The Children by Ann Leary Page B

couldn’t get somebody to take your place? Laurel just got here,” Sally said.
    â€œNo. I swapped with somebody the other night so I could go to the airport. I have to do tonight. All the kids’ll be gone by the end of the week. Then I’m free.”
    Laurel said, “I had no idea that teaching at a boarding school is almost like going to one. So many rules, and so little time to yourself.”
    â€œYou’ll get used to it,” Spin said. “Hey, did I tell you guys that Laurel applied for the job in the English Department that’s opening up? I’m pretty sure you have it, Laurel-lee.”
    â€œReally?” Laurel said, excited by the news. “How do you know?”
    â€œI’ve got a few friends in the dean’s office,” Spin said.
    â€œIt’s such a beautiful campus,” said Laurel. “I knew a few kids from Sun Valley who went to Holden, and of course I’ve read about it over the years. I always wanted to go to boarding school when I was a kid, but by the time I was old enough, I was on the ski team and training during the school year. I suppose you and Charlotte must have been day students, living here, so close,” Laurel said to Sally.
    â€œNo,” Sally said. “We went to public school. Harwich High.”
    â€œHave you had a chance to see the whole campus?” I asked Laurel. I didn’t want Sally to get started, but she ignored me.
    â€œYup, Harwich High,” Sally continued. “What a dump. When we went there, they couldn’t even get certified by the state. Has that place finally been accredited, or what, Joan?”
    â€œSally, it most certainly was accredited. It was … well, I believe, there was something to do with the old gym. Anyway, Harwich is an excellent school,” Joan said. “It was just listed as one of the top twenty public schools in the entire state, as a matter of fact.”
    I was clearing the plates and repeated my question to Laurel about whether she had seen the entire Holden campus.
    â€œNot really. It was almost dark when we got there last night,” she replied.
    â€œI’ll show you around now,” Spin told Laurel. “You’ll love it.”

 
    FIVE
    It seems that Holden students and faculty either love it or hate it; there’s really no middle ground. Spin loves it. He started spending summers there when he was very small, attending soccer and tennis camps, hanging out with the kids who lived on campus. He boarded there during his high school years, went off to college, and then moved back upon graduation. He teaches science. He’s the varsity hockey coach, and he gives private music instruction: piano and guitar. Like most of the faculty, Spin lives in an apartment attached to one of the dorms.
    By today’s standards, Holden is a traditional prep school, but in its early years, it was a rather progressive institution. The school’s founder, William Fenwick Holden, was an outspoken abolitionist, and the first two African-American boys ever to enroll at a private boarding school were admitted to Holden in the 1880s. W.F. paid their way himself. Holden Academy was a place where the freethinking sons and nephews of our country’s great industrialists went to learn, and where a number of well-known writers, artists, designers, and architects went as young boys. Of course, some Holden students went on to become bankers and lawyers, but compared to, say, Exeter or Groton, Holden placed as strong an emphasis on the arts as it did on the more practical academic applications of science, history, and mathematics. Many of the boys went on to study painting at the Hudson School, for example, or sculpting in Paris. Like Whit, they were funded by enormous trusts set up by their fathers. And like Whit, they probably referred to their ancestors as “robber barons.”
    When we were teenagers, Sally and I liked to ride our bikes to Holden Academy