Recess at St. Peter's School was a phenomenon best observed, not described. It was a living, roaring, perpetually moving organism. The moment the bell rang, the quiet classroom was instantly transformed into the epicenter of a furious tornado: dozens of boys tore from their benches, merging into one motley, shouting stream. They darted between desks, yelled incomprehensible things, hurled bundles of food, argued and laughed with such fervor it seemed they had to solve all the world's problems in those ten minutes. To an observer, it resembled a stirred-up anthill—if, of course, ants could laugh uproariously and fight over a slate board.
Archie MacCallum, fearfully pressing his back against the rough, cool logs that formed the school walls, felt like a lost traveler in a noisy, alien Eastern bazaar. His head spun slightly from all the bustle. He knew only one person here—Mary Hart, the daughter of the owner of the neighboring Riverside farm. Their families lived nearby, and in the summer they sometimes met by the cool forest spring, chatting about trifles. But now Mary was over there, in the very center of the girls' circle—a cluster of colorful dresses huddled together like frightened sheep at a fence. Approaching her now seemed an impossible and unthinkably bold undertaking.
So Archie remained in the shadows, turning into an observer. His tenacious mind, accustomed to noticing details, began to sort this chaos into neat compartments.
Right by the window, bathed in a stripe of sunlight, stood a sturdy, round-faced boy. He was eating with a focused, almost reverential air. In one hand he held a thick slab of cornbread, in the other—a hefty piece of ham from which clear fat dripped. Someone in the jostle stepped on his foot, but the boy didn't even flinch, merely grunted in annoyance without ever stopping his chewing:
"Watch it, you blind turkey… Steppin' right underfoot."
A little farther off, at the center of attention, strode a red-haired boy, thin as a skeleton, named Clint. And the source of his pride was a pair of new button-up boots and, most importantly, a pocket watch—a marvel many there were seeing for the first time. The boys crowded around, while he, pompously jutting out his elbows, paced leisurely, like a drake before a flock of ducks.
"Clint, come on, just let me look!" one of them pestered.
"Just for a second!" chimed in another.
But Clint just shook his head, the watch clenched in his fist. He was of that breed who understands: the true value of a thing lies in its inaccessibility to others.
By the stove, where the first logs were already crackling, another group had gathered. At its center flitted a scrawny, nimble kid named Leo. His face was sharp and clever, like a ferret's.
"…and then you take a goose quill," he whispered mysteriously, looking around, "and the main thing is, you dip it not in ink, but in milk! You write your enemy's name on an egg, boil it, and then—bam!—you run a hot iron over it. And right where it was blank, letters appear! A secret message for your enemy!"
"Ooh, Leo, how dreadful," the crowd gasped, looking at him with fascination.
The girls, of course, behaved differently. They stood in a flock by the far wall, whispering among themselves and from time to time glancing at the boys, breaking into restrained, tinkling laughter whose meaning was known only to them.
But Archie's observations were abruptly interrupted by a whirlwind that raced past just a couple of steps away. Scuttling forward frantically, hiccupping with fear, was Anders. Behind him, his face twisted with the righteous wrath of an avenger, charged Larry Botter. His fists were clenched and raised over his head in such a menacing onslaught that it seemed he was ready not merely to catch up, but to board and send the impudent fugitive to the bottom of the Mississippi.
"Hold on, traitor! I'll show you where the crayfish winter and where tattletales drown!" his voice thundered, drowning out the general din of the classroom.
Anders weaved between desks, dove under benches, desperately trying to keep his distance. But the chase was unequal. How long, oh mortal, can you flee from a bloodthirsty pirate consumed by righteous fury? Realizing this, Anders suddenly spun around, nearly falling from exhaustion and his own fear, and blurted out, gasping:
"Alright! Fine! Larry, I'll buy your book! The one with the pictures you offered me last week!"
Larry froze mid-stride. The anger on his face wavered, dissolved, replaced by an expression of businesslike interest. A moment later, they were already whispering heatedly about something, haggling over price and the condition of the illustrations, like two merchants on a wharf, not enemies engaged in a deadly race just a second ago.
The blessed bell called everyone to order. Arithmetic began.
Passing by Archie on his way back to his corner—his punishment for lying wasn't over yet—Larry tossed over his shoulder, as if sharing a confidential secret:
"I know everything, see. It's just this blasted arithmetic that'll be the death of me. It just won't fit in my head."
He wasn't entirely lying. Some fragmentary knowledge swam in his head: he could add, subtract, even multiply mechanically. But let it all mix together in one problem—and the result wasn't a solution, but a jumbled mess that made Mr. Burns's eyebrow twitch wearily.
"Botter, what you have in your head isn't arithmetic, it's porridge," the teacher said, deciphering his scribbles.
But when Archie was called up, everything went quietly and simply. He clearly, step by step, wrote out the solution on the board. Returning to his seat, he caught Larry's gaze from the corner—not angry, but rather puzzled—and he felt somehow awkward. As if he had accidentally made use of an unfair advantage.
The rest of the day flew by in a series of lessons and short recesses, marked, however, by new feats of Larry Botter. During this time he managed (in accidental collisions, as he assured):
to tear the hem of one of the girls' dresses;
to get into a brief, noisy scuffle with his deskmate over a disputed border on the slate board;
to knock out a murky pane in the back window with a stone (the stone simply "wanted to fly," as Larry explained);
and finally, to build a small but quite genuine fire in the schoolyard, by which he then sat with the air of Robinson Crusoe contemplating a signal fire.
"That's how it is," he lectured classmates passing by. "Right by a fire like this, Captain Silver planned how to escape a whole Spanish squadron. The warmth, you know, softens your thoughts."
By the end of the day, Archie had gleaned bits of information about his new schoolmates.
The round-faced, imperturbable eater was named Tommy Savage.
The quiet, perpetually mournful boy, whom the older kids sometimes teased, asking, "Well, Will, is your pa ever coming back from town?" was Will Frey.
And there were rumors about Clint that he had a real musical box at home, which, if wound, played by itself, without any human help. No one had seen it, but everyone secretly believed it.
And the youngest, Billy Road, last fall had reportedly packed a bundle and announced he was walking to town to his aunt's. And off he went. He walked until he was picked up on the road, tired and dusty, by a familiar coachman.
After lessons, Archie slung his canvas bag with new textbooks over his shoulder and set off home along the dusty country road. His head was buzzing with new impressions, faces, voices. This noisy, strange world of school was so unlike the quiet, understandable rhythm of his parents' farm.
Halfway there, where the road curved around an old, crooked pear tree, he caught up with Mary. She was walking alone, weaving something vaguely resembling a wreath from wildflowers. Seeing each other, they both looked down in embarrassment and walked in silence for a while, listening to the ruts creak underfoot and the late birds chirping in the bushes. But silence between old acquaintances is an awkward thing. And as they drew closer to the familiar roofs of their family farms, they began to talk—cautiously at first, skirting school topics, then more freely, like river ice touched by the first warmth of spring.