!” I say. “Are you crazy?”
“Davy!” Mother yells. “The gentleman knows whereof he speaks! Apologize.”
Can you imagine my mother saying “whereof he speaks”? I get a big laugh from that one and tell the man I know he’s not crazy and please pardon me. Mother says I should buy gray flannel pants too and school ties. She is having a ball and tells the man to send the bill to Father.
It is noon by the time I am all checked in at school. I meet two or three teachers at the headmaster’s office, and they all tell me they’re glad to meet me and hope I will enjoy New York. They’re friendly enough. Mother tells all of them that I am “an exceptional boy,” and they all tell her that that is nice. If you ask me, she’s the exceptional one in the family. She kisses me about ten different times and asks if I like it so far. Sure, I say, since there’s nothing not to like yet. I begin to wonder if Mother has enrolled too, since she won’t leave and go home. It develops she is waiting to speak to the headmaster, a priest, to tell him she was his sister’s college classmate and that they both got an A in French conversation. She does that and says she’ll see me at home later in the afternoon.
After Mother goes, I get a chance to look around. It’s like a public school, I guess, except that everything looks a lot older. There’s a lot of dark wood with high varnish on it and a lot of pictures of old priests along the walls in the hallway. It’s darker here than any public school I ever saw at home. I meet three or four guys when I go to my first class, which is geography. The teacher says to everyone that the New Year has brought a new pupil and will I stand up to show myself. So I do, and I smile as though I’m friendly, and about everyone smiles back except the kid in the seat in front of me, who doesn’t even turn around to see what I look like.
There’s no nonsense about getting the class under way though. They have been studying about South America, and Mr. Miller, the teacher, pulls down a lot of maps from a collection of rolled-up ones. There are a whole lot of different things on the maps—one is for elevation, another for population, another for crops and all that stuff.
A big fat kid in the first row of seats raises his hand. “Yes, Malcolm,” the teacher says.
“I lived in La Paz, Bolivia.”
