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Chapter 1

“Here it is!” I could hear my dad shouting down the crazy long hallway in our apartment. The floor’s made of marble and everything echoes, especially the sound of his fancy shoes now coming down to my room. He barged right in, just as I was dropping my hoplites out of their siege tower on top of the Trojans’ wall.

“Thanks for knocking,” I said.

He was holding a fat envelope. He hadn’t even loosened his tie. “This is from Oakhurst Hall, Jack!”

“So?” I said.

“So the envelope is thick! That means you’re in! Here, open it!”

By now my guys were getting hacked to pieces and I was going to lose the battle in Odysseus’s Revenge anyway. So I took it. I hadn’t really thought about what would happen if had to make the Decision. I never thought I had a chance in hell of getting in to Oakhurst Hall.

I pulled out a pile of forms on pink and yellow paper, with one white one, written on thick stationery topped by Oakhurst Hall’s crest. It had a lion on it. “Dear Jack,” it said, “It gives us great pleasure . . .”

“And?” said his father.

“I’m in,” I said. “Here.” I gave him back all the papers.

“Well, you don’t sound very excited for a boy who’s just been accepted into one of the best schools in the world.”

“That’s because I’m not,” I said. “Excited, I mean.” Which was true. Mostly I was confused.

Dad was obviously trying not to explode. “Don’t you have any ambition at all?”

This was a conversation we had about twice a week. Correction: make that five times a week.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to know what I wanted to do already,” I said, as usual.

“Well,” he said, “I did when I was your age.” As usual.

“No, you were just ashamed that granddad had a fishing boat on the Cape, so you had to reinvent yourself. And you did. Way to go.”

The whole thing had been his idea. One night, after he’d already had about four glasses of wine because his company had closed a deal to build a hockey arena in Canada somewhere—that’s his job—he told me I was going to apply to transfer to some prep school in the woods for eleventh grade.

“Fine,” said Dad. “Play video games for the rest of your life. Turn your back on a great opportunity.”

I started the game over.

“And speaking of opportunities,” he said, right before he slammed the door, “maybe you’d better give this a little more thought. I can change my will with a ten-second call to my lawyer.”

His steps echoed back down the hallway, even faster this time.

Did he really just say that?

Did I care?

I texted my best friend, Luke: Yo. Prepworld wants me. Haven’t decided. If I don’t go, my dad says I won’t inherit his money . . . as if I care. OK, yeah, maybe I do.

Thirty seconds passed. Then Luke answered: May Satan have mercy on your soul.

Nobody spoke a word until dessert, when Grace said, “Does everyone like the sea-salt caramel gelato?”

Dad didn’t say anything. So I said, “Okay, I’ll go.”

What I didn’t say was that Dad had made the decision for me. It was time to get away from this place.

“That’s great, Jack,” he said, trying not to jump up and high-five himself because now he could tell the next cocktail party he had a kid at Oakhurst Academy, founded fifty centuries ago.

“Oh, sweetie, that’s such good news,” said Grace.

“This calls for a toast.” Dad pulled a bottle of ’92 Château Margaux and the crystal glasses out of the cabinet. He opened the bottle slowly, like he was operating on a baby or something. God forbid the cork should break. Then he raised his glass. “To becoming a man.”

I took a sip of the wine, and then another. Okay, it was good. My dad and Grace let me drink wine at home because apparently that’s what they do in Europe. I wasn’t complaining.

“Jack,” Dad said, “you’re doing the right thing.”

“I know I am,” I heard myself say. Maybe for once I was doing the right thing.