The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict Read online

  “Absolutely, sir,” Nicholas said. “Though just to be sure I heard you correctly, did you say the last rule was ‘waste nothing’?”

  Mr. Collum irritably swept a speck of dust from his desktop. “As I’ve said before, Nicholas, my predecessor was a scoundrel. A scoundrel and a fool. He squandered a fortune, spending the orphanage funds unwisely and stealing a good bit for himself. As the new director, I am tasked with returning the Manor to good standing. Every penny must be accounted for. Every person must do double duty. And nothing must be wasted.”

  “An admirable rule, sir,” Nicholas said. “I take it that’s why we’re so sparing with the electricity?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Collum. “The previous director, Mr. Bottoms, spent vast sums on the procurement of electrical power for the Manor. He did this despite an abundant supply of candles and lantern oil, which he made no effort whatsoever to utilize. Under my own directorship, we shall make careful, thrifty use of what we have, until it is gone. Now then, Nicholas, if you have no more questions—”

  “Oh, but I do have one more question, sir,” Nicholas said, and noting Mr. Collum’s impatient look, he blurted out quickly, “I only wondered if perhaps we were allowed to take books out of the library.”

  Mr. Collum frowned. “Certainly not. If books were removed from the library, they might be damaged or lost. You may use them only under supervision and only if you show them proper care. Now then, Nicholas—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Collum,” Nicholas hastily interrupted again, “but do you think perhaps that under my special circumstances—being locked in my room at night, you know—do you think perhaps you might make an exception so that I might have something to read at bedtime? I promise I would take excellent care of… of the books, and…” Nicholas slowly stopped speaking, subdued by the force of Mr. Collum’s withering glare.

  “I am quite sure, Nicholas,” the director said, “that you do not wish to be contrary on your first morning here. The Manor is to be your home for some years—barring adoption, of course, which, to be frank, is unlikely in your case. I advise you to think very seriously about how you intend to comport yourself.”

  Nicholas looked down at his battered shoes and said nothing. He did indeed wish to be contrary—at the moment it was his most earnest wish of all—but somehow he found the presence of mind not to express this feeling. Mr. Collum was right about one thing, anyway. Adoption, in his case, was unlikely. Had he not been in orphanages all his life? He had not been a beautiful baby; he was not a beautiful boy. At the last orphanage, adoptions of any child had been rare, but Nicholas had paid close attention to the process. He had figured out the right things to say, the right way to act, when prospective parents visited. And one time he had actually come close—the young couple liked him; they even spoke about him with Mr. Cuckieu. But when Mr. Cuckieu informed them of Nicholas’s condition, they panicked. Nicholas watched them leave with miserable, guilty expressions, not daring even to look in his direction. Afterward, Mr. Cuckieu, in the guise of being helpful, “explained” to Nicholas that it was “hard enough raising a child without throwing in a lot of extra difficulties.”

  Nicholas had stopped trying to be adopted after that. He knew better than anyone that orphanages were destined to be his home until he was old enough to escape them forever. And if that was the case, he needed to avoid making an enemy of someone like Mr. Collum, who was powerful enough to make his life miserable. More powerful, even, than bullies like the Spiders.

  Mr. Collum was clearly waiting for a contrite response. Nicholas forced himself to look up again and meet the director’s stern gaze. “I’m sorry, Mr. Collum. I’m sure you’re right. I apologize for losing my manners.”

  “Very well, Nicholas,” said Mr. Collum. “And now that you’ve found them again, I suggest you hold on to them.” He rose from his chair, tucking the ledger under his arm. “Let us go to breakfast, and I shall introduce you to the others.” With their meeting thus concluded to his satisfaction (if not at all to Nicholas’s), Mr. Collum locked up his office and led Nicholas to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Brindle had at last gone off about her business, leaving Mr. Griese alone with his, but the cook’s face was still shiny and red. His scalp was quite red, too. He was mostly bald, with only a thin line of short gray hair that began above one ear and ran around the back of his head to the other. Overall, his head bore an uncanny resemblance to a damaged tomato with a trail of fuzzy mold growing on it. This was not the most appetizing thing to be reminded of before breakfast, but Nicholas was far too hungry to care.

  Breakfast was a large serving of piping-hot oatmeal, which Mr. Griese ladled into Nicholas’s bowl, and a boiled egg, which he put directly into Nicholas’s free hand. Nicholas’s stomach growled fiercely, his mouth watered, and he was tempted to take a bite right then. He resisted, however, for no one likes to be presented to strangers with a mouthful of egg, and Mr. Collum was already leading him out.

  The dining hall held two extraordinarily long, elegant tables that would have served well enough for a gathering of royalty. Instead, they were packed with orphaned children. At a glance, Nicholas estimated that there were about thirty girls and twenty boys chattering and slurping their oatmeal and, in some cases, drooping sleepily over their bowls. The dining-hall curtains had been opened to take advantage of the morning sun, and dust motes swirled like tiny galaxies in the shafts of sunlight. To the left of the tables, Mrs. Brindle sat in a rocking chair near a stone fireplace, supposedly supervising the diners, though her half-closed eyes suggested she was dozing. All in all, it was a comfortable enough scene, but Nicholas did not feel comfortable in the least—in fact, he felt quite anxious and peculiar, for it is no easy thing being made to stand before a group of strangers.

  “Children!” Mr. Collum announced in a loud voice. “Your attention, please!”

  The dining hall fell silent. Fifty gazes swiveled to Mr. Collum’s face, then downward to Nicholas’s, where they remained. Nicholas felt his own face grow hot. And then, to his dismay, he felt his fingertips growing hot, for the scalding oatmeal in his bowl was heating the thin ceramic to a painful degree.

  “Allow me to present Nicholas Benedict,” said Mr. Collum, laying his hand firmly upon Nicholas’s shoulder as if to prevent escape. “He is our newest resident. I know you will all make him welcome.”

  A few children clapped, thinking they were supposed to, then quickly stopped and ducked their heads in shame when no one else joined in. A ripple of giggles went through the room. Nicholas had already noticed the Spiders seated near the middle of the leftmost table. They were nudging one another, winking, and sharing secret smiles. He had also spotted John sitting as far away from the Spiders as possible—at the far end of the rightmost table, with his back to the windows. There was an empty chair across from him. Nicholas allowed himself to hope that John had saved it.

  When the giggles had died down, Mr. Collum spoke briefly about courtesies, considerations, and other matters of comportment. Nicholas knew no one was listening. They were all staring curiously at him, the new orphan, wondering about him. Nicholas could feel the weight of their stares. He was anxious to be released, and not just because he was nervous—his fingers were really getting scorched now. He would have grabbed the hot bowl with his other hand except that the slippery boiled egg made it awkward. He was worried he might drop something.

  “I believe some of you are aware,” Mr. Collum was saying now, “that Nicholas has a condition called—what is your condition called again, Nicholas?”

  “Narcolepsy,” said Nicholas in a faltering voice. He frowned, surprised at his own timidity, and said again, more loudly, “Narcolepsy!”

  Mr. Collum looked at him askance. “One response is sufficient, Nicholas.” A few titters erupted in the room but were quickly silenced by Mr. Collum’s forbidding expression. “What this means is that Nicholas must often take short naps. It cannot be helped, and you must all do your best to accommodate it, however inconvenien
t this might be. Rest assured, however, that Nicholas will pull his weight. He will have the same duties as all of you, and I’m sure he is eager to prove himself capable and responsible. Am I right, Nicholas?”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Collum,” replied Nicholas, trying to smile even though his fingers would have screamed if they could. They were going to blister if he waited any longer, he realized. And so as casually as possible—as if there were nothing unusual about what he was doing—Nicholas dumped his boiled egg into his oatmeal, grabbed the hot bowl with his free hand, and thrust his burned fingers into his mouth.

  Several children gaped at him in surprise. Not a few looked disgusted, no doubt wondering who this uncivilized creature was who liked to plop eggs into his oatmeal and suck his fingers.

  “Very good,” said Mr. Collum, who had failed to notice any of this. “Find an open chair, then, Nicholas. Your neighbors can instruct you in our morning routines.” He sent Nicholas forward with a light push between the shoulder blades and returned to the kitchen for his own breakfast.

  Nicholas went around the front of the table on his right, headed toward John in the back of the dining hall. He passed by an empty chair near the front, but he would never have sat in it, anyway. The front ends of the tables were occupied by the youngest children, five-year-olds and six-year-olds, mostly, and most of them with runny noses. They probably sat there so they could be seen more easily by orphanage staff, Nicholas thought. Hidden away in the midst of the older children, they would be more vulnerable to attack.

  Nicholas had also seen an empty chair at the other table, near the Spiders, but he had been pretending not to see it or, indeed, the Spiders themselves. If he had made eye contact with them and they had beckoned him over to join them, he would have refused at his peril. Peril was coming soon enough; Nicholas preferred to delay it a little longer.

  Murmurs and whispers followed him as he strode to the back, smiling boldly at the children whose chairs he passed. Some smiled back; most simply stared. He noticed that almost all of the girls looked haggard, with their bows stuck haphazardly in their hair, and dark circles under their eyes. Clearly it had been a bad night in the ballroom. The girls reminded Nicholas of the children at Littleview, the ones kept awake and unnerved by his screaming. They all looked as sleepy and tired as he felt—though far more so than he looked, for Nicholas had long since determined never to appear sleepy when he could help it. He had weaknesses enough without putting them on constant display.

  “How are the fingers?” John said drily as Nicholas approached.

  “Well cooked,” Nicholas said. He hastily set his bowl down (for by now his other fingers were also starting to feel well cooked) and dropped into the chair across from John. “They taste terrible, though. I need to do a better job rinsing the soap off them.”

  John narrowed his eyes, which appeared to be the way he smiled, and reached for a nearby pitcher. Seeing that Nicholas had not been given a glass, he refilled his own and passed it across. Nicholas was just as thirsty as he was hungry, and gratefully he gulped the milk down. John refilled the glass with the last bit of milk from the pitcher. By the time he’d finished pouring, Nicholas had devoured half of his egg and was holding a spoonful of oatmeal at the ready.

  “Thanks,” he gasped between bites.

  John watched him with a sort of amused curiosity. In this better light of morning, the older boy’s eyes proved to be a pleasant blue-green color, almost turquoise. He had unusually good posture—so good it prompted Nicholas to sit up straighter himself—and he looked strong, like an athlete or a farm boy. His chicken pox scars, though, were even more prominent in the light. They were sprinkled about his face in such abundance that Nicholas, without intending to, saw patterns in them. Like a constellation of scars, he thought, not because it was funny (he didn’t think it was) but because his mind was always looking for puns and rhymes, whether he wanted it to or not, just as it always looked for patterns.

  Seated next to Nicholas and John were two boys of about John’s age, both looking at Nicholas as if he had stepped on their feet. He smiled at them regardless and started to introduce himself, but they only shifted their chairs so that their backs were to him and started up a private conversation.

  “What’s eating them?” muttered John, clearly taken aback by their rudeness.

  “It’s all right,” Nicholas said with a shrug. “They don’t like that I’m sitting by them because I’m so much younger. They think I’m presumptuous.”

  John blinked and looked wonderingly at Nicholas. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said after a pause. He silently mouthed the word “presumptuous,” shook his head, and scooped up the last bite of his oatmeal.

  “I hope it’s all right with you,” Nicholas said. “I noticed the empty chair, and—”

  John, chewing, waved him silent with his spoon. He swallowed and said, “Of course it’s all right. I saved it for you. I wanted to hear how last night went. Don’t worry,” he said in a low tone, jerking his head toward the other boys, “they aren’t friends of mine or anything. I only sit back here because I like to keep my eyes on the room. I don’t like to have anyone behind me.”

  Nicholas nodded knowingly. He always preferred to sit with his back to a wall, too, or else right next to a staff member.

  John shoved his empty bowl aside and leaned forward. “Say, I’m sorry I didn’t come back last night. Mr. Collum put me on a last-minute chore before bedtime. How did everything go?”

  Nicholas blew on another spoonful of oatmeal. “Oh, reasonably well, I suppose,” he said lightly. “I met the Spiders, got locked in my room, had a bunch of nightmares—yes, all in all, I’d say it was a fine night.”

  “They found you?” said John with a disgusted look. “That’s probably my fault, Nick. I ought to have had you come down with me. I guess you got initiated, then.”

  “Not exactly,” Nicholas said, and he related what had happened.

  John looked stunned. “You did that? You actually did that? And you don’t mean to go meet them after breakfast?”

  “I don’t mean to give them cookies, either,” Nicholas said. “Not that I actually have any to give.”

  “But this is the worst thing you could possibly do!” John said a little too loudly. He lowered his voice and said gravely, “Listen, Nick, it’s better to run away or even fight them than humiliate them like that. Now they’ll be your enemies!”

  Nicholas sighed. “I know. But I’ve been through all this before. Believe me, they would have ended up singling me out anyway.”

  John pointed an accusing finger at Nicholas. “You don’t know that! How could you know that?”

  Nicholas puckered his brow. John seemed surprisingly worried, even angry. “I know from experience,” Nicholas said mildly. “Sure, they’ll have it in for me now, but at least this way I get some satisfaction, right?”

  John’s angry expression slowly changed into a defeated one. He turned his head, staring without focus at the back wall, and muttered, “I wish you hadn’t done that, Nick. I really do. This is the last thing I need.”

  Nicholas raised an eyebrow—or tried to, anyway. He hadn’t quite mastered the single-eyebrow raise yet. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?”

  John turned back to him. He still looked forlorn. “Forget it,” he said gloomily. “What I ought to have done is shake your hand and give you credit. You have a lot of guts, Nick. No one could say you don’t.” After this he sat quietly, watching Nicholas scrape the last tiny remains of oatmeal from his bowl. Then he looked over at the table where the Spiders had been sitting and said, “They’re leaving now.”

  Nicholas nodded. He knew very well the Spiders were leaving, for after every bite of oatmeal he had lowered his spoon at such an angle as to offer a distorted reflection of the table behind him. He had done this quickly enough, and glanced at the spoon sneakily enough, that John had not noticed.

  “Well,” John said after a pause, “since you don’t pla
n to keep your appointment, do you want me to fill you in on the routines around here, like Mr. Collum said?”

  Nicholas grinned and said that nothing could possibly give him greater pleasure than learning about routines.

  And so, after leveling a dubious look at him, John launched into a lengthy explanation of the various duties that rotated among the orphans and the staff, and how the schedules were managed, and countless other things related to daily life at the Manor. Nicholas listened, although with only part of his attention. A greater part of it was taken up with wondering about John’s troubled response to this business with the Spiders, and a still-greater part—indeed the most by far—was focused on Mr. Collum’s mysterious behavior in the drawing room before breakfast. What had he been looking for when he thought no one was watching?

  “Nick!” John said after he’d been going on awhile. He snapped his fingers in front of Nicholas’s face. “You’ve gone into a trance. Are you falling asleep, or am I telling you too much at once? If you want, I can write the more important stuff down.”

  “Oh, no, thanks,” Nicholas said almost absently. “I think I’ve got it.” And he rattled off everything John had just told him. He spoke so quickly and with such precision, recounting every detail in such perfect order, that John’s face could not settle on an expression—he looked surprised, then suspicious, and finally amazed. By the time Nicholas had finished, it was not he but John who appeared to have fallen into a trance.

  “Why, I’ve never…,” John murmured, not finishing his thought. Curiosity and wonder shone in his eyes, as if a light had been switched on behind them. Then, for the first time, he smiled. He even chuckled. “Well, well, Nick! Well, well!” And this was all he said, yet somehow it expressed such understanding and appreciation that Nicholas felt he’d been paid an elaborate compliment.