Most of the memories of the day of my arrival are shrouded in thick mists of homesickness. Though if I try really hard, I can make out some blurry images: the gate of the old boardinghouse (“Built in 1565, Jon!” “Nonsense, Edward, 1685!”), narrow corridors, rooms that smelled of alienness, strange voices, strange faces, food that was so tainted with homesickness that I barely managed to keep even a few bites down….

The Popplewells put me in a three-bed room.

“Jon, these are Angus Mulroney and Stuart Crenshaw,” Alma announced as she pushed me into the room. “You’ll soon be best friends, I’m sure.”

Really? And what if not? I thought as I eyed the posters my new roommates had plastered all over the walls. Of course, there was one of that band I particularly hated. At home I’d had my own room, with a sign on the door: STRICTLY NO ADMISSION TO STRANGERS AND FAMILY MEMBERS. There, nobody had snored next to me or underneath me; there had been no sweaty socks on the carpet (except my own), no music I didn’t like, no posters of bands and football teams I despised. At that point my hatred for The Beard reached a level that would have been a credit even to Hamlet. (Not that I knew anything about Hamlet back then.)

Stu and Angus tried their best to cheer me up, but I was too despondent to even remember their names at first. I didn’t take any of the gummy bears they offered me from their top secret (and highly illicit) stash of sweets. When my mother called that evening, I left her in little doubt that she had sacrificed the happiness of her only son for that of a bearded stranger, and when I hung up, it was with the grim knowledge that she was going to be spending as sleepless a night as I.

Boarding school. Lights out at eight thirty. Luckily, I’d thought to pack my flashlight. I spent hours drawing gravestones with The Beard’s name on them, all the time cursing the hard mattress and the stupidly flat pillow.

Yes, my first night in Salisbury was pretty grim. The reasons for my deep sadness were, of course, pathetic compared to what was yet to come. But how could I have known that homesickness and The Beard would soon be the least of my problems? Since that time I have often asked myself whether there is such a thing as fate, and if there is, whether there’s a way to avoid it. Would I have ended up in Salisbury even if my mother hadn’t fallen in love again? Or would I never have met Longspee, Stourton, and Ella if it hadn’t been for The Beard? Maybe.