CHAPTER 28

Old School

If you didn’t know it had once been a Japanese temple, Brown-Sparrow Military Academy would look to you like some college in New England. But there were some little giveaways, like the ends of the roofs turning up, and one or two dragons partially visible through the ivy on the walls.

The main gate had turned-up ends too, and was painted orange. Standing guard was a guy in a sharp, sharp, sharp marine uniform. Indian-looking guy, not tall, not short, not young, not old, not handsome, not ugly—just this guy in a crisp uniform with extra-good posture and white gloves.

“That looks like Melvin the shaman!” I said to Seamus Finn.

“It’s Sergeant Caleb,” Seamus Finn said. “He’s the military guy in this school, and he knows everything. He was a real marine. The men teachers all have military titles and wear officers’ uniforms, but they’re just teachers. A lot of them were bit players in the movies—my father remembers some of them.”

Sergeant Caleb snapped to attention. “Finn,” he said. It’s all last names at Brown-Sparrow.

“This is my friend Neddie Wentworthstein, Sergeant Caleb,” Seamus said. “I’m going to show him around the school.”

Sergeant Caleb produced a clipboard and a pencil.

“Write down your guest’s name, Finn,” he said.

“Excuse me, Sergeant Caleb,” I said. “I just have to mention this—you remind me strongly of an Indian shaman I met in Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

“You must mean Melvin—am I right?” Sergeant Caleb said.

“So you know him!” I said.

“Well, let’s say the resemblance has been pointed out in the past,” Sergeant Caleb said. “Enjoy your visit to Brown-Sparrow, Mr. Wentworthstein.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“If there’s anything you need, feel free to call on me,” Sergeant Caleb said.“And take care of that turtle.”

As we walked away from the orange gate, I asked Seamus Finn, “How did he know about the turtle?”

“He knows about everything. I told you,” Seamus Finn said.

The first thing I noticed about Brown-Sparrow was that it was fairly deserted. Now and then we saw a kid or two, mostly high schoolers, nobody around our age. The kids we saw were polite and said hello or smiled, but there was no one Seamus appeared to know very well.

“What’s the deal? Where are all the kids?” I asked.

“Cadets. You have to call them cadets,” Seamus Finn said. “It’s the weekend. Most of the kids go home to their parents’, unless their parents are too far away.”

“Like yours.”

“Well, my father is always off shooting a movie somewhere,” Seamus Finn said. “And my mother lives in the East. I see her for a while in the summer, and sometimes she comes here.”

“So you get lonely,” I said.

“Sometimes another cadet invites me home for the weekend, but usually they just want to spend a lot of time alone with their families, so it’s not very often. Probably, if you came here, you’d be a day cadet.”

“Day cadet?”

“Not stay here at night. I mean, the Hermione is so close. You could walk here in less than ten minutes,” Seamus said.

“And you could come and hang out with my family, weekends,” I said. “We could explore the old hotel, maybe see the ghosts, and there’s a pool. When I lived in Chicago, there were kids over all the time.”

“I think you should be a day cadet,” Seamus Finn said. “The dorm isn’t that much fun. They make you clean your room constantly, and they tell you when to go to sleep, and you can’t go to the kitchen and fix a snack like normal people.”

“Sometimes my father and I have cornflakes late at night,” I said.

“My father too,” Seamus said.

The Brown-Sparrow Military Academy was a far cry from the Louis B. Nettelhorst School. It looked like a fancy private school such as you might see in the movies, and it was—a fancy private school, and also in the movies. Seamus told me that studios would come and do location shots from time to time. Some of the movie stars’ kids who went there had been known to watch their movie star parents acting right outside their classroom windows.

Seamus showed me the classrooms, which were weirdly small—only ten or twelve cadets in a class. He showed me the dorm rooms, which were weirdly clean and neat. There was the ancient pagoda, of course, in one corner of the parade ground. It was impressive. We peeked inside, but no Japanese ghosts rushed at us. There was a big gym, and a big indoor swimming pool, and the mess hall where everybody ate—it was big and fancy.

“How’s the food here?” I asked.

“What do you care? You’d only be eating lunch here. You like Spam?” Seamus Finn asked.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had Spam,” I said.

“We have it often,” Seamus Finn said.

“Speaking of such things,” I said, “would you care to come back to the Hermione for supper?”

“Without making arrangements first?” Seamus Finn asked. “Without asking? Would it be all right?”

“Oh, it will be fine,” I said. “I bring people home all the time. Besides, my parents like you. They’ll be happy to see you.”

“I’ll tell Sergeant Caleb I’m going to be at your house,” Seamus said. “Saturday is a Spam night.”