James Axler – The Mars Arena

“I find myself in quite a quandary in regards to you.” Brody’s gaze was bright, direct. “You lied to me by omission, telling me you knew not what led you to stray to that building this morning. Surely the response of an irresponsible and churlish boy. Yet you stepped forward when Miss Lemon’s integrity was in danger of becoming forfeit. An act of a young gentleman who knows there must be a recompense for actions foolishly taken, as well as the primacy of innocence being protected and a sense of fair play. Neither Mr. Ventnor nor his progenitor handled the situation with even a fraction of the courage you exhibited.”

“Will I be allowed to stay?”

Brody shook his head. “I don’t know, lad. I’ll have to think on it. Punishment in these regards must be strictly adhered to, else the student body at this institution will run amok and even more stringent measures will need be applied to bring them into line once more. I set those standards, and I don’t mean to see them broken.”

“Yes, sir.” Dean wished he could break eye contact, but found he couldn’t.

“Keep your chin up, Mr. Cawdor. However it turns out, you’ve kept at least a portion of my respect today. A most important portion, I might add. And maybe earned self-respect in your own eyes that you will see once we are days past this present encumbrance. I shall try to get word to your father by the means I have open to me, and we shall see what must be done. Until then, you’ll be confined to your quarters.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brody left.

As soon as the door closed, Dean tossed himself back onto his bed. He felt like crying, something he hadn’t allowed himself to do in a long time. At the same time he felt like kicking down the walls of his room. Instead, he lay on his back and threw a forearm across his eyes to block out his vision.

“Cawdor.”

For a moment Dean was unsure if he’d actually heard the voice or if it was his imagination.

“Dean Cawdor.”

Dean unwrapped his arm from his eyes. He craned his head around and looked at the doorway.

Ethan Perry, tall and muscled, a blue-black undercoating of beard and mustache still showing through fresh-shaved chin, stood looking in at him.

“What do you want?” Dean asked.

Perry smiled. He had the easy confidence of the natural athlete. Some few months short of eighteen, Perry was the most gifted of those in the phys-ed class at the school. Whenever a game was playedfootball, baseball or dodge balleveryone wanted to be on Perry’s side.

“Heard about what happened this morning,” Perry said. “I know Ventnor’s too gutless to do something like that, so I figure it was you who put together the raid on the girls’ dorm. Pretty clever.”

Dean just looked at the other boy, hardly breathing. He and Perry had shared some differences out on the playing field. Perry had a group of ten boys that he ran roughshod over. They were the best the school had to offer when it came to sports. They ate together, slept in the same dorms and did their studying together. When one of them scored low on a test, the others pitched in to help him study harder so the group remained unbroken. No other team the school fielded was ever able to defeat Perry’s team.

The reason Perry didn’t like Dean was that in individual effort, Dean bested several if not all of the ten boys. Sometimes that included Perry himself.

Perry leaned against the door and stuck a toothpick in his mouth. The other boys who belonged in the room stayed out in the hallway. “Me and my buddies are doing some exercises tonight with Mr. Solomon. Thought mebbe you’d like to join us.”

Solomon was the new phys-ed teacher. At least, he was new by the school’s standards. Payton Solomon had only been with Nicholas Brody’s staff for the past seventeen months. During that time, the phys-ed teacher had helped mold Perry’s group into the unit it was.

“Why me?” Dean asked.

Perry shrugged. “Mr. Solomon thought it might be a good idea. Me, I don’t think we need you, but he was pretty insistent. Conover busted a rib this morning during one of our martial-arts sessions, and Mr. Solomon wanted you to fill in tonight.”